The Mothers We Find

Lately we’ve been craving comfort. Not necessarily the big, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, life-changing kind (though we wouldn’t be mad at it)—more the small, ordinary things that make us feel just a little more held. Maybe it’s the time of year or just the state of the world, but we are gravitating towards anything that can make us feel grounded, a little steadier on our feet.

For some, it’s a fellow parent who has been there before—a friend who doesn’t need an explanation or someone to reassure us that what we’re experiencing is survivable. If some days motherhood feels like Olympic training, it’s nice to have a coach, and even a team, behind us. For others, it’s finding the kind of parental support that should have existed all along. And sometimes, it’s just a nice bowl of soup. This week, we’re talking about all three: the mothers we find, the people creating better postpartum resources and support, and a few recipes that might imbue your week with a bit more comfort.

By Rachel Parker

I’ve lived most of my life without my mother, who passed away in 1995 when I was just 6 years old. For the longest time, I believed that being so young spared me from the intense grief of parental loss. I even viewed it as a gift of sorts, telling myself, “I was so little, I didn’t know what was going on,” or “At least I was not a more formative age.” Of course, that isn’t true. 

When I started talk therapy in 2021, my primary goal was to unpack how my mother’s death and my childhood in general impacted the person I am today. I knew it had, but I didn’t have the language to articulate how. As it turns out, the loss of my mother has affected my life in subtle yet profound ways, weaving itself into every milestone, birthday, and holiday spent without her. My therapist explained this to me as “cumulative grief,” which is when a major loss is layered by other traumas or stressors before the initial loss is processed. I now understand why I get melancholy every year on my birthday, and I give myself permission to just feel it. My hyperindependence, stoicism, and avoidance are all byproducts of cumulative grief, but learning this has allowed me to confront how these traits don’t always serve me.

My grandmother helped raise me, and I do believe she did her best with the tools she had. But she wasn’t my mother, and frankly, her Mad Men-era ways of childrearing weren’t exactly the brand of nurturing I needed. All I’m saying is I did not need to be mixing her a nightly cocktail at age 8, and she didn’t need to comment on all the food I ate. We certainly didn’t talk about feelings. So, when I’m going through something difficult or exciting, I still mourn the mother who isn’t there to call, to hug, or to remind me that I am strong and capable. It had been so long since I’d been mothered that I forgot what it felt like—until my closest friends started having kids.

In the years leading up to my friends getting married and starting their families, a worry always lingered in the back of my mind: that I’d somehow get left behind. I’m grateful to report that hasn’t been the case at all, and, in retrospect, it feels like a ridiculous thought. That said, modern society doesn’t love a spinster, so I try to give that version of myself grace. If I only knew how watching my closest friends become mothers would fill me with immeasurable pride, I’d have gotten over myself much more quickly. Becoming an aunt to their babies feels, on a cosmic level, like what was always supposed to happen. Like an added branch to our chosen-family tree.

Our favorite recipes for soup szn

True life: It got cold for approximately one day, so I have now declared it “Soup Season.” (That was a deep cut for those of us who were raised on MTV.) But, honestly, the temperature dipped, so we’ve already started dipping our spoons into soup. The beauty of soup is that it’s usually a low-effort, slow-cooker, sit-and-wait kind of meal—which is pretty much the only kind of meal we are cooking these days. All that to say we were inspired to throw together a list of our favorite recipes to get your autumn started off right. —Lauren Bell Martin and Jess Mayhugh

Mothr. co-founder Michelle Bar shares the inspiration behind her new platform for mothers

Much of the reason we started Folly was because of the “ugly” and unspoken unknowns we encountered while planning for and creating our families. There were so many things we didn’t know to ask about, prepare for, or even realize were part of the process until we were living them. And it wasn’t until we started talking to other people who had already experienced it that we realized we weren’t alone.

That’s why I was so excited to hear about Mothr., a platform that launched this week (!) with the goal of making sure new mothers never have to feel that way again. We talked to co-founder Michelle Bar about Mothr., the inspiration behind it, and why a resource like this is needed more than ever right now. —LBM

What is Mothr. and who is it for?
Mothr. is a platform for mothers built around a pretty simple idea: Support shouldn’t end at six weeks postpartum. So much attention goes into pregnancy, birth, and, of course, the baby. Meanwhile, the mother is expected to figure out everything that comes next. Becoming a mother can change your body, mind, identity, relationships, career, and friendships. ALL OF IT! And contrary to what we’ve been told, those changes don’t happen on a six-week timeline. 

Mothr. is for everything that comes after. We bring together expert-created guides and tools, trusted practitioners, resources, and community across body, mind, identity, and community. Whether you need an answer, the words to explain what you’re experiencing, or help figuring out who to talk to, we want to make that next step easier.

Why is Mothr. needed right now? Why do you think women haven’t been offered these types of resources in the past?
I think because we’ve gotten really good at supporting women through having a baby, but we’re still figuring out how to support them through becoming a mother. I felt that really personally after I had my twins. I knew I wasn’t doing well, but I didn’t even have the language to explain what was happening to me. I remember sitting in my OB’s office and telling her I was feeling “not that great.” That was genuinely the best, and most honest, answer I could give her. I left my six-week postpartum appointment with very little direction on what to do next.

The information is out there, but it’s all over the place, making it really hard to know what you can actually trust. You’re asking your doctor one thing, texting a friend about something else, looking for a therapist, Googling at 2 a.m., ending up on Reddit or asking a Facebook mom group. And listen, I’ve done all of the above, but “a stranger on the internet said...” probably shouldn’t be our top reference for maternal care. You’re basically trying to piece together your own support while also taking care of a baby. Mothr. is our attempt to make it a little easier. 

How did you come up with this idea?
It really came out of our own experiences becoming mothers and then talking to other mothers and realizing how many of us were struggling with different versions of the same things. We started talking to more women, and there was so much “Wait, you too?” or “Why didn’t anybody tell me about this?” Eventually it became pretty hard to ignore. That’s really where Mothr. came from.

My co-founders, Valerie and Lauren, brought their own experiences of motherhood to it too, and together we kept coming back to what we wished had existed for us. That’s what we’re most excited about!! Building something we genuinely would have wanted ourselves. Not another person telling you what you should be doing or how you should be feeling, but a place you can come to and say, “Okay, this is what’s going on with me. Where do I even start?” We hope we can make figuring out what comes next feel a little more doable and a lot less stressful.

What does matrescence mean to you?
It’s crazy that I only learned this word in the last year and a half!! I wish I had known the word “matrescence” when I first became a mother. It basically gave a name to something I had been experiencing without realizing it was actually a thing. We understand that adolescence is a huge transition. Your body changes, your hormones change, your relationships change, and your sense of who you are changes. Becoming a mother can do all of those things too, but somehow we expect women to have a baby and just become “Mom.” For me, matrescence gave me permission to understand that I wasn’t supposed to have it all figured out right away. I was becoming someone new, and that takes time. I think sometimes just having a word for what you’re going through can make you feel a lot less alone in it.

Why is community such an important aspect of motherhood?
Motherhood can be incredibly lonely while also leaving you almost never alone. You can have a partner, friends, family, childcare, a group chat full of other moms, and still feel like nobody quite understands what you’re experiencing. There’s something incredibly powerful and validating about another mother saying, “same.” Not because it fixes anything, but because suddenly you have context for something you thought you were experiencing by yourself. That’s the kind of community we want to build with Mothr. Not one where everyone mothers the same way or gives each other unsolicited advice, but one where you can be honest about the complicated parts without having to qualify how much you love your children first.

What advice would you give to a mother who is currently struggling with her identity?
I spent a lot of time waiting to feel like myself again. With time and professional help, I realized I wasn’t going back to who I was before kids. And honestly, I think I’ve only really accepted that in the last year. I still miss parts of that version of me, and I also love the life I have now. I can love being a mother and still want things that belong only to me. For me, sometimes that’s as simple as going to dinner with friends and not talking about my kids the entire time. So my advice would be to find small ways to make room for the parts of you that exist outside of being someone’s mother. They’re still yours.

”I placed an online order for wipes at Target and walked to go pick them up with my 1-year-old in tow. When we got there, an employee brought out this gigantic box and I was like, ‘Oh no! I don’t know how I’m going to carry this home.” (I realized I had accidentally bought them in bulk.) She said, ‘Ma’am, there’s another box this same size inside, I just couldn’t carry them both at once.’ So we unpacked them all and I stuffed them in my daughter’s stroller and basically anywhere there was space. We had to stop a few times on the way home, but I’m good for the rest of the year.”
—Folly reader Rachel M.

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