Mothering the Mother

Motherhood is complex.

Society does a very good job of celebrating the arrival of a new baby, but rarely does is pay much attention to the complexities this transition presents to the Daughter becoming Mother.

The transition into motherhood is easier for some than it is for others.

Some daughters enter motherhood with a supportive internalized mother – a quality of positive mothering that has been passed down through the generations. For her, while the demands of childrearing may prove exhausting, she enters motherhood with a sense of competency and preparedness. When faced with uncertainty or an overwhelming sense of not knowing, this daughter, having been sufficiently mothered herself, is able to ask, “What would mom do?” She can draw on her own personal experience of being attended to in a way that met her developing needs as a child, an adolescent, and eventually a young adult, and thus securely meet the developing needs of her growing child. This daughter arrives at motherhood able to name her own needs and her desires; further, she is adept at meeting them. She understands that mothering is not meant to be self-sacrificial. If her mothering work is to be sustainable, she knows she must replenish her own resources, fill the vessel from which her own child must draw.

For many others, however, there is no supportive mothering legacy to inherit. Instead, these daughters arrive at motherhood having inherited the same lack of mothering their own mothers received. In constant need of mothering themselves, they feel anxious, uncertain, and ill-equipped to meet the demands that mothering presents.

When we arrive at mothering in this way, we are very susceptible to the societal standards that dictate what mothers and mothering “should” look like—namely that it should be joyfully self-sacrificing and rewarding. The pressure to achieve this standard dismisses the complexity of a daughter’s lived experience and further alienates her from her right to claim the unique and specific terms that identify her own motherhood.

Mothering the Mother is an eight-week, online, closed group, designed to explore the range of issues relevant to the unmothered mother.

This group will:

• Normalize the complexities and difficulties of mothering
• Examine systems that create the conditions that interfere and fail to support those who mother
• Understand, without blame, the mothering legacy that has been inherited by daughters
• Develop internal strategies that compensate for one’s lack of mothering received
• Redefine what healthy mothering looks like and feels like
• Build community among daughters and mothers

This group is open to anyone who identifies as Mother and/or Daughter and who wants to explore the legacy of their mothering, including those who mother others and those who wish to mother themselves.

The goal of this group is to deepen your understanding of Self. While this is largely a psycho-educational group, participants should expect to venture introspectively and share personal discoveries in both dyad and whole group formats. Due to the sensitive nature of this work, interested participants will be asked to fill out a short questionnaire to confirm suitability.

A waitlist will be maintained as needs be.

All group dates & times:

• Thursday, January 11 | 7:00PM-9:00PM

• Thursday, January 18 | 7:00PM-9:00PM

• Thursday, January 25 | 7:00PM-9:00PM

• Thursday, February 1 | 7:00PM-9:00PM

• Thursday, February 8 | 7:00PM-9:00PM

• Thursday, February 15 | 7:00PM-9:00PM

• Thursday, February 22 | 7:00PM-9:00PM

• Thursday, February 29 | 7:00PM-9:00PM

Location: Zoom

Fees: $195.00 – Limited number of subsidized spots available. To inquire, please contact us directly at livingstoryproject@gmail.com

For further infomation, contact Living Story Project:

Web: https://livingstoryproject.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LivingStoryProject/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/living.story.project/

Email: livingstoryproject@gmail.com