57. Embracing Our Maternal (and Professional) Expertise

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.