A woman who opts not to retain custody of her child is a 'non-custodial parent,' and it's a term that's being heard a lot these days in connection with the death of Michael Jackson. As the custody battle begins for his three children, speculation surrounds the mother of two of them, Debbie Rowe. Did she give up her parental rights because she was paid off by Jackson? Did she ever want contact with her children? Is she now seeking custody?

Rowe may be the most well-known example of a non-custodial parent, but her situation doesn't accurately reflect the real-life stories of non-custodial mothers. In an article in Marie Claire magazine, three of those women explain why they made the decisions they did. The final story is that of Rebekah Spicuglia, who doesn't take parenting any less seriously just because her son is thousands of miles away with his father. As Spicuglia explains in her own blog NonCustodial Parent Community:

[Last year] I wrote what I consider to be my "coming out" essay about my experience as a noncustodial mom. Marie Claire editor Lea Goldman came across my story, and I fit a model that would challenge the noncustodial mom stereotypes -- women who relinquished custody of their children, not because they were forced to, but because it was the right, loving choice in the best interests of their children....In the year since, I launched my blog and have served as a noncustodial parent spokesperson on family issues.

Motherhood is the most sacred thing in our society....Mothers like me—well, there isn't really a dialogue about us. People just don't even know how to talk about it.

_{Photo of Rebekah and her son Oscar
© Rebekah Spicuglia}

Take a look at this montage of clips showing the incredibly biased and outright nasty statements made about her judicial career, her educational background, her cultural heritage and even her gender. Compiled by the Women's Media Center, they include racist and sexist statements made by Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Miller, Glenn Beck, Tom Tancredo, G. Gordon Liddy, Pat Buchanan, and a host of other folks from FOX News.

This sort of thing will continue unless we make it clear that this type of media coverage is unacceptable. The Women's Media Center (WMC) is asking for media justice for Sonia Sotomayor and is providing ways for you to make your voice heard. They're also asking you to submit examples of unfair coverage of Sotomayor to them so they can keep track of media bias.

As the hearings move forward, the WMC expects that there will be "vigorous debate of Sotomayor’s qualifications & abilities." And they're calling on the media "to refrain from allowing sexist and racist remarks to go unchecked." Considering the fact that Sotomayor brings more federal judicial experience than any Supreme Court justice in 100 years, isn't it common courtesy to treat her with the respect she has clearly earned?

Related article: Media Coverage of Sotomayor Thus Far

For families fortunate enough to have full-time nannies, summer isn't a problem; but other issues crop up in the delicate relationship between parents, children, and the nannies who care for them. Tasha Blaine does an exemplary job taking us into the lives of these women in Just Like Family: Inside the Lives of Nannies, the Parents They Work for, and the Children They Love.

'Love' may not be part of the job description, but nannies who spend their days with other people's children develop a deep bond and a fierce sense of protection toward their charges. Blaine gives us a glimpse of this relationship by closely following three different nannies from different backgrounds and lifestyles. Each has come to the profession for varied reasons, and each faces obstacles as she negotiates her relationship with the parents who've hired her.

Blaine, who earned an MFA in fiction writing from New York University, knows how to make this non-fiction book grab readers in with an engaging storyline. Whether they're at work or at home, you'll find the women's lives compelling and heartbreaking. Underlying Just Like Family is the hard question we ignore at our peril: if caring for the most valuable 'thing' in our lives -- our children -- is such vital and important work, why is the financial compensation so low for nannies, daycare providers, and others in the field...and why do they earn so little respect?

You don't have to have a nanny in your life to enjoy this book. I'd highly recommend it to both working and stay-at-home moms. It would be a terrific addition to any mom's book club and would provoke some fascinating discussions.

Related article: Just Like Family Book Review

The Boston Globe has a little-reported story on the rising number of homeless women veterans, many of them single parents with kids. What's even more disturbing is the fact that although services are in place to help returning vets, many feel that the culture of the Veterans Administration is primarily geared toward addressing the needs of men; therefore, they're having a hard time adjusting to the very different and specific needs of women.

Something arrived in my inbox this week that had the ring of an old wives' tale -- one of those tried and true remedies passed by word of mouth. NJM included me in her list of friends and relatives to whom she forwarded an email that said taping a copper penny to a bee or hornet sting takes the pain, redness, and swelling away.

So many women I know (including my neighbor across the street) spend endless hours gardening; it's one way to unwind. So I had to find out for myself and others -- does this really work?

My go-to guy on all things forwarded via email is David Emery, About.com Urban Legends Guide. He has the full email that's been circulating on the internet since August 2006, and the details on whether or not it works. Thanks NJM for passing this along.

For me, reader emails are just as much fun as a package from home during summer camp. (You never know what you're going to get, and if the contents are really good, you feel compelled to share.) If you've got something interesting to relate, or a story I should pass along to other readers, here's how you can email me.

_{© Joe Raedle/Getty Images}

Once again, Williams forthrightly tackles what most others dance around in an unblinking examination of the very complex contradictions inherent in Michael Jackson's life, death, media image, and altered reality. In "Mirror Man" she looks at our fascination with him; the terrible childhood abuse his father Joe Jackson still denies dishing out; the "mind-boggling malpractice" that supported his drug abuse and his extreme plastic surgeries; the disturbing allegations that his three children have no biological connection to him; and his even more disturbing need to blank out any presence of a mother in his children's lives:

Their conception was accomplished as a made-to-order, cash-on-the-barrelhead commercial transaction....Reportedly, the women who gestated them carried anonymously donated eggs fertilized by sperm from secret donors....Deborah Rowe, Jackson's ex-wife and the surrogate who carried his oldest two children to term, describes being inseminated "like a horse"; she then received around $9 million to give up any claim to them. On the birth certificate of Jackson's youngest child, the space for "mother" is left blank.

Many have voiced their concerns over this, though most (like the author of "Michael Jackson: Talented Yet Troubled" from the blog Mothers Raising Boys) don't have a gig at The Nation as Williams does. In the midst of the frenzy surrounding the extended mourning of the King of Pop, Williams will likely get flak for "Mirror Man." But like all concerned mothers, it's the children she worries about -- the children who called Michael Jackson 'father,' and the child that man once was despite an upbringing that included being held upside down and punched repeatedly by his father.

"He mimed a narrative of constant paradox and infinite suffering," Williams writes about Jackson, and closes with her fears that his three children will end up with their "ignorant, brutish" grandfather. Should that come to pass, if that isn't an example of "constant paradox and infinite suffering" for yet another generation of young Jacksons, then I can't imagine what is.

Related article: Remembering Michael Jackson and the Woman Behind "Man in the Mirror"

That's why it's so refreshing -- and dare I say it, exciting? -- to read Emily Bazelon's extensive, wide-ranging interview with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the New York Times website. (A version of this will be printed in some editions of the July 12, 2009 paper.)

Here's a glimpse: She works out with a personal trainer. She uses a gentle touch to influence her colleagues. At her confirmation hearings in 1993, she hoped there'd be three or four female justices further on down the road. And today, she thinks that "It just doesn’t look right in the year 2009" to have only one woman on the Supreme Court.

Having done some research and writing on Ginsburg earlier, I've always been curious to know more about the sole female justice remaining on the court, the one who's been seen as more quiet than activist. Yet as Bazelon reveals in her four-page Q&A, Ginsburg has a sharp, probing mind and a sensitivity to some cases (such as the strip-search of the 13-year-old girl) that her fellow male justices lack.)

Want to know why another female justice (namely Sonia Sotomayor) is so essential, not only to the Supreme Court but to the well-being of this nation? Read Brazelon's "The Place of Women on the Court."

With nominee Sotomayor's confirmation hearings scheduled to begin next week, I can't think of a more timely article for both women and men to read.

Related articles:

• Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Second Woman on the Supreme Court
• Sandra Day O'Connor, First Woman on the Supreme Court
• History of Women on the Supreme Court
• Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court Nominee and Possible Third Woman on the Supreme Court

All that's just a high-falutin' way of saying that if you used a clicker instead of a Twitterfeed to keep you up to date, you proved how old-school and out of touch you were. (I raise my hand. Guilty as charged.)

While CNN, Fox, MSNBC and the major TV networks frantically scrambled to fill in the blanks on a big story that was all headline and no details -- turning to ho-hum talking head who were more 'available' than 'expert' (i.e. they hadn't left town for the holiday weekend)-- the real media excitement was on Twitter.

If you didn't catch those tweets the first time around, Glynnis MacNicol at Mediaite has them logged for all posterity. You know what's the coolest thing about her post? She links to all the Twitter IDs of the media cognoscenti so you, like me, can follow them from this point on, ensuring that you'll never be out of the loop again.

Thanks to digital media guru Kathy E. Gill at WiredPen.com for the above and for bringing us all into the 21st century.

_{Photo © Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images}

The AOR (album oriented rock) format at WVBR was narrow and specific. We played what our top-of-the-hour station ID described as "Rock and Roll's Best." And that format was dominated by white male bands: the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, the Kinks, the Police, etc. Self-proclaimed rock devotees, we somehow managed to play very few black artists other than Jimi Hendrix...until Michael Jackson came along and thrust our unacknowledged racism in our faces.

"Rock Doesn't Have Violins"
As one of a handful of females deejays -- and the only Asian-American -- among the primarily white male on-air staff, I remember the station's rationale as to why we wouldn't play any cuts from Jackson's wildly popular Thriller album, particularly Billie Jean, which was #1 on the Billboard charts at the time.

"It has violins," argued the music director, "and rock doesn't have violins."

Integrating MTV
That argument fell by the wayside when Jackson released Beat It as a single and it flew up the charts. After all, Eddie Van Halen had a rockin' guitar solo in the song. To ignore Beat It was to ignore one of "Rock and Roll's Best." And so we added it, integrating rock for the legions of African American artists that would follow.

Our own small conflict was played out on a larger scale at MTV, when Jackson's music videos became the first ones by a black artist to be broadcast by that still-new cable network.

Jackson held up a mirror to society that reflected what we hadn't seen until then -- the divisions between black and white that his music unexpectedly bridged.

Making the World a Better Place
Part of his talent was his ability to sell his music with passion and conviction, even when the tunes weren't written by him. Such is the case with Man in the Mirror, a song with lyrics that seem intensely personal:

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you want to make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make that change.

A Woman's Touch of Magic
The song, however, wasn't written by Jackson. It was penned by Siedah Garrett who told Singersroom.com that the song evolved from phrases she'd scribbled down from an overheard conversation. Two years later, when she had the chance to compose something for Jackson, she remembered the phrase "man in the mirror" and just started singing, almost unable to write the words and music down fast enough. She said the experience was "like magic."

Unable to Make That Change
Michael Jackson's life was deeply troubled, and therein lies the rub. His magic was a gift he could share with millions but never fully accept for himself. He was a musical tsunami sweeping across an entire planet, and we embraced him regardless of his color or ours. Together, we made "that change."

But because he could never see in himself the man we saw in him, the only personal changes he could make were surface ones -- physical, cosmetic, and sometimes odd-seeming. Despite worldwide adulation, he could never lighten the sadness, despair, or fear that took root in childhood and shadowed him every day of his life.

An Undelivered Message
It's bittersweet to think that it took a woman to write a moving, powerful anthem for him that was painfully apropos. No message could have been any clearer than that which Siedah Garrett invested Man in the Mirror with. Yet Michael Jackson skillfully and convincingly delivered its message to everyone but himself. As much as he wanted to change from the inside out, he was unable to do so, and the world is mourning because of it.

The man is gone, but the mirror he held up to society remains. What can we do to remember Michael Jackson? The answer is both obvious and subtle...easy and hard...possible and impossible. Take a look at yourself and then make that change.

_{Photo of Siedah Garrett
© Vince Bucci/Getty Images}

To say she received a hero's welcome would be an understatement. She rode in a parade down streets jammed with gushing well-wishers. Local television showed smiling faces -- young, old, male, female -- all saying how attrractive she was, how sweet, how much they admired her.

She has deeply devoted, dedicated suppporters. One high school senior attending her prom the night of Palin's Auburn appearance skipped her hair appointment - a date she'd booked weeks in advance - to see Palin live.

On that day, Palin enjoyed a kind of rock-star celebrity that was a far cry from her more pedestrian day-to-day dealings with legislators back home in a state where her approval ratings have dropped significantly since she stepped onto the national stage.

As Palin noted in today's jaw-dropping news conference, she and her husband Todd have racked up half a million dollars in fighting accusations of ethics violations.

The equation of Palin's resignation is easy to add up. She experiences love and cheering crowds when she travels to select locations. She's having a hard time back in Alaska and feels that if she continues on as a lame duck governor, she'll be playing politics as usual. It's more appealing to be a maverick and quit instead of continuing to press her nose to a grindstone that doesn't give her warm fuzzies. It's a matter of the instant gratification of "We love You Sarah!" screamed by fans in the lower 48 vs. the delayed gratification of a full term served out in Alaska. It's a crazy move, but it's consistent with what we've seen of Saran Palin.

There's one thing that puzzles me. Palin hails from a family that takes its commitment to team sports seriously. One of the first things a student athlete learns is never quit. Her perseverance as an athlete and runner has constantly been referenced, and ironically enough, she's being featured in an upcoming issue of Runner's World. So doesn't quitting equate to being a bad sport?

We're all still reeling from the news of her resignation. As we wonder about the possible reasons why -- an undisclosed scandal about to surface? bad times ahead as the governor of Alaska? more ethics charges lodged against her? -- remember the story of Auburn, NY. It isn't so far-fetched.