Girl power: great things happen when mothers daughters join forces to help heal the world

Natural Health, May, 2005 by Janelle Brown

JOINING THE FAMILY BUSINESS is no longer a fate worse than unemployment. Parents and children are combining forces--not to shore up joint bank accounts, but to merge their creative spirits on behalf of values-based endeavors. And when a mother and daughter team up, the results can be doubly spectacular, says Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of Mother-Daughter Wisdom: Creating a Legacy of Emotional and Physical Health.

"A mother and daughter working together can be very powerful. Together they're more than the sum of their parts," says Northrup. "They can have all the love there, and the fun, and the caring and respect for each other. It's nourishing to everyone they come in contact with."

In the 1970s, many women were drawn to activism and organic living; today, their 20- and 30-something children seem destined to find health and fulfillment. "Your mother's beliefs and behaviors set the stage for what you believe is possible with your body and your life," Northrup explains.

Sharing a common goal also helps to deepen the connection between family members. "The mother-daughter relationship can be the most health-enhancing, intimate, satisfying relationship of our lives," Northrup states. "And when you're working together on something that is bigger than you are, it expands the relationship."

Here, we introduce you to four mother-daughter teams laboring together to heal the world and--in doing so--helping to heal themselves.

peace correspondents

Kathy Eldon MOTHER & Amy Eldon DAUGHTER

In 1993 a 22-year-old Reuters photographer named Dan Eldon was stoned to death by an angry mob in the civil-war-torn streets of Mogadishu, Somalia. Back in the United States, his mother, Kathy, and 19-year-old sister, Amy, were devastated. "I went through a very dark period," recalls Kathy. "I knew that to survive I needed to transform the horror into something positive."

Twelve years later, Kathy and Amy Eldon have become a mother-daughter media empire called Creative Visions, producing films, TV shows, and books that advocate peaceful solutions. "I realized the power we have in the media to effect change," says Amy. "I wanted to pick up where Dan left off, telling stories that were important--not by being a war correspondent, but as a peace correspondent."

The Eldons' first collaboration was a grief journal entitled Angel Catcher. Next came Dying to Tell the Story, a documentary about journalists at risk, which started off as Amy's film-school project (she got a B ) and ended up as a TBS feature that won the duo an Emmy nomination. They've since co-produced the documentary Soldiers for Peace, about a children's peace movement in Colombia, and the PBS everyday-heroes series GlobalTribe.

Their latest project, The GlobalTribe Network, is an online resource to promote young people's awareness and involvement in global issues. For example, participants across the United States are raising money to build schools in Kenya, aid tsunami orphans, and support the Jane Goodall Institute in the Congo.

Amy, who lived in Kenya until she reached high school, believes that one individual can have an impact on the world at large. "One of the children I met said, 'Peace starts in our hearts and spreads to our families and communities, and since we are so interconnected, it ultimately affects everybody,'" she says.

Kathy serves as president of Creative Visions, while Amy heads The GlobalTribe Network. Yet it's tough to break away from the traditional roles of mother and child. "We were in a meeting with some money people, and my mother handed me a tape and said, 'Lulubird, can you put this in?'" laughs Amy. "I was furious and thinking, 'I'm not Lulubird, I'm 30 and I'm the executive director!'"

"There have been times when I wanted to go in a direction she didn't, and I could be overbearing," says Kathy. "I had to learn to stand still and listen to what she had to say."

"We sit next to each other at meetings so I can kick her under the table," Amy jokes.

"I wear shin guards," retorts Kathy, adding: "But I couldn't do this without Amy. It's been a miracle for me to be able to work with the person I love and trust most in the world."

famine fighters

Frances Moore Lappe MOTHER & Anna Lappe DAUGHTER

The author of the seminal 197: best seller Diet for a Small Planet would never let a hamburger touch her lips. After all, Frances Moore Lappe has famously espoused a plant-based diet as the best way to achieve a healthier body and a sustainable earth. But when it came to raising her daughter, Anna, she tried to be more flexible with what was on the menu.

"I had this fear that if I was a dogmatist and guilt-tripped my children, it could backfire," the 61-year-old activist says. "I tried to walk a fine line between exposing them to the world that ignited my soul and letting them feel they had real choice."

She must have struck the right balance. "I didn't need to rebel against what my mother believed in, because I believed in it, too," says Anna, now 31. In fact, when Frances' nonprofit foundation, the Center for Living Democracy, was forced to close in 1999 for lack of funding, Anna and her brother encouraged Frances to write a sequel to her influential book. Anna signed on as her mother's research assistant, but quickly advanced to co-author.