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

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.

That book, Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet, tells of their journey in search of responses to hunger, poverty, and corporate globalization. All around the world, the mother-daughter partners found communities where people had taken a stand--from Kenyan activists who fought against deforestation to Wisconsin farmers who eschewed pesticides.

"So many experiences we had involved interviews with families, and to experience that as a family was very powerful," says Anna. "So many of the different people we met worked with their children. In some ways it's the most natural thing in the world, and I certainly feel I benefited from the apprenticeship of working with my room."

Frances learned from Anna, too, particularly when they holed up at a writer's retreat for two months to finish their book. Anna, with an ear for storytelling, would draw little pictures of a cheese slicer in the margins when her mother lapsed into "cheesy" lectures. "The book became much less didactic," says Frances.

After editing each other's prose, no wonder the women now feel so comfortable finishing each other's sentences:

Anna: My mother is the wise woman ...

Frances: ... more philosophical.

Anna: And I have the humor.

Frances: I've always been more ...

Anna: ... intense.

Frances: I was going to say spiritual/

Although each is now working on her own book project, Frances and Anna still collaborate on the nonprofit Small Planet Institute, which serves as a clearinghouse for their writing and activism. For Frances, the experience has provided a personal epiphany. "What I've realized is that as my daughter and son continue to blossom in their careers and contributions, in no way do I feel Mat my own contribution is less needed or valued," she says. "What great strength there is when each generation realizes the strength of the other!"

organic beauty queens

Pat Filaseta MOTHER & Julie Warnock DAUGHTER

Both 27-year-old Julie Warnock and her mother, 61-year-old Pat Filaseta, have radiant skin. How do they get that glow? By using their own line of all-natural beauty products. There isn't a single artificial chemical in Bath Petals body butters, salt scrubs, soaps, and aromatherapy oils--just wholesome ingredients like rose petals, jojoba off, eucalyptus, lavender, beeswax, and honey. In fact, says Julie proudly, "you could eat all of our products!"

Actually, Pat's first business, launched in 1985 after her divorce, involved truly edible goods: It was a cookie company called The Gingerbread Lady. The firm soon outgrew the family kitchen, but not the family. "She'd pick me up after school, and I'd run errands with her," recalls Julie. "I didn't go to soccer practice, I went to the bakery. And I loved it."

Pat later suffered from a thyroid disease that forced her to close her business, but both mother and daughter clung to the idea of working together. In 2001, Julie began making homemade salt scrubs as a hobby while employed at an unfulfilling marketing job. Within two months, mother and daughter were delivering product samples to boutiques across Los Angeles.

"We knew nothing about the beauty industry--I cannot tell you how 'nothing' we knew," laughs Pat. But after her experience in the preservative-packed food industry, there was no question their products would be all-natural. "In a bakery you learn an awful lot of things you never wanted to know about the food that is sold," she says.

Julie runs through the ingredients found in a typical tub of salt scrub on a drugstore shelf: "It will have mineral oil in it, which is petroleum. Most beauty products contain both methylparaben and propylparaben, which are irritating to the skin; synthetic fragrance oil, which can cause rashes; and colors that come from coal tar and aluminum." Needless to say, Bath Petals products contain none of the above. "When you get into a warm shower, millions of pores open up like little mouths," explains Pat. "What do you want your skin to absorb: essential oils or chemicals?"

The two are evangelists for natural beauty, aromatherapy, and holistic skin care. "We sell a 100 percent natural product in an industry where probably 99.9 percent isn't all-natural," Pat adds. "It's a fight." And when fighting the good fight, there's no one better to have at your side than Mom. "It helps to have such a strong mother-daughter relationship in business," says Julie. "I never have to worry that my partner is going to sell trade secrets to our competitor--because she'll never have my pumpkin cheesecake at Thanksgiving again!"

first-aid ambassadors

Janice Belson MOTHER & Johanna Belson DAUGHTER

In Nepal, where photographer Janice Belson first traveled in 1992, children routinely lose their fingers because of minor burns that are left untreated and become infected. "Everybody deserves a Band-Aid and antibacterial cream," asserts Belson, 62. But the shelves of many Nepalese health posts and clinics are virtually empty.

Six years ago, Janice and daughter Johanna launched Medicines Global, offering "basic humanitarian first-aid supplies" to health posts in remote villages along the trekking routes of Annapurna. Accompanied by adventure travelers, they have delivered enough pharmaceutical vitamin A to reverse nutritional blindness in 3,000 children, along with sterile-birthing kits, first-aid ointment, antibiotics, and, yes, Band-Aids.

Medicines Global has helped hundreds of trekkers convey more than $2.5 million in supplies globally over the last five years, thanks in part to partnerships with companies like Eagle Creek, Yogi Tea, and The North Face. And the Belsons encourage all adventure travelers to bring extra first-aid supplies as gifts when visiting developing countries. "Everyone takes Tootsie Rolls and lollipops," says Janice. "But if you really want to help, bring something that people need. There are health posts everywhere."

Thirty-four-year-old Johanna, who says her mother raised her at nuclear protests and women's rights marches, serves as the organization's trek leader, while Janice runs the day-to-day operations. "Whenever I'm with my mom, this is all we do," Johanna laughs.

The twosome are now launching a program in Sri Lanka, and spreading their vision of humanitarian travel to a new generation. This spring, Johanna and Janice will host a trek with a group of "outdoor youth ambassadors" from inner-city schools in Los Angeles. In addition to receiving nutritional counseling from Whole Foods, the ambassadors will publish newsletters about their experience and help raise funds to build schools and health posts in Sri Lanka.

For Janice, the biggest reward of working with her daughter is the sense of camaraderie. "When you arrive together at something you really believe in, it becomes a different relationship," says Janice. "I hear her voice when I'm writing; when I lose energy for the work, she inspires me."

Both mother and daughter, who've lived most their lives in Sun Valley, Idaho, are avid outdoorswomen. So the treks bring a special dimension to their partnership. "They gives us a time and place to appreciate our relationship," says Johanna. "I feel the most sense of awe and utter connection to the great mystery of the phenomenal, insane world when I'm in the Himalayas. There's nothing more powerful. So as far as being there with my mother, we feel very, very close. I feel very protective of her."

"It's a constant struggle, the whole parental thing of letting go," says Janice. "But what keeps me going is our closeness and because we're together. I really can't imagine being able to pull it off unless Johanna is there, completely understanding me."

Photography by MICHAEL WESCHLER

COPYRIGHT 2005 Weider Publications
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group