momfia unite!

i just read an article the other day...maybe in "parenting" (i have subscribed to waaaay to many magazines since they are so cheap these days and they send some to me free! so i can't exactly remember where it is)...about the momfia. a dad wrote it & it was his perspective on the band of all mother-kind who use their voice and their words spread like wildfire across the mommy-web-world. he told a story about a woman who bought a certain brand of washing machine that stopped working a week after buying it. she called the company & asked for some help, but they said they couldn't help her (i'm not sure the exact situation why they couldn't offer any assistance). so, she typed in all caps a twitter message: NEVER BUY BRANDX WASHING MACHINES. within a day, they had replaced her washing machine & within a week gave a washing machine to the charity of her choice. hm, that's something.

he called it the "momfia" since they use their joined power to push companies & government to pass better laws, make better products, have better customer service, etc. mom's have a voice that cannot be stopped. make a mommy mad and you may just regret it for the rest of your life (at least for the rest of the day).

so, as a mom, i have to be one of the voices that is speaking up on behalf of the silenced ones.

today is national human trafficking awareness day (thank you, president obama!). several years ago, when our very good friends started the organization Stop Child Trafficking Now, i started getting involved too. i went up NYC to participate in their annual fundraising walk for my 3oth birthday while i was pregnant with our third. i just couldn't sit on my tail & not do something.

unfamiliar with child trafficking? it is horrific. here's a little info off SCT Now's website:

Child Trafficking is the recruitment, smuggling, transporting, harboring, buying or selling of a child through force, threats, fraud, deception, or coercion for the purposes of exploitation, prostitution, pornography, migrant work, sweat shops, domestic servitude, forced labor, bondage, peonage or involuntary servitude.

Child trafficking is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world. UNICEF values the global market of child trafficking at over $12 billion a year with over 2 million child victims. Men, women and children are all victims but, the most vulnerable groups, those with limited rights or protections, have been the hardest hit… especially children.

having 4 children of my own, i cannot IMAGINE the horrors of this. young children used over & over again for the sick pleasures of others.

if we all took a stand against this, it would be stopped. as mom's, we have a voice. we may not have a lot of time. we may not have a lot of money. we may not have a lot of energy (whew!). but, we do have a voice that if we unite together, we will be heard.

use your voice. make a difference. make your sphere aware. after all, today is national human trafficking awareness day. momfia, let's stop this madness.