We Are Women. Hear Us Roar. Again.

This article originally appeared in the May 2012 issue of Diablo Magazine.

Kriste Michelini and Children (Photo courtesy of Diablo Magazine)

It’s 7:30 on a Thursday evening, and 10 moms are gathered at Kriste Michelini’s interior design studio in Danville, drinking wine and eating off a veggie platter artfully arranged by Michelini. This isn’t a book group or PTA fundraiser. These mothers are busy trying to help Bridget Scott finalize the details of her business plan. She’s preparing to open her own chiropractic office, a lifelong dream, but is still determining the best way to incorporate the hours while placing family first. Scott wants to work while her children are in school and is confident she can find clients who will fit her schedule. But issues around finalizing a name and staff management are what she needs advice on. The other women, all business owners themselves, readily offer it.

Scott started Business Owner Moms (BOMS) in 2008 because she wanted to gather like-minded working mothers to offer each other support and guidance as they struggled to balance their professional ambitions with their personal lives. BOMS includes women such as Alamo’s Kristin Kiltz, a mother of three who quit her high-powered job at a public relations firm to set up her own PR consulting business; and Danville’s Julie Ligon, also a mother of three, who left her exciting marketing position at Gap to open one of the first franchise studios of the Dailey Method. The BOMS could have given up work completely to stay home with their children, but haven’t.

Sometimes It’s Hard To Love Mother Earth

This column originally appeared on Palo Alto Patch.

Love Your Mother (Earth)

I must have been seven, maybe eight, when I first saw that now ubiquitous bumper sticker. We were idling at a stop light in our huge beige station wagon with its ultra powerful V8 engine. In front of us was a well travelled VW bus with a singular message on its backside. The words were written in soft but commanding script and at the end of the letters was a blue and green orb. The bumper sticker said, “Love Your Mother.” It felt like a message from God.

How Do We Prevent The Next Trayvon Martin Tragedy? Gun Control

This essay originally appeared on Palo Alto Patch.

Trayvon Martin

I wouldn’t call it an obsession exactly, but the killing of Trayvon Martin has occupied much of my attention lately.  Perhaps it is the senseless waste of a young life, or the fact that yet another parent has needlessly lost their beloved child, or the incontrovertible racist undertones, or the role unbidden fear played in his death (or all of the above) that has nurtured my mania. But while I have spent an inordinate amount of time reading news articles and watching one too many news videos on the case, not once have I confronted a meaningful discussion about gun control.