Toronto calls in the superheroes to help with vaccinating young children against COVID-19. Some celebrities are too busy filming films or making music videos to join the public health program.
So who are superhero moms? They are an up-and-coming group of Canadian parents whose role is to become self-sacrificing heroes — the kind of parents who stay at home with their children, even though it’s hard to stay home when your entire life has come crashing down around you.
As an organizer of the first Mommy Health Matters conference at the University of British Columbia, which took place last weekend, I thought I’d share a few of my personal stories of how I got into this role. I’ve written on this subject before, so if you’re curious about how my own mom became a superhero, here’s my story.
My wife and I were living in a small apartment on St. Paul st, and we were starting a family. We had two small boys, and I was terrified that we would turn out to be a bad match for a traditional family. I had been raised poor, and I was deeply into feminism and women’s rights, but I’d never been a feminist before. It wasn’t until my kids were born that I realized that I was raised to be a good dad first, and second, a good husband.
I became a mother by default, not because I was expecting to be a woman and a mother. My father had been in a car accident, and my biological mother wasn’t around. My mom had already had a child, and I didn’t get to meet her — I was too young and too shy to know who she was. My grandmother was a single mom, and I didn’t get to meet her either. I didn’t tell my mother about my grandmother because I felt that I