Mother's Day: Some Have It Better Than Others...

It's unspoken love -
Even death can't break the bond -
Giver of our soul
 
~Mother's Day Haiku
 
 
On this beautiful Mother's Day - a picture-perfect spring morning greets us in New Jersey - take a moment, if you may, and check out this short pictorial essay in Foreign Policy, entitled The Worst Places To Be A Mother.

These ten slides of horror remind us that around the world, it isn't all flowers, Hallmark cards, and walks in the park with grandma. 

There's Afghanistan, where the average female life expectancy is 45.  There's Yemen, where girls can be married off at 8 and mothers are forbidden by law to offer a word of protest.  In Chad, every 1 out of 14 women die during childbirth. And alas, there is more, much more...

And while my first instinct is to decry groups like NOW - for focusing so narrow-mindedly on trying to protect the rights of American women to abort their unborn babies while ignoring the pleas of those who beg for theirs to simply survive - I think I'll hold my anger for a moment.

I'll think of how lucky we are to live in one of the most advanced nations in human history, with the tools to make motherhood a more rewarding endeavor, and in a culture that showers love and respect upon the givers of our souls, as opposed to the many corners of the earth where women are mere chattel, to be disposed of when their bodies become less useful to the male hierarchy.

And I think the next time I am donating to charity, I know where a portion of it will go...