your kids aren't sharing or the spaghetti boiled over or because you are bored of watching the same shows on the Disney Channel or because you are weary of the routine of getting kids to and from school every day or you are tired of yellow poopy diapers exploding on you!! All of that makes for challenging and somewhat monotonous days at times, but motherhood is hard because... kids are having sex in 6th grade and families are struggling to put food on the table AND pay the mortgage and terrorists are threatening to destroy our nation and boys are being sent off to war and, OH MY SWEET LORD, 1 in 150 children are autistic and kids are taking guns to school in their back packs and 3rd graders are talking about g-strings and panty lines and children living with diabetes are becoming part of the status quo and the food on the shelves at the grocery stores is coming from who knows where with who knows what in it and is sprinkled with unknown chemicals that are sure to cause damage to our children's brains (remember, 1 in 150 is autistic) and there are trace amounts of drugs in our drinking water and most of us live in communities where we do not know our neighbors' names and do not know who to talk to about all of this stuff that is seriously freaking us out.

That is just in America. Outside of our fortunate country, mothers and children are hiding from traffickers and little boys are walking into warzones with automatic weapons and babies are dying because their mothers have no food to give them and entire families are being ravaged by HIV and AIDS. We need help. We need resources. We need courage. We need inspiration. We need each other.

We are not doing this project because we have it [motherhood] figured out, or because we are doing it unbelievably well. We are launching the Mama Manifesto because we need tools ourselves and because we recognize that together we are much stronger than we are on our own. We are real moms and we are in the trenches just like you. We are committed to being authentic and sharing our struggles and motherhood journeys. We will be adding nap-sized morsels to this blog daily.