The home of the Big Mac recently launched what it calls the, “Global Moms Panel.” In an official news release, McDonald’s says, “The team of moms will provide input and guidance on a broad range of topics to help the company better serve the needs of moms and families both inside and outside its restaurants worldwide.”
It’s an admirable goal. So who, I wanted to know, is going to serve on this panel that will seemingly help this fast food giant assist mothers?
The women on the panel come from six countries, including the U.S., China and Germany. Four are Olympic athletes, another a chef, and then there’s the author, artist, librarian and one stay-at-home mom from England.
I’m going to form my own moms panel, if only in this column and if only in my mind.
I will serve on the panel. I represent the working mother who even as I type must make a second run to summer camp because, although my sons knew it, I forgot their swim trunks. Plus, this working mother knows that being a woman in the workplace is still like walking through a landmine. I’d like to help others avoid losing a limb while they try to make a living.
I think we need a single mother who is still angry. So angry that she’s running down her ex or ex’s to his children. I want her on the panel simply so I can get her to stop that ridiculous, harmful behavior. She isn’t hurting him, she’s hurting the children who carry his DNA. I also want her to know that she’s using up valuable resources on bitterness when instead she should take a deep breath and move on. We’ll help her make a better mate selection the next time.
And we have to have a mother on our panel who has seen it all and has some wisdom to share along with her sweet potato pie recipe. She’s the panelist who doesn’t understand why some sistahs act the way and dress the way they do today, given all that our ancestors went through to enable them to live where they want and work where they want. She’s itching to give some of you a piece of her mind, because you act like you don’t have any home training. And maybe you don’t, but she’ll let you know that it’s not too late to start.
And then my panel needs a female doctor because our health is in jeopardy. Black women are more obese than women from other ethnic groups, and cardiovascular disease including stroke are killing us at alarming rates. She’s the MD that will take the fried chicken and potato chips out of our hands, turn off the television, cut up our credit cards and lead us all on a walk through Forest Park. We’ll think she’s crazy, because exercise is something we generally don’t think we can do but know that we should.
And I think my moms’ panel will include a man. Perhaps the kind of man that will just as easily live with his mother as he would a woman with children not his own, because he has no place of his own but an endless supply of women bent on saving him, changing him, just desperate for HIM.
But the panel could easily find a man who isn’t afraid of hard work and knows his way around online bill pay and has his own car, identity and a 401K. We need to hear from him and he needs to hear from us, because our relationships are in trouble, whether he’s a decent man or not. And the best place to start is an honest conversation.
So, when should we meet?