2004 Mothers Day Campaign:
Mothers - The Real Story

Tools for You

This is your one-stop shop for materials to support the Mother’s Day Campaign. Press materials, meeting guides and templates for letters to the editor will be posted the first week of March. Until then, here is a list of ideas for events you could hold to support the campaign.

CHAPTER/GROUP ACTIVITIES

Campaign Media Toolkit - Click here for materials to help your chapter get the word out about the Mother's Day Campaign through the press. The Mother's Day Campaign Media Toolkit is available to members only. Members will need their username and password to access this site.

The Seven Deadly Stereotypes Chapter Meeting - Members bring to the meeting examples of images of mothers from magazines or other media. These can be advertisements, articles, billboards or TV ads they’ve seen. Use the Moms Media Reality Check Guide to critique them. If you need examples, check www.mothersandmore.org after March 24 for the finalists in the Moms Media Reality Check. Want more fun? Bring along a paper shredder and have fun shredding the ones you aren’t submitting! Click here for the complete meeting guide.

Pop Culture Moms Chapter Meeting - Travel back in time as you look at our table of TV moms over the years. Members bring along their ideas about the most memorable media mom to share with the group. What did you love about her? Hate about her? How did it shape your idea of what mothers should be like? Click here for the complete meeting guide.

Existing Great Meetings such as Make a Mom or The Mask of Motherhood - These special meetings are only available to members. The Make a Mom Chapter Meeting gives members an opportunity to connect with each other by exploring the contrast between the diverse characteristics of real mothers and our cultural expectations of the "perfect" or "ideal" mother. The Mask of Motherhood Chapter Meeting uses Susan Maushart's book, The Mask of Motherhood: How Becoming a Mother Changes Everything and Why We Pretend It Doesn’t, to launch a conversation about our personal experiences of the expectations and reality of motherhood." Members will need their username and password to access this site.

Chapter Movie Night - Make some popcorn, invite your chapter members and watch a movie that depicts mothers. Choose movies from list of recommended films and discuss some of your reactions to the image(s) presented. To see the recommended movie list, click here. Sample discussion questions will be available in March.

Display/Exhibit at a local farmer's market or other event - Hand out Mother's Day Cards, sell t-shirts, recruit new members.

"Mothers - The Real Story" Library or Book Display - Put together a book display from the campaign recommended reading list and hand out information on your Mothers & More chapter at any place you meet other mothers including your child’s preschool, PTA fair or local library. Click here to see the list of books recommended for the campaign and purchase them directly from Amazon.

Send an email as a chapter - Click here for an email you can send to potential members or other friends of your chapter to let them know about the campaign.

MEMBER/INDIVIDUAL ACTIVITIES

Send emails to friends and family - Click here for an email you can send to friends and family to let them know about the campaign.

Send a Letter to the Editor - Click here for a copy and paste letter to the editor you can send to your local newspapers.