Blog Posts by Mommy Tracked

Read more Funny Papers on Mommy Tracked

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Funny Papers is an exclusive, weekly cartoon in glorious color about the serious silliness (and occasional stickiness and stinkiness) of modern motherhood.

Betsy Streeter, mother of two, is a veteran cartoonist and creator of " Brainwaves ," a single-panel feature about the absurdity of everyday life. Her pen and ink musings can be found in syndication at gocomics.com and in dailies, weeklies, monthlies, quarterlies, and in quite a few psychology textbooks (go figure). She's also published two Brainwaves books. Between cartoons, Betsy teaches drawing and cartooning to kids, watches sci fi movies and listens to every genre of music.

by Meredith O'Brien (Moms in Pop Culture & Politics)

When I'd tell my journalism students at the University of Massachusetts that I'd assigned them to read the book Friday Night Lights by Buzz Bissinger -- a non-fiction account of the 1988 football season at a Texas high school -- some of my students would cringe, particularly those who weren't particularly fond of sports.

This book isn't just about football, I'd preach to them with the enthusiasm of an unbridled fan. It's about socio-economic disparities in our culture, about racial divisions, about gender stereotypes, about school districts favoring sports over academics, about athletes who get passed along in school and don't receive a real education. By the time the class gathered to discuss the book, it never failed, female students who said they preferred to talk about pop culture, celebrities and fashion said that they were pleasantly surprised that the book wasn't at all what they expected.

I've been similarly

by Leslie Morgan Steiner (Two Cents on Working Motherhood)

Parents, teachers and kids across Washington reacted with shock to Monday's Washington Post front page headline that a handsome University of Virginia senior from an elite local all-boys prep school had been charged in killing another UVA senior and former girlfriend. Both victim and perpetrator were young, white, accomplished athletes who graduated from DC-area schools in 2006. Yeardley Love went to Notre Dame Prep, a Catholic all-girls school in nearby Baltimore, and George Huguely was a football quarterback and lacrosse star at Landon, an old-boys school on acres of manicured green fields in Bethesda, Maryland. Apparently everyone who knew Yeardley Love and George Huguely missed the warning signs that this talented young man from a wealthy local family had devastatingly serious problems with rage.

Here are the warning signs about George Huguely's problems with alcohol, his inability to maintain close personal

by Risa Green (Tales from the Mommy Track)

I'm not usually one to complain about my husband; most of the time, he's pretty thoughtful, and he does his fair share with the kids, and I know that deep down, all he wants is to make me happy. Which are nice qualities to have in a husband. But somehow, this Mother's Day, my husband seemed to have misplaced those qualities.

Let me just say that I don't expect a fancy, expensive gift from my husband on Mother's Day. In the past, I've gotten a cute dress (that I promptly exchanged for a cuter one), a silver necklace with my kids' names on it, a beautiful pedestal mirror for my vanity…things like that. Usually, I drop hints starting a few weeks before; an "ooh, look at that mirror" as we stroll by a shop window, a page ripped out of a catalogue and conspicuously left on the kitchen counter, a subtle hint about how I really need some new things for summer. Usually, he gets the hint, and whatever it was that I mentioned ends up in pretty

Read more Funny Papers on Mommy Tracked

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Funny Papers is an exclusive, weekly cartoon in glorious color about the serious silliness (and occasional stickiness and stinkiness) of modern motherhood.

Betsy Streeter, mother of two, is a veteran cartoonist and creator of " Brainwaves ," a single-panel feature about the absurdity of everyday life. Her pen and ink musings can be found in syndication at gocomics.com and in dailies, weeklies, monthlies, quarterlies, and in quite a few psychology textbooks (go figure). She's also published two Brainwaves books. Between cartoons, Betsy teaches drawing and cartooning to kids, watches sci fi movies and listens to every genre of music.

by Stephanie Thompson

Can you remember back to a time when you felt rewarded for efforts expended? When your teacher placed a little gold star sticker on your paper to make you feel appreciated?

In our adult lives, reward does not seem to come as easily. As artists, even "successful" ones, there are often piles of canvases underneath the one painting that sells. As writers, we have thousands and thousands of words written in notebooks or in computer files that will go unread, unrecognized. As mothers, we have inner lives, fantasies far beyond making meals, folding laundry, mopping floors. Yet we do these things, often thanklessly, no one noticing unless they're not done, unless they have no clean underwear. We, all of us, have something, probably many things, that we do daily, and as we do them we wonder: where, where on earth is my gold star?

It's time to bring back the gold star, to give them to ourselves and to others, just for trying. It might seem silly at first, but going to

by Risa Green (Tales from the Mommy Track)

If you are a woman who lives in the state of Oklahoma, then I send my condolences. I am deeply sorry for your loss. It's not an easy thing, to have something so important taken away from you so suddenly, and without warning. I hope you can find some comfort in your memories. I hope you at least had an opportunity to say goodbye.

In case you're not up to date on the news lately, my sympathy note has nothing to do with anyone who died. Rather, I send my condolences to those who are mourning the loss of their Constitutional rights. Because in Oklahoma last week, the state senate passed a bill that, in my opinion, completely took them away. First, it requires any woman who is considering an abortion to undergo an ultrasound, during which the ultrasound technician is required to make you look at the screen, as well as to point out to you all of the characteristics of the fetus. So imagine that you're a twenty-five year old woman who has

by Leslie Morgan Steiner (Two Cents on Working Motherhood)

On a leafy green street in suburban Bethesda, Maryland, there's a friendly redbrick building. My son's AAU basketball team held practice there two nights a week for a year, so I knew Thomas W. Pyle Middle School before I read about it in the Washington Post recently. Plus two girls from my son's private school left to attend Pyle three years ago. It's in their neighborhood and they wanted to be able to walk to school and be with their local friends. Pyle's education is arguably just as nurturing and stimulating as our kids' expensive private school, and it feeds into Walt Whitman High School, an Honorable Mention on US News and World Report's "America's Best High Schools".

So I was stunned to read in the Post that kids at Pyle have been sending and receiving nude or nearly nude photos of female classmates via text message - or "sexting." Other Pyle students allegedly PAID to view the photos. In some states, this