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/

53. How the Perfect Mother Myth Impacts Individual Mothers

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.

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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/

54. The Expectations of the ‘Good Child’ and the ‘Good Mother’

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.

55. Maternal Ambivalence

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/

56. Identity Creation as Mothers

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.

57. Embracing Our Maternal (and Professional) Expertise

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.

58. Alternatives to The Perfect Mother Myth

“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 her memoir ‘Sex in the Museum’. She is now working on her second book ‘Mama Sex’, an anthropological look at motherhood and sexuality. 

In this conversation Sarah explains how modern relationships and the mental load placed on mothers is representative of an anti-aphrodisiac cultural tsunami. This dive into motherhood and sexuality is framed by both individual questions of self and identity, as well as broader sociocultural and historical questions about how context shapes individual experiences.

Sarah shares powerful insights into the potential that motherhood has as a pathway to sexual revolution. She speaks to the barriers and obstacles mothers face in their sexual fulfilment - leading to the ‘orgasm gap’ - and offers advice for how we can rebuild and strengthen our own relationship with our sexuality, without it having to be another thing on our to-do list.

Head to Sarah’s website  https://www.mamasexbook.com/ take the ‘Mama Sex’ quiz, and follow her at @mamasexbook and @curatorofsex

59. The Sexual Revolution of Motherhood

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?

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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 perfectionism and parental mental health, and in this conversation we explore the interrelated ways that the pressures we experience and place on ourselves effect the relationship we have with our partners (if we’re partnered), ourselves, and our children.

Michaela shares what she sees as being the biggest challenges of early parenthood for couples, and explains the differences between sacrifice and compromise, and how these can operate for new parents.

We reflect on the disjuncture between our expectations of parenthood and the lived realities, and the tension between individual and structural responsibility for where we find ourselves, and how we move forward into change.

Michaela shares her ‘pause, purpose, play’ model to help guide us into self-compassion and challenging the perfectionist pressures that pervade so many of the expectations of partnerships and parenthood. 

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You can find Michaela on Instagram @the_thomas_connection and Facebook @TheThomasConnection as well as on the podcast Pause Purpose Play with Michaela Thomas. You can purchase her book The Lasting Connection here: www.thethomasconnection.co.uk/thelastingconnection   is the link for the book, and my couples and see her couples course here: www.thethomasconnection.co.uk/thecompassionatecouple

60. Perfectionism in Partnerships and in Parenting

“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 this conversation with Kamya O’Keeffe, we explore what these transitions can mean, the intergenerational connections between women and mothers, the cloak of invisibility that can be part of elderhood, and the dismantling of hierarchy between women as our site of power and connection.

Kamya is a senior facilitator of Rites of Passage programmes and a mentor to women leaders. Kamya creates safety held rituals and circles through her presence and attention.  She listens for the whispers and songs of the underground stream of our inner knowing, and she names the harmful cultural narratives and value systems at the source of our wounding, to disrupt the cycle of our mother wounds. She designs experiences that honour women with joy and celebration. 

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You can connect with Kamya O'Keeffee further through her Instagram at @kamyaokeeffe or find out more about the Rites of Passage programs on Facebook @theritesofpassageinstitute 

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Find out more about Sophie’s group The Liberated Motherhood Membership and join the July special of $149 for a 6 month membership bundle - https://drsophiebrock.com/liberatedmotherhood/

61. Motherhood as a Rite of Passage

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 in being kidnapped as a baby and her connection to land and culture severed, and her amazing story of reconnection, right before she became a mother herself. 

Maha speaks about fear and patriarchy, the divisions that have been created between women when it comes to birth and motherhood, the rites of passage she has experienced through menopause and the powerful and revolutionary connections to be fostered between generations of women.

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Maha is the author of Dance of the Womb: The Essential Guide to Belly Dance for Pregnancy and Birth book, endorsed by Dr Michel Odent, Sheila Kitzinger, Dr Sarah Buckley and the creator of the follow on BellydanceBirth® Practice Video Series (Dance of the Womb: A Gentle Guide to Belly Dance for Pregnancy and Birth).

 
You can find her on Instagram @maha_al_musa 

Facebook at - https://www.facebook.com/mahaalmusabirthvisionary

Maha’s website: mahaalmusa.com

Online program: https://sales.mahaalmusa.com/embodybirth

Virtual training: https://mahaalmusa.kartra.com/page/virtualtraining

62. Awakening to the Possibilities of Birth

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

49. Rethinking 'Mummy Brain'

The role of being a Mother offers us the potential for incredible expansion, growth, and power, while also being one of – if not THE – most challenging, undervalued, and taken for granted roles in the world. Motherhood Studies Sociologist, researcher, and single Mother, Dr Sophie Brock hosts The Good Enough Mother (TGEM) podcast with an aim to change how Motherhood is culturally defined and individually experienced. TGEM draws its name from a theorist and pediatrician Winnicott, who highlighted the ways ‘good enough’ parenting is actually what is best for our children – not perfectionism. The podcast centres the Mother as the starting point for conversations with experts and change-makers who are passionate about seeing social, cultural, and institutional change to better support Mothers and therefore our families, and communities.

49. Rethinking 'Mummy Brain'

The Good Enough Mother

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