There is a lot of pressure for parents in general—and mothers in particular—to appear to have it all together. As a perfectionist since early childhood, this was a trap I was set up to fall into. My perfectionism is a result of several factors: a lifelong journey with depression and anxiety; growing up in a house with an explosive parent; gender training. Even more insidiously, though, it is the result of being a white person in a white supremacist country. In a culture that glorifies individualism, moves at a pace too fast to emotionally process our experiences, and confuses making mistakes with being a mistake, we are taught that if everything is not going “right,” then there must be something wrong with us.

This blog is my attempt to disrupt this narrative, and to make sense of parenthood, as well as the constraints and expectations around it, in a U.S. context. I hope it can be a place to have conversations around the big and small questions we face as parents—all the ways we take on nurturing, raising youth, and other kinds of care work every day.

I am a queer, white, middle class, able-bodied mama currently living in Chicago. My partner and I are raising our toddler and two cats while building community and fighting for a better world.

Thanks for joining me on this journey!