LA Moms Blog

Women's Conference '09: Somaly Mam, Human Rights Activist

I have to admit that getting to the Women's Conference in Long Beach by 8am was no small feat, especially since everyone knows how much I love mornings (said with the greatest amount of sarcasm.) But I'm glad I did since I was priveleged to experience what for me were the most powerful moments of the conference by far. In this morning’s opening session I, and no doubt everyone else in the arena, was moved by the words of Somaly Mam, a former sex slave who was sold to a brothel in her native Cambodia as a child.

I’ve seen her story before, but reading about it didn’t approach the power of hearing her tell the story herself in front of a hushed arena.   Mam admitted that she didn’t even know her real name, or her exact age. She talked about telling her story to a stranger who in turn helped her escape her imprisonment and how it strengthened her resolve to help other innocents like herself.  

Mam has made it her life’s mission to help children entrapped in the world of sex trafficking and sex slavery.  Fighting back tears, she spoke proudly of one of her ‘children’ who we would be starting college here in America. But her most important message was her plea to the audience to be willing to help those in need, those like the over 5,000 children she’s helped since embarking on her mission as a human rights activist. Her parting words “Your love can heal a victim.”  Powerful words worth getting up early for.

Written by Marsha Takeda-Morrison, aka Sweatpantsmom

This post is sponsored by Lean Cuisine.

Our Dark Little Secret

We went on a vacation recently, and two of the best days were ones where my husband and I took our daughters, 11 and 13, biking along the Truckee river in Lake Tahoe. This was the culmination of a dream of ours – not the river ride itself, but the very act of biking. Yes, you heard me right – my kids have been on this planet over a decade and just recently learned how to ride bikes. But I've decided to come clean and now I’m all about disclosure – next I’ll be telling you about my third nipple.

It really was our dark little secret. While we watched other kids riding around on their fancy two-wheelers, we could only stand by helplessly and say to ourselves, "Why not us?" It wasn’t for a lack of trying – we’d attempted to get our girls to ride numerous times but they rejected the Schwinns in favor of Razors or rollerblades. And our plan to convince the neighbors that training wheels were the new, retro, 'in' thing like bell bottoms or turntables? Totally not working.

I Used to Hate Kate, Now I Hate Jon, But Mostly I Just Hate Myself

So I was having dinner with friends recently and we were discussing the usual things like parenting, and politics and face creams when the conversation inexplicably turned to Jon and Kate Gosselin, stars of the reality show Jon & Kate Plus 8. Suddenly all eyes turned to me and I gave an impressive two-minute discourse on why their marriage inevitably failed, what a shrew Kate was and how Jon's publicist should be fired for letting him wear those awful Ed Hardy pants. Then I crawled under the table and died.

R.I.P. Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson died on Wednesday at the age of 50. While tributes poured in, there were also slams on Jackson and his controversial life - the child molestation charges, the financial troubles, the extensive plastic surgery that left him almost unrecognizable. I hear all of it, but today I just want to remember Michael Jackson the child star, the gifted performer, the songwriting genius.

Is Kidz Bop An Evil Plot to Poison Our Kids' Minds? Nah.

And here I thought those super-sized fries were the only dangerous thing at McDonalds. 

According to some parents in Alabama, the Kidz Bop CD included in the chain's Happy Meals contains a bad ingredient as well; an obscenity in one of the songs. At least one McDonalds has pulled the CD from their Happy Meals because parents say they can hear the f-bomb being dropped in the cover version of Gavin DeGraw's "I Don't Want To Be."  (This contradicts earlier reports that the CDs were pulled because they were irritating and caused parents to attempt to pull the CD players out of their cars with their bare hands.)

I wouldn't know a celebrity if they moved in next door to me

Almost thirteen years ago, right after I had my first baby we were living in the Hollywood Hills. Like most new mothers, I spent a freakish amount of time pushing my newborn daughter in her stroller around the neighborhood, partly to let her get some fresh air but mostly to pull myself away from endless hours spent on the couch crying and watching Roseanne reruns. 

A couple of times on those walks I ran into a neighbor, David, who had recently moved into a house around the corner from us.  He mentioned that he was an actor but I didn’t give it much thought until one day when my nieces, who were tweens then, were at my house watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer and while changing a diaper I happened to glance up at the TV and saw my neighbor on the screen.  “Hey, that guy lives two houses away,” I pointed out, gesturing towards the TV with a poop-smeared wipe in my hand.  Obviously I had never watched the show and had no idea who this Angel character was, but judging by the ear-piercing, alien-sounding squeals coming from my nieces this David Boreanaz guy was a big deal.

That wasn’t the first, or the last time I didn’t recognize a celebrity.  You see, I’m celebrity-blind.  While most people imagine they see George Clooney in every gas station and Thai restaurant in town, I wouldn’t recognize a celebrity if he was living next door to me.

Help! My Kid's a Vegetarian

Like any good parent, I worry about my kids and the internet. When my husband and I got them their own computer we made sure to put it in the kitchen in plain sight, so that I could keep an eye on them.  That way, while I was chopping potatoes I could make sure they weren’t chatting with any 43-year-old men pretending to be 12-year-old girls, or looking at R-rated pictures of Disney stars.  You know the ones.

But little did I know that the real danger lurked in things that got sent to them by their own friends.  Because it was one such email that had a drastic effect on our lives - a video emailed to my tween by a well-meaning classmate.

Calm down it wasn't porn. It was a grainy, black and white video of a slaughterhouse. And it turned my daughter into – shudder – a vegetarian.

Get Real: Octuplets mom getting a reality show?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard about Nadya Suleman, the single mother with six children who gave birth to octuplets last month.  And hey – if you really have been living under a rock, you might be in luck since you’ll be able to hear all about the Suleman family on their reality show that’s being rumored to be in negotiations.  That’s right – stay tuned and you could get an up-close look at the life of the unemployed woman being called “Octomom” and her amazing ability to turn disability payments and student loans into food, shelter, clothing and medicine for fourteen children under the age of 7. Come to think of it, I'm not sure if it belongs on a reality network or the Sci-Fi channel.

Flung into the mosh pit of teendom

Five years ago a friend and I went to see the movie Thirteen.  It starred Evan Rachel Wood as a seemingly well-adjusted thirteen-year-old who falls into the wrong crowd and is seduced by a world of drugs, sex and petty crime.  At the time, my oldest daughter was seven and my friend’s daughter was five, but we both sat hunched in the theater, watching most of the movie through our fingers and horrified at what certainly would be our future.  I think it was the first time ever that I didn’t finish my tub of popcorn, and we both sat frozen, occasionally turning to each other saying hysterical things like, “I’m totally going to check her for piercings!“ and “No sleepovers ever!”  Forget Saw, or Halloween or any of those other horror movies; this was hands down the scariest film I had ever seen.

Want to embarrass your kids? All it takes is LOL

In case you haven’t heard, having your parents use chatspeak is the equivalent of seeing your dad dance the hula at your Sweet 16 party, or having your mom pick you up from school in her bathrobe. In other words, if you really want to embarrass the hell out of your teen or tween, try punctuating your sentence with ‘LOL’ or throwing in an 'OMG’ when you’re confronted with a long line at the grocery store. Chatspeak, the popular slang using acronyms found in chatrooms and texting, is apparently the exclusive domain of the under 20 set and any attempts at usage by parents or other old fogeys is, like, totally awful. IYKWIM (If you know what I mean.)