Canada Moms Blog

Is Multiculturalism Real?

I think I have ranted on this subject before.  My son doesn't get playdates.

We were wondering if it was him.  Was he so unliked by either peers or parents that they swore to never let their children play with him.  But he was getting invited to the odd birthday party and we noticed that some GIRLS were more than happy to come to our house after school or invite him to theirs.

But no boys.

The Changing Face of Media

Being what is labeled a 'mommy blogger' means I am part of the blogging world that gets all sorts of press...mostly negative from the the mainstream media and am also fully aware of any of the so called mommy wars that erupt from time to time all over the internet, from Twitter to Facebook to personal blogs.

I have also noticed that as my Page Rank slowly creeps up and people notice that I do indeed do the odd review and or giveaway, that I get more and more notice from Public Relations and Marketing types.

Twitter, I am sure has helped this along.   It does get you noticed.

Selling Maple Syrup .

There have been several articles in both the local and national press lately saying that maple syrup is Good For You.  That it has anti-oxidants and other good stuff.  I knew that a long time ago because I was a maple syrup producer for over a quarter of a century and we used this kind of info to market the product. Here is some of the research:

    * Maple Canada's pure maple syrup label - 'Maple Syrup contains significant amounts of potassium (35 mg/tbsp), calcium (21 mg/tbsp), small amounts of iron and phosphorus, and trace amounts of B-vitamins. Its sodium content is a low 2 mg/tbsp. Maple syrup can be declared a good source of 3 essential elements - calcium, iron and thiamine'; and

    * Wikipedia's entry which says 'Maple syrup has a number of nutritional benefits for humans. It is low in fructose compared to other popular sweeteners such as high-fructose corn syrup and agave syrup - extremely high percentage of fructose can be deleterious and can trigger fructose malabsorption, metabolic syndrome, hypertriglyceridemia, decreased glucose tolerance, hyperinsulinemia, and accelerated uric acid formation.Maple syrup is an excellent source of the trace mineral manganese, with 2 tbsp (13.33 grams) containing about 0.44mg or 22% of the FDA Daily Value (DV%) of 2 mg. It is also a good source of zinc with 2 tbs (13.33 grams) containing 0.55mg or 3.7% of the FDA Daily Value (DV%) of 15 mg.'

I could keep on with this, but you get the picture.

I'll have some aspirin please, some body wash, and a vaccination

Nova Scotia is freeing up some room in your doctor's waiting room.

Amendments to the Pharmacy Act now mean that pharmacists in Nova Scotia will be able to administer vaccinations and order some diagnostic tests.  Imagine! Getting both the shopping done and having your jabs done all at once! Health Minister Maureen MacDonald says the goal is to take advantage of a pool of qualified professionals in order to free up doctors to concentrate on other areas of health care. Although unable to put a dollar figure on any potential savings, Health Minister Maureen McDonald says the move will create efficiencies in the health system.  As more pharmacists graduate, more will begin helping out.It's hoped the program will begin some time this year.

Marketers and Moms: Talk with us, not just about us

Finally, a Canadian conference about Marketing to Moms Online! I've been wondering for years when this was going to happen, and it's such a relief that there's going to be a forum where online Moms can really talk to Marketers and have an honest, open conversation. We're bursting with things to say, things about who we are and what we do and how we can truly work together for mutual benefit. There's so much misconception about "moms online" and what we do and how we behave and think.  It's wonderful to take advantage of the power in having a direct conversation, rather than having marketers just talk to other marketers about us instead of actually talking with us, or having some man present a study about "Meeting the 21st Century Mom".

Except, that direct conversation? is exactly what this conference is not doing.

I saw the link to the OpenDialogue Marketing to Digital Moms conference  from MomCentral Canada on Twitter. And when I saw the link, I was initially delighted. Thinking it was equivalent to Mom 2.0 or BlogHer Business - places where marketers who so covet the Mom market, who are dying to figure out ways to get under our skin, can actually talk to us - I thought, what a great opportunity.  A chance to talk to Canadian marketers!  And to tell them that we don't just surf. We write. We talk to each other. We find our niches. We rally around causes. We speak out against injustice, against misconception, against cruelty, against fools. We brand ourselves, and when we don't have big business budgets for branding, we figure it out for ourselves, or we turn to each other and give each other small business opportunities. We get together and start things, fun things, cool things, things that mock those that mock us (because, trust me, we're mocked a lot) and turn their arguments in to nothing more than bitter ash.

There is no Maternal health without Reproductive health.

It's times like these when I am truly, cringingly, embarrassed by our government.

It's no secret that I'm a pinko commie liberal. I believe in safety nets and socialized health care and helping those who are down on their luck. I believe in women's shelters and drug rehabs and needle exchange programs. I even listen religiously to the CBC. So it's not hard to find something for me to be angry about in most of our Conservative government's policies. However, this one goes beyond the pale, and not just for me. In their recently announced G8 initiative to promote maternal health in the developing world, the Tories have decided that birth control is not part of maternal health.

You Are a What? What's a Blog?

I had a post about telephones ready to go, but then Twitter went all 'OH NO SHE DIDN'T' all over an article in The NY Times with the snarky title 'Honey, Don't Bother Mommy.  I'm Too Busy Building My Brand," and I had to stop and read all the furor and posts in response and so on.

I am not going to respond to the NY post, far better writers have done that...read Mom 101's response to the article or Kelby Carr's piece where she sums up nicely why the main stream media treats bloggers who happen to be mothers this way:

"We get marginalized for a few reasons, including:

• We are women who are, perhaps for one of the first times, far better at something than men in many cases and far better in an industry that is making a major impact. I should explain that I know many, many men who are talented, brilliant bloggers, but that isn’t surprising. For women to stand out in an industry that major corporations are clamoring to get involved with just sits wrong with some people.
• We are excelling in the media landscape, which doesn’t sit well with traditional media.
• We are turning our backs on the mold that has been created for us.
• We are threatening to traditional publishers, mostly old white men who couldn’t write a blog or use Twitter if you put a gun to their heads.
• Newspaper circulation keeps declining, while blog readership and authorship keeps growing.
• Writing snarky articles about mom bloggers encourages mom bloggers to share links and drive readers to the newspaper’s web site. (Here’s a hint, New York Times… we would share positive coverage just as much, if not more).

We are trying to make a living by creating content, and for that we get demeaned, criticized, talked down to, made fun of, and stereotyped as unethical money and swag grabbing whores.

I know of a few other organizations that make their money creating content. Namely, mainstream media."

The Maple Leaf? Whatever!

You've got to admit, Canada is a country unlike many others.  After putting together a closing show for the Olympics that was so full of Canadian in-jokes and somewhat Canadian (but resident in America) stars making those jokes, a show so obscure that most Americans rated it as lame or boring, we are now exposing ourselves by arguing about the National Anthem, of all things.  I find the whole thing somewhat amusing, but in a head-hanging, squirming kind of way.

American friends, when Parliament opens a new session our Governor General reads a Speech from the Throne, written by the current political party in power. In the speech of a few days ago, the government caused the Gov. Gen. to announce that we would review our national anthem with a view to cutting out the sexist and offensive elements therein.  This only a few days after the country had gone mad singing the thing as our athletes won medals.  How lame brained was that? 

Two days later, the government backed off and said it would not do the review after all, mostly because their mail, phones and email had all become clogged with people telling them that this was a really, really stupid idea.  Meanwhile, anyone that could not get through to their MP and, I suspect, a few who did, wrote a letter to the editor.  I have just finished reading Saturday's batch, plus a few articles by various pundits, and I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

So, what is all the fuss about.  It seems to have started with a female senator who complained that the anthem as is was not inclusive of women.  The first two lines, you see, are:

Oh, Canada, our home and native land,
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

Leaves out the daughters. Tsk.  Cannot have that.  I note in passing that it also leaves out any new Canadian not actually born here, of either sex, but that did not seem to be the senator's problem.

Well, yes, both the men and the women did win hockey golds last week.  We noticed. When the women stood up to belt out the anthem, what I noticed was that several of them were singing different words.  You see, the anthem has been revised before, to smarten it up a bit, and a lot of people do not know the new words.  Not to mention that the French version has a different theme and different sentiments. 

The French version came first, back in the late 18th century, and English translations of it are just awful, without exception.  And so, around a hundred years ago, an effort was made to develop decent English words, to level the playing field a bit.  At that period, English Canadians were just as likely to be singing God Save the King or The Maple Leaf Forever, but Oh Canada got pushed forward and adopted as the official anthem because the other two were pretty annoying to French Canadians.  God Save the King for obvious reasons and The Maple Leaf Forever because the words you heard at the closing ceremony of the Olympics were not the words we used, even in the forties and fifties, when I was growing up.  The chorus runs:  The first verse, then, was:

In days of yore, from Britain's shore,

Wolfe the conquering hero came

and planted firm Britannia's flag

on Canada's fair domain. 

There may it wave, our boast our pride

and join in love forever. 

With lily, thistle, rose entwined,

the Maple Leaf forever.

At the time we all happily sang this ditty in Ontario schools, our flag was, in fact, the British red ensign.  Australia had the white one.  Or vice versa.  It was not until our centennial year, 1967, that we finally adopted, as a genuine, home grown Canadian flag, the red maple leaf you saw all of us wearing last week.  But you can see that our Francophone brothers and sisters would not be in love with those words, specifically because Wolfe was a British general who defeated a French army outside Quebec City and claimed the territory for England.

All of this is fine but the icing on the cake, for me, is the upwelling of support for the present English version of Oh Canada.  This from a nation of people whose athletes are singing different words in the English version and most of the Francophone gold medallists I saw were singing, kind of tentatively, also in English.  You can just bet they don't sing the French version much.  

I guess, as a good native daughter of Canada, I should just, with glowing heart, sing whatever words I can remember.

This is an orginal post for Canada Moms Blog.  Whenever she stops singing, Mary G can be found blogging at Them's My Sentiments.

My Olympic Hangover

Well, the games are over. I had a good time watching from my front-row living room seats every night for 17 nights. I laughed, I cried, I cringed and I cheered. I jumped up and down like a crazy person. I screamed. I yelled. Did I mention I cried? I had more mood swings in those 17 days than I did when I was pregnant and I thought my husband ate all the chips.

 

Names like Joannie, Alexandre, Heil, Jacey Jay, Hamelin, Virtue and Moir are now etched in our collective consciousnesses. Sid became everybody’s kid, and that last gold will shine on in our hearts and our history books. I’m quite sure I’ll be relaying the event to my children – who didn’t realize they were witnessing history and not just their mother freaking out 7 minutes into overtime in the gold medal game – in decades to come.

 

We waved our red and white mittens at each other, a hundred thousand little flags greeting the world and welcoming them to a country we were for once, outspokenly, proud to say was ours. For the first time, maybe in forever, I felt like Vancouverites didn’t hate me because I was from Toronto, and that it might not be hazardous to sit in the first row in front of Ashley McIsaac. We experienced a patriotism that the blurred the lines between provinces and in the memory of urine-soaked indignities. It was magical.

The Canadian women's Olympic hockey players "scandal"

Let it first be known that I am Mormon and as such don't drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes or cigars. I don't personally identify with celebration by way of boozing and smoking.

Despite my bias, I think the offense that's being taken over a few players on the Canadian women's hockey team drinking and smoking on the Olympic ice after hours is an overreaction.

The story appears to be dying out in the media, but Facebook friends and acquaintances are still reactionary. One Facebook friend used the words "disgusted" and "stupid".

I'd like to make some quick points: