Help the Mothers - Heal the World

This sentence came to me, suddenly, about 3 years ago. The feminist within me recoiled, but there was a part of me that was deeply moved by it. Somehow, I knew this was inextricably connected to what I wanted to do, needed to do, in the world. And just to clarify up front: this is not about “womanhood” in a way that excludes everyone who was not born, or does not identify, that way. It’s just written from my perspective, and I happen to identify as a woman, and I happen to have given birth to 3 children – based on which I also identify as a mother. Therefore, this is the only perspective I can approach my life & work from.

But back to the point, the sentence, that started this whole thing. At first, I tried to ignore it – I figured it was just another among the millions of thoughts that seemed to be racing through my postpartum-depression-clouded mind at the time. Over the following years I got better, I figured out how I want to use what happened to me to help others, and I refined that vision into something concrete. Birth of a Mother (Geburt einer Mutter) was born – and I was feeling motivated, driven, excited. Probably, truly, for the first time in my life. Then, after a few months, there it was again: “Help the Mothers, Heal the World”. It felt like it kept “bothering me”, kept wanting something from me that I didn’t understand. Inside of me, the struggle began anew. As a feminist, I couldn’t possibly want to have that be the guiding principle of my work, of what I stood for.

But then it dawned on me. Whether I like it or not, I am a shaper of at least 3 members of a future generation of humans. The way I treat my kids, the way I contextualize the things that happen in our lives to them, the way I show up in the world, will inevitably shape how they see the world, and what they think it means to be a person in that world. Again, let me clarify: my husband and I are raising these 3 kids together, and have had countless discussions – the first of which happened well before any of those kids ever entered the picture – about how to share this responsibility, how to be equal parents, how to avoid the traditional gender roles that neither of us wanted to live within. We are not doing it perfectly – but I do think, living in what I consider to be a very traditional culture in this respect, we are doing a pretty good job of it. And yet, personally, I happen to be the mother of these children. I happen to be a woman who got pregnant twice, gave birth to three children, and suffered from postpartum depression after both of those births. So, this is the perspective I draw from.

My point, finally, is this. As a mother, you are a shaper of future generations. No matter how equally you parent with your partner, or what gender they happen to be, a mother will always be a vital part of what shapes her children’s worldviews, behaviors, and the adults that they will hopefully grow into some day. There is no denying the vastness of that responsibility. And therefore, I feel deeply that it is crucial that mothers everywhere get more support, both of the practical and moral variety. And not just because that is simply the right thing to do for the people who are growing & birthing the next generations of humanity. But because those same people, if they get this support, if they are given the possibility to live in a more connected way, to heal their own childhood wounds, to break destructive patterns from their past – will literally play a vital role in shaping what the world will look like in the decades to come.

I feel deeply optimistic about the potential for humans to live together and share this planet in a different way. But for that to become a reality, some distant day, children need to be growing up around adults who are emotionally mature, who can provide the unconditional love & support that any child deserves, and who guide them. Not by protecting them from all that is hard in the world, but by showing them a way through those hard things, by showing them how to feel all their feelings, and how to let those feelings drive them toward making the world a better place, little by little, just by how they show up in their lives, their communities, their world.

So yeah: “Help the Mothers, Heal the World” indeed. Suddenly, this feels like a powerful declaration of a kind of revolution to me. As mothers, we have the power to make the world a better place – but we have to start by facing whatever is getting in the way of us showing up as our whole selves. If we do the work of facing our past and healing our wounds, we can show the kids in our lives how to lead with love, compassion & tenderness – and thereby, we can raise generations of adults who will do the same.