Women of the PTA need a Sharper Image

I had to set aside my cookie dough and respond to “Tattoo Mama: You’ll Never Be PTA

President in This Town Again” (by Mary Melton, So SoCal, March 31).

Why is the PTA the symbol of everything that’s dowdy and homespun? Why are we known for our bake sales and not our health clinics, our legislative analysts or our efforts to reform education?

The housewives who founded the PTA nearly 100 years ago did not have the right to vote, yet they became powerful advocates for children. The PTA fought for child-labor laws, nutrition programs, a public health service, a juvenile-justice system and mandatory childhood immunization. Have we lost our edge? Do today’s children need us less?

Education and child welfare. What a boring cause. Nobody wears our ribbon to the Oscars. I’m a PTA president and I need a better image.

I should get a tattoo.

Judy Cain

Eagle Rock