Welcome! Read This First…
Welcome to my blog! Here you will find a mix of casual musings, thoroughly researched academic papers, and everything in between. If you stumbled here and have no idea who I am, check out my About page!
The purpose of this particular blog post is to make sure that we are all on the same page about several important things. Most of my writing focuses on the intersections of motherhood with feminism, social justice work, spirituality, relationships, sexuality, and more. Some of these topics are very intimate and tender for people, so I very much want you to feel supported here.
My standpoint
I live and work on land that used to belong to the Seneca Nation, in upstate New York. I am a white, able-bodied, college-educated, cis-hetero woman married to the father of my three biological children. When I write about topics like white supremacy, colonization, capitalism and others, I want to remember that I have benefitted from these systems my entire life. My children have benefitted from these systems. While the intent of my work is to dismantle the systems that oppress some at the benefit of others, it is important for me to always keep my own identity and privilege in mind and be very, very deliberate about what I write, say, and do so that I am not unintentionally maintaining these systems.
Important terms
Mother: (noun) Anyone who takes on the work of nurturing, loving and raising a child, what Patricia Hill Collins terms motherwork, counts as a mother, regardless of gender or biological relationship to the child. An individual person who often stands as a representation for both nurturance and blame for all of society.
For the purposes of my work, “mother” encompasses birth parent, stepmother, adoptive mother, auntie, grandparent and anyone who identifies with the word.
Also, as Andrea O’Reilly has stated, the identity of mother is distinct from the category of woman. With the inclusion of “birthing person” in the US budget last year, we can finally publicly acknowledge that just as not all women are mothers, not all mothers identify as women, or even of the gender binary. I may sometimes use the term “birthing person,” but since my work is primarily focused on the person who is raising the child, I most often use “mother.” When I write about pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum, I do try to use “birthing person,” but I often use these terms interchangeably.
(Incidentally, the use of the terms “woman/women” encompasses all who identify as women - no TERFs here, thank you very much!)
Mothering: (verb) All the emotional labor, bedtime stories, care, love, feeding, and comforting that comes with raising a child. Mothering can be an incredibly profound and empowering experience and is not something to be taken lightly.
Motherhood: (noun) An institution that exploits women to provide unpaid care and housework. Motherhood is the social construction that creates an imaginary ideal of who we consider to be a “good mother,” and if you don’t meet all of the standards, you are assumed to be falling short in some way.
My business values
This website is the virtual home of my business, Empowered Mothering LLC. Trust me when I say I have spent SO MUCH TIME agonizing over the seeming contradiction and cognitive dissonance between needing to run a profitable business and desiring the end of capitalism. It was years of struggle and undervaluing myself, my education, and my experience before I realized a few fundamental truths:
The heart of capitalism is the pursuit of profit for private accumulation of wealth. This unstable and erratic system causes social inequality, ecological harm, concentration of power in the hands of a few, and creates a world of scarcity where everyone feels as though they are in competition for a limited number of resources.
Inspired by Jennifer Hinton (and these podcast episodes: A World Without Profit and How Degrowth Will Save The World) I realized I could run a business that wasn’t motivated by individual profit or unsustainable growth. I could view my business as a sustainable, fun, creative, and personally fulfilling vehicle for social justice and environmental good.
That is the goal of this business, and all my decisions are motivated by this. For example:
I do not use scarcity or fear-based marketing tactics when I promote my workshops and other offerings.
I refuse to participate in what Kelly Diels has named the Female Empowerment Lifestyle Brand, which markets everything we’re supposed to be in order to be socially acceptable instead of focusing on my work.
Instead, I choose to promote my ever-growing body of work - writing, speaking, and facilitating about the cultural systems that define motherhood.
I follow the principles of the Feminine Economy by Jennifer Armburst
This blog post is always being updated and modified as I learn and grow myself. If you have any suggestions or thoughts about what I’ve included here, I would love to hear them! Please Contact Me and let’s chat. In the meantime, make sure to join my mailing list for updates on workshops or other events!
