Motherscope LLC | San Diego, CA motherscope.com Cover Illustration by Alexandra Harvey | Mothershaped The Mom Salon logo by Samantha Acker | Gemini Designs Copyright © 2021 by Motherscope LLC and the individual contributors. All rights reserved. Leonard, Jackie (editor) The Mom Salon | March 2021 The Mom Salon features the writings of Motherscope’s 2021 Contributors, appearing in rotation from Mar. 2021 through Feb. 2022: Kathryn Bailey, Eunice Brownlee, Kelsey Cichoski, Heather Cleaves, Laci Hoyt, Micah Klassen, Shanthy Milne, Alyssa Nutile, Holly Ruskin, Kaitlin Solimine, Colleen Tirtirian, Megan Vos, Melaina Williams
SUBMISSIONS We believe every mother has a compelling story — and we are challenging you to take ownership of your story, to speak your truth. Motherscope examines the corners of motherhood we don’t often talk about. Be specific, be personal, be real. We want to hear from you! Check our Submission page for up-to-date information on how to contribute to our next issue. motherscope.com/submit Inquiries: hello@motherscope.com
In This Month’s Mom Salon: Foreword by Motherscope Founder, Jackie Leonard
2
Holly Ruskin | milestones // .
3
Melaina Williams | Postpartum Glory, The smallness, 3 A.M.
7
Alyssa Nutile | Don’t Call Us Special
13
Megan Vos | Rest and Release
18
1
Foreword 2020 was a lonely year. Maybe one of the loneliest on record. How odd has it been to partake in such a collective experience while still feeling so incredibly disconnected? Maybe not that strange at all if you call yourself a mother. Another widely collective AND isolating experience. During these uncertain times, we cling to the glimmers of hope and connection we can find. They are there, as they have always been, and we as humans naturally seek continued opportunities to close the gaps between us. Writing is powerful. Anytime I invite stories for my review, the writing I receive always blows me away. When I opened applications for regular paid contributors at the end of last year, I thought I’d be searching for four writers so I could publish consistently on the Motherscope blog. Thanks to the exceptional writing I encountered, and a big idea I couldn’t ignore, four turned to thirteen and blog contributors became a team of remote writers in residence for the year. The Mom Salon, Motherscope’s monthly print zine, was born. The mission? Deliver stories to the homes of mothers across the globe, inviting engagement, discourse and reflection. The impact? We get to cast our net far and wide to create a dense social circle that anyone can be a part of, regardless of where you are. In your hand is both a conversation starter and companion. Within each issue, you’ll encounter the stories of four to five women experiencing motherhood in their own unique ways. After each reading, you’ll find space to record your thoughts too. In essence, this is your opportunity to dialogue with a group of moms each month. May each of the stories within these pages remind you that, though we may be separated, we are closer than you think. Welcome to the Mom Salon.
- Jackie Leonard 2
milestones // . By Holly Ruskin Not long after my daughter was born, I was sent a ‘First Year’ baby book by a very kind relative. It sat on our kitchen table along with other lovely gifts and the usual post-birth ‘too tired to even consider tidying up’ detritus for about a month. Every time I walked past it — usually with my daughter crying in a sling while I desperately tried to get her to sleep — I would feel a pang of guilt at not having noted down a single milestone. Postnatal depression (PND) had overcome me like the wave of a tsunami and just getting through each day was an achievement, never mind whether or not my daughter could smile or sit up on her own. Eventually I moved the book into her bedroom where it sits now on her bookshelf. I managed to find a quiet ten minutes recently and leafed through its pages, looking for important things I could remember. The first time she rolled over was on Christmas Eve; her first crawl in the new year and the day she let out a beautiful peal of laughter was while she was in hospital — a scary time, punctuated by the pure joy of that moment. Needless to say, as a new mum recovering from PND in a global pandemic, there are many blank pages in my daughter’s ‘First Year’ book. I’m sure in years to come I’ll look at it and realise those empty spaces are memories in their own right; visual reminders of how hard that first year of parenting really is. But more than that, how many moments are unrecorded — missing — from our own motherhood journeys, because we’re too busy caring for another human being. Matresence is a hugely important time in a woman’s life, perhaps the biggest life shift she will ever experience. Yet there is very little research into it and much less written about the process of moving from woman to mother. I recently posted a poem I’d written to my Instagram account that spoke of how I look inward, rather than back at my daughter, to find the milestones that I’ve achieved as a mother. After all, she is not a product of my success nor is she a marker of her own. My daughter is her own being, much more than the sum of her parts and I value her unique soul more than the moment she walked for the 3
first time. While I love the sentiment of recording all the moments I may one day wish to remember, there is something important in marking the time it took me to become her mother. We’re sold countless baby products — I have been lured into acquiring many of them — as though they are commodities detached from the women who made them. There is a baby business that is all about the different ways we can accessorize them or help them to crawl/walk/run (often before they’re developmentally ready) and it’s booming. So baby milestones often seem like fabricated ways to make us enter them into competition with other babies, or themselves and even us with other mothers. But more than that, I feel strongly that as woman our achievements are often undervalued by a society still skewed toward a patriarchal (male) idea of success. Yet as a mother I know I have reached the summit of many more mountains than I ever would have climbed before. What about my milestones? Our mothering milestones? Where’s our book? I should caveat here — as most mothers seem inclined to when they spend more time talking about themselves than their children — that I love my daughter deeply and hope one day she’ll recognise the milestones she sets for herself. The ones she worked towards and is proud of, regardless of what is set for her. And I’ll be right there next to her, cheering her on. Now though, I realise that I also hold this same hope for myself as a mother. To set, recognise and celebrate my own mothering milestones. Like the first time I woke up in the morning full of hope not dread. The day I realised I could look after my daughter on my own without fear. The moment I looked down at her little head as she nestled into my breast and felt a rush of love more powerful than I have ever experienced. The first solo trip to a coffee shop — just me and my daughter — after a terrifying bus journey (first time mums will recognise that disorientating feeling of everyday activities suddenly seeming impossibly difficult). Then there was the time my husband was in the hospital and I had food poisoning, which meant staying up all night alone either feeding my daughter back to sleep or vomiting into a toilet — or both. Making it through that night is a milestone that proves my strength as a mother, helps me remember that I CAN do this hardest of all jobs and sometimes I can do it alone while also emptying the contents of my stomach. All this is not to say that I wasn’t grateful to be given a beautiful place to store those first precious memories of my daughter. There is something special about knowing one day I’ll sit down with that book and feel the 4