One of our in-studio guests this morning was Paige La Grone Babcock, the Nashville Community Organizer and National Outreach Coordinator for Mothers Acting Up, a movement of mothers advocating for the world’s children. Besides working to reclaim Mothers Day, the group works to ensure the health, education and safety of the world’s children by mobilizing the political strength of mothers (“and others, on stilts or off, who exercise protective care over someone smaller”) with a sense of joy, whimsy (hence the stilts), and inclusion. Paige very eloquently said that MAU believes that mothers are a giant force to be reckoned with and that together they can work towards prioritizing children in corporate and public policies.

We’ll have the interview up as a podcast soon but in the meantime, mark your calendars for MAU events in Nashville this weekend.

On Friday Nov. 2, at 7:30 PM, at the First Unitarian Universalist Church, MAU co-founder Beth Osnes will present her one woman play, (M)other. The play explores the question, “How do we get the people of one nation to actually care about the children of another nation?” and affirms our interconnectedness in both our challenges and our solutions as a global community. Friday night’s event is sponsored by Nashville Mothers Acting Up, Cool People Care, Tennessee Women’s Theater Project, and the First Unitarian Universalist Church Nashville Social Concerns and Action Committee. The church is located at 1808 Woodmont Blvd., Nashville, TN.

On Saturday, Nov. 3rd, 9AM-Noon, also at the First Unitarian Universalist Church, Beth Osnes will lead “A Workshop for Empowering Mother Voices,” a workshop using theater as a tool for developing voices for effective public expression - of vital importance for any kind of civic participation. Goals of this workshop include teaching skills for effective vocal expression, using our voices to ‘rehearse’ activism, engaging all participants in devising solutions to obstacles, and conveying a model of activism that is positive and proactive.

Also, on Saturday, Nov. 3, at 1pm, there will be a MAU “Girlcott,” which is the group’s term for supporting businesses that share their values. Nashville’s “Girlcott” honoree is Bob Bernstein and his Bongo Java coffee house, 2007 Belmont Blvd. All of Bongo Java’s coffee is fair trade. As part of Cooperative Coffees, Bongo Bob buys coffee from small farmer cooperatives and works to ensure coffee farmers receive a livable wage to support their families. The Nashville MAU community will publicly proclaim that it matters where they put their consumer dollars and will present Bongo Java with a certificate of appreciation. I hear there’ll be moms on stilts drinking coffee. Scrumptious!

Mothers Acting Up nobly believes that when mothers lead, generations of global citizens will follow. We know they’re right.

This post was written by Mary Mancini