The Good Enough Mother

Our ongoing journey through Motherhood can involve a process of letting go as much as of new learning and growth. In this episode I reflect on the process of what it means to go on the journey of unpacking how we have internalised the ‘perfect mother myth’ and have been socialized into the expectations of what it means to be a ‘Mother’. The birth of a new awareness, and (re)creation of a new identity can feel alluring, exciting, liberating, and/or empowering. But it can also feel really unsettling, especially at first. This episode speaks to this experience and on how we can build new models of what it means to be a mother. I consider a model of ‘integrated’ motherhood, and invite you to reflect on some questions about your own sense of self and identity.

Maternal knowledge and the expertise we develop through the practice of mothering our children is often defined as being in the ‘private’ realm, while professionals are regarded as experts in the ‘public’ realm. When the two are brought together, there can be collision and challenge, and/or there can be the meeting of experience and expertise in a way that is powerful, transformative, and enriching for our children. This conversation about this meeting point, is with Emily Adler Mosqueda, M.S., CCC-SLP who is a bilingual and bicultural pediatric speech-language pathologist, associate clinical professor, and mother of two. Emily experienced postpartum depression late in her second postpartum, and has become an advocate teaching about parental mental health factors to her graduate speech-language pathology students. In this episode we reflect on the intersection of knowledge, experience, and authority, and the claiming of maternal authority and utilizing of professional expertise. Speaking of the experience of both being a mother, and working in supporting mothers, Emily also shares how the development of maternal thinking as mothers can inform and enrich our careers. Connect with Emily at emilyadlermosqueda.com and on Instagram @emily.adler.mosqueda and her account @postpartum365 where she shares peer-reviewed research on postpartum and Motherhood Studies topics in an effort to shift the cultural understanding of how long the postpartum time is, and how to centralize mothers in their mothering and experience of motherhood. Emily is also the author of the free children’s book My Big Feelings and The Big Bad Virus available at mybigfeelings.com in English and Spanish.

How do we navigate challenging the model of self-sacrificial motherhood to ‘find ourselves’ as Mothers, when our children need us so intensely and we lack adequate support? What narratives do we attach to our identities and the ‘roles’ we occupy, and how do we foster connection with who we really are? How do we move from acceptance of our circumstances, into action to claim a sense of agency, while maintaining mothering – and interdependence - as a high value? These are some of the questions that Chasity and I discuss in this episode, covering the complex but foundational topic of ‘identity’ in Motherhood, while sharing how we each relate to our sense of ‘self’ as women and mothers. Chasity from Momfully You is a licensed Therapist, coach, and founder of Momfully You Academy – an online community helping mothers reclaim their identity and fully love the authentic version of themselves. In her wisdom as both a therapist and Mother, Chasity shares the differences between ‘inadequacy’ and ‘enoughness’, why she embraces ‘practice over progress’, and how she implements into her own life what she teaches. Connect with Chasity @momfully.you or https://momfullyyou.com/

What is maternal ambivalence and how can embracing ambivalence help us as Mothers? I share what maternal ambivalence is and isn’t, whether it is something we can ‘escape’ in motherhood, and how ambivalence is connected to ‘Mum guilt’ and our sense of identity. Ambivalence can be a way for us to shift and change our relationship to and experience of maternal guilt. In this episode I offer some suggestions for how you might ignite your own curiosity in exploring ambivalence further. I explain the connections between ambivalence and the perfect mother myth, and why the version of Motherhood that is put on a pedestal in our society robs us of the opportunity to embrace ambivalence. This then shapes our capacity to feel the full potential of joy and depth of experience that may be available to us. This episode invites you to reflect on your own experiences of Mum guilt, of where you’re being expected or asked to ‘choose’ in Motherhood, of how you construct your sense of identity and think about your 'self', and how you may be able to open yourself to the possibility of embracing ambivalence as a Mother.

Have you ever felt judged as a mother based on the way your child has behaved? In this episode I discuss the concept of the ‘good child’ and how it relates to the ‘good mother’ concept – also known as the perfect mother myth. In the same ways that mothers experience social pressures and expectations around how we should act and behave, our children also live within social pressure, and this starts at infancy. I reflect on the markers of the ‘good baby’ up until the ‘good teenager’ and share findings from my PhD research on the consistent 5 themes/traits of the ‘good child’ identified across my research interviews. Both the ‘good child’ and the ‘good mother’ rely on compliance and people-pleasing, but they can also be what help us to foster a sense of belonging and social acceptance. This is part of why such concepts can remain so powerful, and yet I argue that they actually fuel many of our maternal experiences of resentment, anger, and guilt. The connection between the ‘good mother’ and ‘good child’ actually sets up mothers and our children up to experience DISconnection – from ourselves, and each other. Examining these concepts and how they show up for us and our children allows us to cultivate broader perspectives on the dynamics that are at play as we mother, as well as challenge correlations often made between our children, our mothering, and our worthiness. . . . If you work with Mothers and want to support them further through integrating sociological understandings of Motherhood into your practice, consider The Motherhood Studies Practitioner Certification beginning April 12th. Find out more info here - https://drsophiebrock.com/motherhoodstudies/

The social construction of Motherhood impacts us as individual mothers. This is the case even when we resist the ‘shoulds’. In this episode I discuss what some of these impacts are and draw on the analogy of the ‘fish tank’ to help describe how we come to experience the social dimensions of Motherhood on an individual level, and why it is important to consider ‘culturally detoxing’ from intensive mothering ideology – and how much this process is even possible. I point to the ways that guilt, mother-blame, and a ‘loss’ of self and identity are a consequence of living within patriarchal Motherhood, and the ways we are set up to ‘choose’ between binaries as women and mothers, such as that of the Madonna or the whore and the self-less or the self-ish Mother. This episode covers research on mental health outcomes for Mothers as a result of living within the current cultural construction of Motherhood, and I share the process I’ve undergone in considering the purpose and direction of my work with my Liberated Motherhood group after reading this research. While the experience of being a Mother is one that is so personal, changing the cultural construction of Motherhood that shapes individual experience is a public, social, political, professional, and cultural issue. If you work with mothers and would like to be part of this change, consider enrolling in The Motherhood Studies Practitioner Certification online course, beginning April 12, 2021 - https://drsophiebrock.com/motherhoodstudies/

Janet Fraser’s story is one that I think every woman and mother needs to hear. As she says, when feminists said the personal was political, they probably did not anticipate in how many ways this could be true. Janet’s baby was born still. She was then subjected to a police investigation, a coronial inquiry, media scrutiny, and public vitriol. As she articulates in her book and explains in this episode, Janet was punished for her activism for birthing women, and her refusal to be an ‘obedient mother’. This conversation shares both Janet’s personal experience, while also discussing the broader systems of our culture, society, and institutions that we live within as women and mothers. We talk about the way this can create polarization between us in motherhood, the public ‘owning’ of women’s emotions, bodily autonomy in birth, the problems with talking about ‘choice’, and the complexity of grief. Janet is a mother, poet, historian, and has been National Convenor of the Australian homebirth network, Joyous Birth since 2004. She writes at Patreon, where she foments women’s studies and revolution at Despatches from the Matriarchy. You can catch her on Facebook and Twitter. Order Janet's book, 'Born Still: A Memoir of Grief' - https://www.spinifexpress.com.au/shop/p/9781925950120

As mothers, we shoulder the burden of structural inadequacies but can feel these inadequacies as personal failings – like it is all ‘on us’. As so many of us are mothering in isolation, without the support or community that we need, this is so often the case - it IS left up to us and us alone. We are also socialised into taking individual responsibility for what are collective challenges, and sold the ‘solutions’ of doing more, buying more, and being ‘better’. Understanding how and why the social construction of motherhood fails mothers (and our children) and sets us up to experience fatigue, guilt, and disconnection, is the first step to challenging this cultural construction. But it can be difficult to then take these understandings and create real shifts in our beliefs and practices as women who mother. We can feel ‘stuck’ – especially if working towards such changes is framed in any way as a ‘taking away’ of our children. This is part of what I discuss in this episode with Beth Berry – author of Motherwhelmed, founder of Revolution From Home, and Mother to four daughters. Beth shares her wisdom and insights as a Mother, writer, activist, life coach and circle facilitator as we become what she terms ‘soul-fire stewards’ to rise up, cultivate our agency, and ‘mother ourselves back to wholeness’. Connect with Beth on social media @revolutionfromhome and buy a copy of her book Motherwhelmed here - https://revolutionfromhome.com/

In this episode I address what I believe are some misunderstandings about the concept and application of the ‘good enough’ mother as an approach to parenting. I recognise the subjective, complex, and changing use of language – as it is attached to meaning – and share some of the challenges involved in actually enacting a theory like this in our everyday lived reality as mothers. This involves defending the value of good enough mothering as an approach, and describing some of the benefits that it can offer to us and our children. I also discuss some of the costs of subscribing to intensive mothering ideology – or the ‘perfect mother myth’ – as motivation for us to consider integrating a ‘good enough mothering’ perspective. I share my own interpretation of what I see ‘good enough mothering’ to mean, which guides both my work with Mothers, and my own mothering of my daughter.

Did you know that a Mother’s brain is more malleable and receptive to learning after giving birth? In this episode of TGEM I chat with Dr Jodi Pawluski, behavioural neuroscientist and therapist about the fascinating effects of motherhood on the maternal brain. We talk about whether ‘Mummy brain’ actually exists, and the interplay between both social and physiological factors that shape our experience of mothering. Dr Pawluski reflects on what has been left out and not yet explored in neuroscience when it comes to motherhood, and I ask her about the brain differences between those of us who give birth to a baby, compared with fathers and other caregivers. We open up discussion about the plasticity of our brains, and how the changes we go through when we become Mothers impact relationships, attachment, and so much more. You can connect with Dr Pawluski through her website https://www.jodipawluski.com/ listen to her podcast Mommy Brain Revisited, and find her on Instagram @dr.jodi_pawluski