From MOMbo: A New Look at Mother's Day
From PRI, Public Radio International
by Nanci Olesen

In this fourth hour-long special distributed by PRI (Public Radio International), the mother tongue returns to the air with wit, wisdom, and words of inspiration through stellar guests and keen observations. From Quebecois fiddle music to Ani DiFranco to Mozart, MOMbo specials are always musically rich. Nanci Olesen is host, as always, to conversations with moms of all walks of life, bringing a rare—and much-needed—mother's perspective to the air.

• Author and poet Louise Erdrich,mother of five children, describes her life as a writer and as a mom. In this gentle and substantive interview, Louise discusses her everyday life and raising children, particularly in the Ojibwe tradition and language.
• Chicago writer (columnist, Chicago Tribune, author, I Closed My Eyes) and mom Michele Weldon brings us a commentary, full of wry sensibility, about the learned mom art of guilting ourselves, for better, or for worse, and how love vanquishes all...we hope.
• Actor and mother Sally Wingert reads "A Mother's Day Proclamation for Peace" by Julia Ward Howe, the true originator of Mother's Day, and, ironically, author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."
• The Million Moms March, the nation's largest national, non-partisan, grassroots organization leading the fight to prevent gun violence, is dedicated to creating an America free from gun violence. MOMbo speaks with Kate Havelin.
• Master fiddler and singer Linda Breitag describes all that has changed for her: the content of her songs, her schedule, her commitment to her creative work, since she began her life as a mom, and also tackles that bedevilling mother's curse, depression.
• The MOMbo trio returns: Kris Berggren, Julia Jergensen Edelman, and Nanci Olesen who imagine and discuss a new peace-filled society in which a mother's work is valued and upheld.
• Kim Lane, the power behind the award winning website AUSTINMAMA.com, reads her Mother's Day Prayer.

Here are descriptions from four of the eleven years of the MOMbo half-hour, "MOMbo, a mom show":