It’s no secret that motherhood isn’t all sunshine and rainbows — when someone becomes a parent, it can feel like their entire life has been suddenly hijacked by someone much smaller (and cuter).
Hollie McNish’s poem, "What’s My Name Again," voices these realities in anecdotes about having a few hours to herself at best, being endlessly preoccupied by her child's every waking (and sleeping) moment, and, in many ways, losing her sense of self.
Peanut, an app that shows users “like-minded mamas near you and makes it easy to meet,” created a video using the poem to spotlight the importance of community when raising a child, and the sacrifices mothers make for the sake of a love that McNish describes as "so heavy." The video features several mothers reading a slightly personalized version of McNish’s poem line by line, each visibly bringing her own emotional history as a parent to the making of the film.
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You can watch it below:
Last year, another one of McNish's poems went viral, one in which she talked about the difficulties of breastfeeding in public. "What’s My Name Again" expands on the pressures of motherhood McNish explores, covering everything from having no time to yourself to mistakenly being perceived as unbreakable (moms need a good breakdown sometimes, too).
Peanut knows this all too well. The free app, dubbed a sort of "Tinder for mom friends," attempts to bring mothers together to create a support network between them. Motherhood is a draining, but also rewarding, responsibility, and access to a community of women who know what it's like might help moms remember that they're people, too.
Welcome to Mothership: Parenting stories you actually want to read, whether you're thinking about or passing on kids, from egg-freezing to taking home baby and beyond. Because motherhood is a big if — not when — and it's time we talked about it that way.
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