I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the campy, B-movie, The Toxic Avenger, but the plot line is eerily analogous to many modern moms. The movie in a nutshell: weakling janitor is taunted and falls into a vat of toxic waste, which turns him into a radioactive monster with superhuman strength who becomes a local crime fighter.

Here’s the plot line for modern mom (particularly the special breed of moms that end up joining a community like MomsRising). Mom starts out as an “average” woman and gets pregnant which transforms her into a new life form with superhuman abilities who becomes an advocate for all moms and children.

Main difference: The Toxic Avenger was a movie and we are dealing with real life.

For the past three years, MomsRising has been building a community of moms (and dads) to fight for a more family friendly society, to get equal pay for moms and quality childcare and healthcare for all children, among other things. I’m thrilled to be a part of the newest movement of the MomsRising community, the one to make our children’s toys, bottles and bodies toxic-free.

I’m proud to be a part of a national network of moms who are toxic avengers in the literal sense of the phrase. From writing letters to the local school board with moms at my daughters’ bus stop to working on a national campaign with one of the mothers of all toxic avengers, Lois Gibbs,* I’ve been honing my supermom abilities since the moment I found out I was pregnant. Like many of you.

It’s been a transformation almost ten years in the making (a transformation I’m sure will never be complete). And now, representing my children, all the moms I’ve worked with in the past, all the moms I’m connected to today, and Healthy Child Healthy World (the organization I’m blessed to work for) I give myself to the MomsRising movement.

I’ll be sharing my stories, my experiences, my latest research and rants and hopefully inspire many of you to become Toxic Avengers with me. What do you want to know first?

* In the spring of 1978, a 27 year-old housewife named Lois Gibbs discovered that her child was attending an elementary school built on top of a 20,000 ton, toxic-chemical dump in Niagara Falls, New York. Her story is an iconic Toxic Avenger story, from mom to international superhero. Learn more about her. http://www.chej.org/about_lois.htm