Back when I gave birth for the first time in the early nineties, I was very young - I still hadn't finished college, actually - and we were quite poor. My 21-year-old husband and I were living on about 14K a year, which I earned working part-time as a caregiver in a home for abused children. My baby and I were enrolled in WIC, and at that time, we appreciated every jar of free peanut butter the program provided. We lived on the top floor of a ratty old apartment building in the student ghetto on the edge of the university he and I both attended. None of my friends had children yet; in fact, none of them were even contemplating the idea of having children. And I found that motherhood had radicalized me in some ways, making me feel more passionately about political and social causes that had seemed abstract previously.
Needless to say, at that time there was no internet available for drumming up maternal cameraderie, and when I tried attending a few local playgroups, I always felt like the odd mama out. I was far younger and less affluent than the other moms, with their pink and green diaper bags, husbands employed as bankers and lawyers, and Volvos parked outside. In other words, I often felt terribly isolated as a new mother. I no longer fit in with my old friends, and I found it nearly impossible to make any new ones. I certainly wasn't finding anyone who wanted to sit around and chat with me about the politics of motherhood.
Then, when my son was a toddler, I discovered the parenting 'zine Hip Mama, and I suddenly felt SO much less alone. I can't remember where I encountered my first issue of HM. It may have been at my small city's tiny (and short lived) alternative bookstore, or it may have been on the newsrack at the local Food Coop, which still carries Hip Mama 15 years later. But the publication was a complete revelation to me. I read and re-read that first issue until it was tattered, and I even sent the young editrix an actual thank you letter.
Hip Mama was founded by my contemporary, Ariel Gore as student project when she, too was a low-income mother attempting to juggle college classes, work and parenting. She wanted to reach out to other feminist, progressive mamas with young children - mothers who didn't fit the traditional suburban mom demographic. And it turned out there were a lot of us. The little 'zine became a full-fledged magazine, and then one of the earliest online destinations for mothers, never losing its edgy point of view. It also became a launching pad for many of the women writers and bloggers - my generation of women writers, I am proud to say - who pioneered the whole "momoir" genre of literary nonfiction, including Gore herself, Bee Lavender, Gayle Brandeis, Andrea Buchanan, Marrit Ingman, Ayun Halliday, Spike Gillespie, Allison Crews, and yep, even me. In fact, one of my earliest essays on my life as a mother - about my decision not to terminate my second pregnancy after being diagnosed with a serious complication - was published in Hip Mama. I was as proud as punch.
Fifteen years after Hip Mama was founded, the media landscape looks very different for new mamas. Between all the great parenting magazines and blogs that now live online, as well as a slew of fantastic books about the real experience of motherhood that have been released since 1993, moms are able to easily connect with other women sharing this journey. But Hip Mama really did start it all. Before Ariel Gore defiantly declared motherhood - the good, the bad and the ugly - worthy of honest, literary exploration, no one thought that readers would be that interested in real moms' lives. Ariel's contribution to feminist discourse in the U.S. has been huge.
I check in on Ariel Gore's blog now and again, but hadn't been there in quite a while when I dropped by this week. I was thrilled to find out that she gave birth to a baby in the same month of 2007 that I gave birth to my youngest (Congrats Ariel! He's gorgeous!). So now we both have teenagers, born when when we were very young women, and we both also have new babies, born almost two decades later. I look forward to reading Ariel's writing about the experience of motherhood at this different stage of life, because despite the many other writers and essayists and mama-bloggers who have followed in her trailblazing footsteps, Ariel Gore is still the original Hip Mama.
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