Dreams of a Mother

One of our fabulous MOMocrat sisters pointed us to a wonderful site this week. On it was the Mother's Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe. Julia was the founder of Mother's Day and the writer of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, but she was so much more. She was a mother, an early feminist, abolitionist, poet, and writer.

After the Civil War, Julia had a dream, a dream of peace. She believed that peace was the most important social cause of her time and she wrote about it tirelessly:

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:

We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

First Stanza of The Mother's Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe.

Julia's proclamation stands as a reminder to all of us that this Sunday is not about flowers, candy, and brunch. It's about fighting for your beliefs, whatever they may be. It's about political activism. It's about standing up for justice.

The MOMocrats will each be writing about our own dreams as mothers and we encourage all of you to join us over the next week. In true MOMocrats style, each MOMocrat will be sharing a political or social issue close to her heart. We'd love it if you did too, but your own special non-political dreams are important as well. We want the world to hear them.

Take the button above, write about your own Dream of a Mother and link back to MOMocrats. Come back and comment and give us your link so we can read about your special dream.

Here's the code for your site:

<center><a href="http://momocrats.typepad.com"><img border="0" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v470/steph-trey/DreamsofaMotherButtoncopy.jpg" alt="MOMocrats: Dreams of a Mother" /></a></center>

Don't forget to link back to http://momocrats.typepad.com. We want to hear your dream.


After the Wish by Lawyer Mama
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Speaking of social justice, the Just Post Roundtable links are up over at Jen's place, Mad's place, and Su's place. These women work every month to bring us some of the best of the blogosphere. I love reading the Just Posts because it reminds me that, no matter how small I feel at times, speaking out will change the world.