Suzanne Braun Levine
Huff/Post50

Like many women in midlife, I find Mother’s Day as much a reminder of a fraught relationship as a celebration of motherhood.

Even if we are not caring for our mothers, and even if we rarely spend time with them — even, as in my case, they are no longer alive — the emotional status of our relationship with them is a major factor in our ongoing reinvention. The intimacy between a woman and the woman who gave birth to her has its own unique mix of physical, psychological and gender forces within each of them.

By Mark Schwartz
Huff/Post50

My cousin Mark Schwartz is mentioned in How We Love Now as one of the folks who reconnected with a college sweetheart and found happiness at last. Before that, though, he was married and divorced twice and developed a web site – suddenbachelor.com – for midlife men in the same boat. Recently he has become a blogger on Huff/Post50, where I also blog.

His latest article – “Aging: America Needs to Address The Coming Hordes”- is a very strong and thoughtful appeal to start a real conversation about alternative living arrangements for aging parents (and, soon, ourselves)…

Suzanne Braun Levine,
Huff/Post50

A few weeks ago my 25-year-old daughter mentioned that the first of her friends was pregnant. “It’s weird,” she said. To which I replied, “I know. In my experience, having a friend get pregnant was much more disruptive to the friendship than having one get married.”

I was reminded of that conversation when I saw the new movie Friends With Kids. Charming as it is, I was disappointed that the movie didn’t really address the stresses between friends who never have kids and those who do. I have been both.

“A new study that finds testosterone declines in proportion to nurturing fatherhood is mind-blowing in many ways that are meaningful for family life and our understanding of fatherhood.

I was afraid that the findings would be used against nurturing men, taunting them with loss of virility and status along with “loss” of testosterone, so I hope you will all share this supportive analysis with all those women and men who are trying so hard to reinvent parenting on kinder, gentler terms.

David Greenbaum,
Potter & Co-Founder
The BlueStone Gallery

“I strive to create pieces of enduring beauty,” says the renowned potter, David Greenbaum. “Clay is a glorious, humbling, sensuous, messy and most marvelous medium of expression.”

I was so touched by the note and poem I received from my friend Sean Strub – a feminist in good standing as well as a major AIDS activist – that I want to share it. He found the poem when he was going through his mother’s papers after she died recently. The short story he mentions, The Yellow Wallpaper, is a feminist classic, written in 1892; about a woman who is kept housebound by her husband and slowly goes mad.

Sean’s mother’s aversion to the word “feminist” is an example of the familiar “I’m not a feminist, but……” syndrome – a woman who walks the walk but doesn’t feel comfortable with the talk. It is clear to me – and to her son – that Janey was a feminist in spirit, which is where it counts. — Suzanne Braun Levine

By Suzanne Braun Levine

Esther M. Broner, who died this month at 83, was a true woman of valor – generous to her friends, nurturing to her children, and devoted to the dignity of women. She wrote 11 books of fiction and non-fiction – all with a mystical subtext, was a philosopher, a witch (the good kind), and a believer in ritual.

By Suzanne Braun Levine

I have always thought of Mother’s Day as a celebration of my mother, the Main Mom in the family. I made plans designed to please her and honor her on her Day. Eight months ago she died, and so this year, for the first time, I am the last mom standing. It is a weird feeling to have the day to myself, especially when my inclination is to spend it missing her. Yet when I think of the two of us as mothers, I see the…

By Emilie Hardman, founder

The Conscious Kitchen

Here are four of my favorite new cookbooks for this holiday! These are pretty spectacular books and would be fantastic gifts! The descriptions are from a favorite place for book lovers – The New England Mobile Book Fair whose motto is “I only came for one book…”

OUR 2010 “CIRCLE OF TRUST HOLIDAY BOOK LIST”

Many of us are starting our Holiday Book-Gifting lists! I am making my own list and adding to it daily. And, I am checking in with my Circle of Trust.

What are you reading? What books do want to give? What books would like to receive this year?