What remains ‘under the surface’ in Motherhood and still so taboo to talk about directly? ‘Mom-rage’. Minna Dubin published two articles in The New York Times on maternal rage. In this conversation we reflect on Minna’s experience of publishing on this taboo topic, as well as her journey in writing a book about ‘mom rage’ due out in 2023 (available for pre-order in 2022 through her website below). Minna is a writer, workshop facilitator and occasional public artist, located in California. Her es...
Sep 13, 2021•46 min
In this solo episode I reflect on my own journey of coming to Motherhood Studies and what is has meant to study Motherhood before coming a Mother myself. I share important distinctions between Motherhood the structure, Mothering the practice, and Mother the identity, and ponder on the ways our socialisation has set us up for a particular perspective on what it means to be a Mother and how this is perhaps connected to experiences of the ‘maternal’ being devalued socially and professionally. There...
Aug 30, 2021•33 min
We may recognise, acknowledge, and seek to explore biological, psychological, and sociological dimensions that are involved in the transition to motherhood and experience of being a mother – but what about the ‘environmental’? Our environment and our relationship to the natural world is a critical lens through which we can interpret, explore, and understand our experience of Motherhood. This conversation is with Dr Allison Davis, a researcher, writer, counselor, and educator of maternal mental h...
Aug 16, 2021•40 min
In this episode I share my reflections on how the ‘perfect mother myth’ is linked to notions of productivity and worth, and add some nuance to the conversation about self-sacrifice in Motherhood. Sometimes, it can feel like there is a competition for busy-ness to try and prove how hard we are trying and how much it is we are carrying. At the same time though, there are tangible ways that make it feel like we can’t escape the weight of responsibilities, expectations, and demands that we face. It ...
Aug 02, 2021•40 min
In this episode, Maha Al Musa, founder and creator of BellydanceBirth® and EmbodyBirthᵀᴹ shares her passion and advocacy for an expansion and reclaiming of what birth can mean, and how we as mothers experience and make meaning of our births. Maha is of Palestinian/Lebanese origin and draws on her cultural, ancestral, and mothering wisdom to teach her signature childbirth education and preparation programs for mothers-to-be and birth professionals. In the episode she shares part of her life story...
Jul 19, 2021•1 hr 2 min
“I know that women can remember the wholehearted ways of knowing carried deep in our bones to heal their own their own lives, and this work is the medicine needed to reweave the world.” Kamya O'Keeffe. This podcast episode traverses the the transitions we experience through motherhood, and their power and potential. While an emphasis on that initial transition into motherhood is so important, motherhood continues to be a portal through which we experience transitions as our children grow. In thi...
Jul 05, 2021•52 min
How do the pressures we experience both individually and contextually, shape the relationships we have with our partners, children, and ourselves, and what can we do to deepen our sense of connection? . . . This episode is with Michaela Thomas, an experienced Clinical Psychologist, Couples Therapist and founder of The Thomas Connection. She is also a speaker and author of The Lasting Connection, about developing compassion for yourself and your partner. Michaela has a special interest in perfect...
Jun 21, 2021•49 min
“We become mothers in the womb of society. A mother’s relationship with sex can’t be disentangled from how she feels about herself, how she feels about her partner, as well as how society impacts and constructs her worldview.” Sarah Forbes. This episode is with Sarah Forbes, a curator, sexual culturalist and author who has been dubbed a ‘sexpert supreme’ by Cosmopolitan Magazine. Sarah is trained as an anthropologist and spent a decade as the Curator of the Museum of Sex in New York, captured in...
Jun 07, 2021•56 min
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 unsettli...
May 24, 2021•24 min
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., ...
May 10, 2021•41 min
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 tha...
Apr 26, 2021•48 min
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 ...
Apr 13, 2021•27 min
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 find...
Mar 29, 2021•35 min
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, mot...
Mar 15, 2021•33 min
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 mot...
Mar 02, 2021•54 min
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 socia...
Feb 15, 2021•55 min
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...
Feb 01, 2021•37 min
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 neuroscienc...
Jan 18, 2021•55 min
This final episode of 2020 is a reflection on the ways perfect motherhood shapes the lives of mothers, and explains how and why the festive season and other celebrations intensify and amplify this pressure. I give voice to the often-invisible load that women carry at this time and the expectations on mothers, children, and the ‘family’ unit to ‘perform’. I reflect on the mental load, but also on some of the challenges in having the only solutions suggested as ‘stepping back’ or ‘delegating’. I p...
Dec 21, 2020•33 min
Dr Greer Kirshenbaum is the first ever neuroscientist doula and is founder of Nurture Neuroscience. She has worked in academic neuroscience labs, studying how genetics and experience shape the brain, nervous system and body to influence lifelong physical and mental health. Greer uses her knowledge and expertise from the scientific world to offer that research and information directly to parents and educators. In this episode she shares some of this information, including how and why the early ye...
Dec 07, 2020•37 min
This is a conversation about grief and mothering, and the complex challenges that arise when not only grieving the death of your child, but in also supporting your children who are grieving the death of their sibling. I speak with Emma Poore, mother to 3 children, writer, illustrator, and author of ‘Where are you Lydie?’ – a picture book for young siblings and families managing the loss of a baby or young child. Emma has written and illustrated this book honouring her daughter Lydie and her fami...
Nov 23, 2020•47 min
What does ‘conscious parenting’ mean and how does it afford us the opportunity for growth as mothers? This conversation is with Bridget Wood, thought leader on human behaviour and mother to three young children. Bridget discusses the ways conscious parenting is ultimately about being in relationship with our children, recognising that our child is teaching us just as much as we are teaching them. We discuss the ways our perspectives on the world frame our reality, and the ways this can be both a...
Nov 09, 2020•50 min
This conversation about breastfeeding may be unlike any you’ve heard so far. I speak with world-renowned breastfeeding expert Professor Amy Brown from Swansea University, who specialises in research exploring early experiences of parenthood with a focus on infant feeding, mental health and normal baby behaviour. We talk about the pressure mothers are under to ‘get it right’ and how this is connected to expectations of both being a ‘good mother’ and having a ‘good baby’. Amy shares insights on th...
Oct 26, 2020•56 min
*Trigger warning – talk of intrusive harm thoughts. Perhaps surprisingly, having unwanted and intrusive thoughts as a mother is incredibly common, and in fact – almost universal. Yet, how often is this spoken about in motherhood? In this episode I interview Dr Caroline Boyd, a chartered clinical psychologist who is an expert on intrusive, unwanted harm thoughts that mothers have about their babies. We talk about the connection between harm thoughts and actually causing harm to our children, wher...
Oct 12, 2020•53 min
In this solo episode I reflect on the cultural construction of Motherhood as a ‘mask’ that we are expected to wear. We recognise, internalise and perform what it means to be a ‘good mother’ in our society. The power of this mask of Motherhood is that we are expected to wear it as our ‘natural’ state. It is supposed to come effortlessly, without complaint. We can convince ourselves while holding up the mask, that this is not only who we ‘are’ (or who we’re striving to be) but that holding up this...
Sep 27, 2020•32 min
Often, there can feel as though there is a conflict between the ways we would like to parent, and the social and structural forces that shape and influence our everyday lives as mothers. Amanda Donnet from Spilt Milk Psychology joins me in this conversation to discuss the ways so often, our ‘needs’ as mothers are framed as being in competition with the needs of our children. Negotiating this and finding space for our ‘selves’ is therefore connected with the idea that we need to be separated from...
Sep 14, 2020•1 hr 8 min
This is a conversation about the concept of ‘Matrescence’ as the transition into the identity of being a mother – a process that is unfolding and ongoing. I speak with Amy Taylor-Kabbatz who is a best-selling author, speaker, journalist, Matrescence Activist and mama of three. After more than a decade covering breaking news and current affairs for the ABC, Amy’s ‘traditional’ career took an unexpected turn when she found herself lost, overwhelmed and diagnosed with a thyroid condition after the ...
Aug 31, 2020•39 min
In this episode I talk with Leisa Masters from Earthside Birth Services on the subject of money and worth in motherhood and in business. We are both single mothers and business owners whose work supports mothers. It’s from this context that we explore how mothering is financially devalued, and the correlated challenges we’ve experienced in running businesses that support mothers. This episode covers research on the ‘motherhood penalty’, the ‘maternal ‘wall’ as the new ‘glass ceiling’, and the ec...
Aug 17, 2020•54 min
The ever-unfolding transition into motherhood is one that often asks us to connect in with our values, our desires, and our sense of identity, to embark on a journey of growth and transformation in ways that we had never anticipated before becoming mothers. This journey of ‘soul-work’ is the focus of this conversation with Dr Aleksandra Staneva. Dr Staneva is a mother, scholar, and psychotherapist who supports women to re-member and re-integrate their deep connection with their own soul. This ep...
Aug 03, 2020•52 min
This is a conversation with Eileen Robertson Hamra about her memoir ‘Time to Fly: Life and Love after Loss’ – a story of resilience, grief, and love, told with raw honesty and deep vulnerability. In December 2011 Eileen and Brian Robertson and their three young children were preparing for Christmas celebrations together, when Brian was tragically killed in an airplane crash. Ripping their world apart, Eileen says “waves of grief start immediately, and when the first wave hit, it knocked me over....
Jul 20, 2020•47 min
