President Obama used the Mother's Day holiday to promote the Affordable Care Act and talk about the changes in healthcare law that affect moms in particular.

Whether or not you support the new healthcare plan, it affects you. Now is as good a time as any to go over a few major changes that could benefit you and your family.

So David Bowie has this new video, and -- what's that? Yes, I said David Bowie. Yeah, I'm a little surprised to hear he's still making music videos too, but wow, his voice has held up wonderfully over the years. Whatever throat-coating tea he's drinking, he needs to share some with Bob Dylan. Anyway, so Bowie has this new video for his song "The Next Day," and while you'd think his days of shocking the public would have peaked during his Ziggy Stardust days, it turns out the singer's still got some impressive tricks up his sleeve.

Not only is the clip so controversial it was yanked from YouTube, The Catholic League has referred to it as -- I swear I am not making this up -- the work of a "switch-hitting, bisexual senior citizen from London" that "is strewn with characteristic excess." Plus, a prominent Christian evangelist from Harvest Ministries called it "offensive and distasteful."

Oh, you KNOW you want to see it now, right?

Could you go a whole year without buying anything that's not essential to your survival?

The Dannemiller family in Nashville, Tennessee, is doing it. Four months in, they've learned some tough (and a few hilarious) lessons about what really matters in life. Check out our Moms Matter video report and see for yourself how they're doing.

The last two weeks have been all about standardized testing, as far as my kids are concerned.

My third grade daughter spent last week taking TCAP tests. My kindergarten son is taking the SAT-10 this week.The stakes for these tests seem much higher than they were when we were kids, and across the country parents are responding by calling for change and even opting their children out of standardized testing entirely.

A few writers from The Stir got together today in a Moms Matter Google Hangou to discuss standardized testing. One has even pulled her child from her neighborhood's public school specifically because of the focus on standardized tests. Here's the video discussion --

Imagine how frightened you'd be if you got the news about the Boston Marathon explosions knowing that your own husband was there.

That was the reality for a CafeMom producer. She and a few writers from The Stir joined us for this week's Moms Matter Google Hangout to talk about the bombing and how it's affecting the nation's moms in particular.

Click through to see the video -- then tell us how you feel in the comments.

Do you swear in front of your kids?

Jacqueline Burt wrote a post defending cursing in front of kids here on The Stir recently, and it generated a LOT of conversation.

So for this week's Moms Matter Google Hangout, we decided to ask other writers from The Stir if they agree with Jacqueline. See what they had to say after the jump!

The Newtown tragedy was one of our nation's darkest days, and for moms, news reports about the shootings were especially difficult to take. After all, those children could have been our children. That school could have been our neighborhood school. Those teachers could have been our kids' teachers.

For days afterward, I walked around in a funk, crying at the slightest provocation. And as it turned out, I was far from alone. Across the country, thousands upon thousands of moms were reacting the very same way -- and today, as a result of that feeling, a nationwide organization of moms has formed that's dedicated to making sure a tragedy like Newtown never happens again.

Check out our Moms Matter video report after the jump. Then tell us in the comments if you think these moms could -- or should -- make a difference when it comes to gun control laws in America.

The Steubenville teen rape trial is over, but it's still getting passionate reaction on the Internet, including many posts and op-eds from women who are sharing their own teen experiences for the very first time.

For our latest Moms Matter Hangout, four writers from The Stir got together online to talk about Steubenville, why it has struck a chord with the American public, and how we plan to use it as a lesson for our own children when they're teens.