About nine months after I had my first child, I went (with the kiddo in tow) to my first Mothers Acting Up meeting. It was my first foray, at least post-children, into an organized activist group. While the timing wasn't right for me to become a regular member, I gleaned a piece of knowledge from that meeting that I think will always stay with me. That is that mothers as a whole are a very, very large group, and if they use their power for good, they can become a force to be reckoned with.

When I first started breastfeeding my first child, I was totally anxious about nursing in public. Was anyone looking? Was anyone freaked out by my boob? I sought out nursing rooms wherever I could, until it became clear that if I was to move about in the world with my child and not spend all of my time in stuffy nursing rooms or - horror - washroom stalls, I would have to chill out and just bare the booby. And so I did. And it was, mostly, fine.