And will not offend any mom...
I am a mom. I have a list of gifts I have received, and those that I treasure. The gifts I love most are the ones that help mothers who struggle to feed, cloth, and protect their children. These are not political, but these are appropriate for even the most hardcore right wing love-her-anyway mom. And the cool mom will adore them. Every one of these beats flowers.
To start with, victims of genocide. That genocide is a thing of the past is a common dream. Yet this is not the case:
Help a family fleeing from genocide
This Mother’s Day, Nang Bauk will be caring for her seven children in a temporary camp that lacks adequate food, water and supplies.
Nang Bauk and her children survived a brutal attack by the Burmese army on their village. In the middle of gunfire and chaos, she and her husband managed to save all seven of their children and flee their home. But the nightmare did not stop there.
If your insane family requires that you give money to a Christian cause, there is one which is suitable for the holiday and partnered with a Christian organization.
Help a slave
As South Sudan begins the process of nation building, we are concerned about the fate of estimated tens of thousands of Southerners still enslaved in the north. Those freed report daily beatings, rape (of girls, boys and women), and forcible religious conversions. People murdered and mutilated in slave raids, branded like animals. Children sold off and separated from their parents forever.
You can help set them free!
$109 helps emancipate a slave and provide him or her with essential humanitarian aid.
Love a wolf
If, like me, you were basically raised by wolves, you can find humor in the situation. I have given my mom a wolf for several years. She doesn't quite get the joke (I like dogs, not wolves.) but it is a gift, and generous too! Of course, other species are also available.
Gray wolves inhabit mostly wild and inaccessible areas in a very limited portion of their former range within North America. Their diet consists of deer and smaller prey, such as beavers and hares. Gray wolves are part of the dog or Canidae family, a group characterized by their intelligence and adaptability. Like other members of the dog family, wolves are very territorial, laying claim to familiar den sites, travel routes and feeding grounds. Wolves suffer not only from habitat loss, but they also endure revenge killings for attacks on wild stock.
Heifer
And the most common annual gift at my household: Heifer. Heifer provides animals for families. If your goal is to feed a family, then this is for you. For myself, the thought that the rabbits, bunnies, and goats provided as gifts to me for the past fifteen years have been breeding and feeding children is most dear. Every mother's day I know that there are mothers who can feed their children. And every year there are more.
Goats normally breed once a year. Half are female. So two goats year two. Four goats year three. Six year four. Nine year five. Fourteen year six ….. how much of a difference will you make in ten years? Hint: assuming all goats live ten years, each female breeds one, so year n+1=n + 2/n, it is 51. (I assume each goat has two kids and each has a 50% chance of being female.) Heifer requires that recipients enrich the community and give away additional livestock after establishing their own herd or flock. I have helped ten families feed their children milk, cheese, and twenty-five pounds of meat a year. (I assume they eat the males at maturity.) This is all from Mother's Day 2002.
And the best for nearly last! OK, this will offend some moms. But I cannot leave it out.
Find a Center Near You!
No organization in America is more focused on healthy moms and healthy families than Planned Parenthood. Is there any more appropriate gift for Mother's Day than to help a woman plan her family? Make every child one who can be fed and cared for. This requires women being in control of our own bodies; it requires contraceptive access; and women's health care.
The previous organizations are ones I know about, I have supported. Here is something that makes me angry. Major trigger warnings. (When you know one in three women have been raped, that means one in three moms have been raped too). What really bothered me about this is that it was so hard to find. When I put "help girl" into Google the first suggestion was "lose weight" and the second was "get breast implants". When I added the "s" to "help girls" the suggestion I received was "get breast implants". Sad, isn't it?
Help a girl or woman escape repeated for-profit rape
If someone is in sex work and wants to get out, its not work. Work is when you can quit.
It was really difficult to find a non-religious organization focused on girls (<16) who are sold by men to be raped by men for their entertainment and joy. Oh, I mean "forced prostitution". (It is so much more polite...)
So if anyone knows or an organization free of religion, please post. From what I have read, this is a good organization that also lobbies for the rights of women and girls. For example, they worked for a Georgia law that any female under the age of consent would not be arrested for prostitution, but rather placed in care.