Regular readers of this blog know that I believe universal health care to be an absolute, rock solid, no-compromise 21st Century Family Value–especially the health care coverage of children, for cryin’ out loud.  Any candidate who has espoused “family values” on the campaign trail while voting against expanding Medicaid’s Children’s Health Insurance Program is guilty of hypocrisy on a truly epic level (yes, I’m talking about Michele Bachmann, but you knew that).

Regular readers of this blog also know that I believe in encouraging kids themselves to participate in the political process.  I also believe that the kids in my family are unusually good-looking.  Happily, the ad below, for Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, combines these two obsessions!

Would you look at that cutie??  It’s my gorgeous neice Hadley, whom you may recognize as the tiny brunette in a yellow raincoat in my blog banner.  The text of the print ad (which you should really try to see, in the Twin Cities mag of your choice, for this JPG does not do Hadley’s beauty justice) notes that “last year alone, Children’s provided more than $50 million worth of medical care that wasn’t covered by insurance.”

I see a great future for Hadley as a model for social justice campaigns.  Why, this very picture could be used to illustrate an appeal to contact your president about the disaster that is Plan B availability!  Picture Hadley’s grumpy face attached to this message: “Mr. Obama, are you seriously allowing public health policy to be guided by the Conference of Catholic Bishops instead of the SCIENTISTS at the Food & Drug Administration??”

OMFG. I love it.

PR folks may send requests for Hadley’s talents to theradicalhousewife at gmail dot com, and I’ll put you in touch with her momager.

Two feminist mom bloggers whom I greatly admire, Avital Norman Nathman of The MamaFesto and Lisa Duggan of The MotherHood Blog, wrote the following message and asked writers like yours truly to repost it today for what they’re calling a virtual Blog-In.  I am very happy to participate, for I believe in and support every single word!

I encourage all of my media-connected readers to participate, via blog or with the Twitter hashtag #BlogIn2011.

Dear 2012 Presidential Candidates,

We are your future constituents and we are parents. We are American mothers and fathers and grandparents and guardians. Our families might be the most diverse in the world. Blended and combined in endless permutations, we represent every major religion, political ideology and ethnic culture that exists. We are made from equal parts biology and choice. Our children come to us in every way possible—including fertility miracles, adoption, and remarriage.

Our very modern families embody the freedom that defines America. We embody America. We are rich in diversity, but we are united in our family values. We come together today, with one voice, to express our grave disappointment in the national political discourse.

The 2012 countdown has barely begun and we are already being bombarded with the warmed-over, hypocritical rhetoric of 2008. We are living in a time where 15.1% of Americans now live in poverty, the unemployment rate stands at 16%, and we are spending close to $170 billion annually between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan*.

Given the current state of affairs we would expect every candidate to focus on the issues that truly matter: job creation, debt-relief, taxes, education, poverty, and ending the war(s). Instead, it is already clear to us that the conversation has been hijacked, with the goal of further polarizing our nation into a politically motivated and falsely created class-war.

We will not stand for another campaign year in which politicians presume to know what our family values are as they relate to the nation.

To be clear, here are our family values:

• Affordable health care, including family planning, for all Americans. We will not tolerate any candidate using the shield of “Choice” to blind us from the issues that really matter. When funding is stripped from organizations like Planned Parenthood, access to sliding-scale health care (including yearly pap smears & mammograms), comprehensive sex education, and family planning is blocked from the poorest of the population.
• Access to education, and the ability to actually use it. We want quality, affordable, federally-funded pre-K programs made available in every State, in order to provide an even starting point for all children enrolled in public schools— regardless of the wealth of the district or town they live in.
• A reinstatement of regulations for banks issuing mortgages and full prosecution for those who engaged in fraudulent lending practices. We want full accountability —investigation, indictment and prosecution— of those individuals and institutions who engaged in fraudulent lending practices and who helped create the massive foreclosures that left many families homeless or struggling to keep their homes.
• A return of strict environmental regulations protecting water, air, food, and land that were removed in the last two decades. We want our children to grow up in a world not weighed down by the strains of pollution and global warming. Between BPA in our products, sky-rocketing rates of asthma in kids, questionable hormones in our over-processed food, and more, we need leaders who will put our needs and safety over the desires and profits of large corporations.

Family planning, healthcare, education, economic solvency and environmental safety: these are our national family values. Candidates who demonstrate the ability to understand the gravity of these issues, and their impact on our families, and who can provide actual, viable solutions to these problems will garner our support and our votes.

We believe in this democratic system of ours, and we will continue to use our voices and our votes to see that it reaches its fullest potential.

Sincerely,

Your future constituents,

The mothers & fathers of America

If you would like to forward this letter to your elected officials, you can find their contact info at the following links: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml