Hello
I was a literature professor in the Ivy League before I had a baby.
This means that I'd spent my entire adult life studying the Humanities--that is, the study of what makes us HUMAN.
​
And yet, in all that time, I was never once assigned a book on motherhood, nor did I ever think to assign one myself.
​
Why is motherhood not considered a HUMAN experience worthy of intellectual thought?
My Story
Even books with mother characters were analyzed through the Big Boy themes--nation and race, class and economics, gender and sexuality--without any mention that motherhood might affect all these topics.
​
It was as if motherhood was so taken for granted that it wasn't worth mentioning. It was as if mothers and what they do were not fit for university conversation. Motherhood was too boring, too pedestrian, too un-intellectual.
​
Then I had my baby, and spent the first six months in a delirious brain fog brought on by sleep deprivation and overwork. Sapped of my capacity for thought, I wondered if I'd ever feel like myself again.
I was living proof of the perfect storm that defangs many mothers of intellectual capacity and creative spark through no fault or intention of their own:
STEP 1: Raise women in a culture that erases motherhood from intellectual conversation.
STEP 2: Plunge women into an experience that would rob anyone of intellectual dexterity.
STEP 3: Watch as mothers drop out of the workforce, lose erotic energy, and stop painting, writing, dancing.
STEP 4: Conclude that mothers are great at playgrounds, but not particularly intellectual, poor things!
​
I COULD NOT STAND BY AND LET THESE STEPS UNFOLD FOR OTHER INTELLECTUAL WOMEN.
Just because many of us "grow out" of this dynamic when our children grow older does not mean that we should let business continue as usual. Losing our sense of self as intellectual women should not be a common component of motherhood.
​
But when I looked around for postpartum support, most of what I found was focused on the body. On healing the body's appearance or fitness. On restoring a sense of wellness and strength to bodies tired out by the exhausting work of pregnancy, birth, motherhood. All important, to be sure, but not what I was looking for. I wanted an intellectual home for mothers, where we could meet and talk and write and CHANGE something about this experience--for ourselves, first, through the inner and individual work of coaching, and then for our sisters and daughters, through the social and cultural work of policy change.
​
This is my mission, and I hope you'll bring your gorgeous, unbroken mind to join me.
Contact
I'm always looking for new and exciting opportunities. Let's connect.
123-456-7890