Truthout: The title of your book describes your evolution into “rebellious motherhood.” Can you explain more what you mean by that term?

Frida Berrigan: In essence, I am trying to mother without fear and with hope. I am trying to mother without a lot of money or possessions or acquisitiveness. I am trying to mother with a lot of time for my kids, for friendships and for work for peace and justice – and that seems pretty rebellious in this society.

To read the rest of the interview, visit Truthout

From our parents, Patrick and I learned how to live well without a lot of money, to speak up for justice in big and small ways, to treasure the richness of diversity, and to value truth and love above pretty much everything else.

What does that look like in practice? Potluck dinners, composting, knowing our neighbors, belonging to the community garden and the food co-op, looking after other people’s children, joyfully embracing chores and family work, pitching in with food and time when a neighbor is in need, advocating for peace and justice, being enthusiastic members of our local Unitarian Universalist church, greeting people by name, cultivating curiosity in our children, having time for each other and for others, sharing what we have, and so much more.

To read the rest of the excerpt, visit TruthOut

To listen to the podcast, visit Waging Nonviolence

To listen to the interview, visit WMUK

Wise and well-written, this is an inspiring read.

To read the rest of the review, visit Peace News

RD: For parents out there who are part of movement work, what do you hope this book will offer?

FB: Perspective. I think we try to do it all. I know I try– even now (and even after having written this book). It is hard to slow down, hard to take a back seat for a while, hard not to worry that if you leave the driver’s seat, you’ll never get back there. The message of the book is: it is okay to let parenting be your main job for a little while. And then I struggle with that alot even though my hand’s are completely full with two little kids and an 8 year old step-daughter, and you can see that throughout the book (and in the second part of my answer below).

The kid’s are alright. Parents who are activists worry that their commitments will mess their kids up. Parents who are activists are told (often very explicitly) that their commitments to other peoples’ kids will mess up their kids… My experience having super-committed parents says otherwise. Kids respect parents who do more than just live for their kids (and the weekend).

To read the rest of the interview, visit Radical Discipleship

In lieu of a society that treats time as the gift that it is, Frida Berrigan is keeping up her own family’s tradition of being a sign of contradiction. Other families’ ways of valuing time may not look like hers. But in any case it’s strange how today a simple life is enough to make one seem like a radical.

To read the rest of the article, visit America Magazine

What Berrigan demonstrates is that you needn’t be part of a Marxist intellectual hierarchy, steeped in dialectics, in order to commit to action that will help change the world for the better; that most things that need changing require simple and direct actions, not nuances of ideology. And that you can raise your children to be “morally cheerful” (glad to help) and to “play a part in resolving, rather than exacerbating, the problems of the world.” A lovely book, with a genuine smile.

To read the rest of the review, visit Prague Post

I was laughing by page four and crying by page 16. I’m a slow reader but this one was all read up quickly. I’m making it a supplementary text in my Participating in Democracy class. Frida gives her readers a grounding in a livingscape of resistance, a map of possibilities for parenting for peace and justice without making a single claim that she is something special.

But she is.

To read the rest of the review, visit CounterPunch