This post is part of the Global Moms Relay. Every time you share this post, Johnson & Johnson will donate $1 (per action) to help improve the health and well-being of moms and kids worldwide through MAMA, Shot@Life, and Girl Up. Scroll to the bottom to find out more.
Pat Mitchell and Kathy Calvin, two passionate champions for girls and women around the world, sat down for the Global Moms Relay to reflect on motherhood and how we can think differently about girls and women.
As mothers, we can spend too much time focused on our mistakes, rehashing in our minds years later the soccer games and plays we missed, the conversations we handled the wrong way, the challenges, the heartaches and our inadequacies. Whether we're single parents or have the benefits of sharing parenthood, birth parents, step-parents or any other kind of parent -- none of us feels we did it all right.
We need to be more forgiving of ourselves -- we are so demanding of ourselves and what we expect. If it isn't the right way, they are eventually going to forgive you anyway!
We have witnessed motherhood being redefined around the world. Girls and young women are facing unspeakable difficulty and overcoming great odds to love, educate and raise their children as best they can -- often while they are still children themselves. It is truly inspirational to see these girls evolve in their motherhood and fight for a better life for the next generation. They need our help in gaining control over spacing their babies. There is no bigger factor in the well-being of girls and communities than for them to have control over when they have a child and how many children they have.
We see so many girls and women making huge positive changes in their communities. When doors are closed to women, those societies and the world are losing. There is so much evidence that the power and probability for positive change lies with the potential of women and girls to be fully self-realized. Let's do everything we can to support the United Nations Secretary-General's Every Woman Every Child initiative, and help women and girls in improving the world.
You share, they give: each time you 'like' or share this post via the social media icons on this post or comment below, Johnson & Johnson will donate $1 (per action) to Girl Up -- a campaign that works to help girls, no matter where they live, have the opportunity to become educated, healthy, safe, counted and positioned to be the next generation of leaders. $1 provides one day of school for a girl in Guatemala. You can also Donate A Photo* and Johnson & Johnson will donate $1 when you upload a photo for Girl Up or Shot@Life -- you can help raise up to $250,000 in seconds with the click of your mouse or snap of your smart phone. Share this post with the hashtag #GlobalMoms, and visit GlobalMomsRelay.org to learn more.
The United Nations Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, BabyCenter and The Huffington Post created the Global Moms Relay with a goal of improving the lives of women and children around the globe.
* via the Donate A Photo app for iOS and Android. Johnson & Johnson has curated a list of trusted causes, and you can donate a photo to one cause, once a day. Each cause will appear in the app until it reaches its goal, or the donation period ends. If the goal isn't reached, the cause will still get a minimum donation.