vol. 1 issue 1 | January Digest
new paths, new presence
Dear reader,
These monthly wrap-up posts will be dropping into your inbox a little differently for the next few months. I’ve been curious about which formatting might feel right, and after trying a few titles and layouts on for size have settled on something which feels comfortable for me to inhabit…rather like a shell I’ve picked up and decided to keep as my new home, at least for the time being.
So for now, I’m adjusting to turn this little month-end Dispatches into a monthly digest with predictable categories. For at least the next six months (which is generally how long it takes me to know if I like something I’m doing), you can expect month-end pieces arranged something like this:
I. Spotlight
A brief interview and profile of someone whose work I appreciate & want to share with readers of The Mother Letters.
II. Ask A Midwife
A brief answer to a birth, fertility, pregnancy, or wellbeing-related question. I do have a small queue of questions for upcoming issues, but would also like to invite you to drop into the comments or into my email inbox (themotherletters@proton.me) with a question you have!
III. Shelf Life
Some months this will be a book review from my home library, some months it will be a collection of quotes and notes from titles I’m currently reading.
Monthly digests will all be grouped together under one tab on the main navigation bar at the top of The Mother Letters for easy reference, moving forward. Each post will also include a pdf version designed with an eye to aesthetic, formatted to print if you so desire.
I. January Spotlight: Amber Adrian
I am so excited to bring you this written interview with , writer of nuanced, compassionate takes on issues relevant to modern mothers. If you haven’t already explored Amber’s work, I invite you to do so on her Substack blog , where she has written about the isolation mothers often feel in social gatherings, the modern view of childrearing as performance, and the way grief masquerades as judgement. You can also find her work recently published on Fairer Disputations (discussing full-spectrum reproductive justice), and The Institute for Family Studies (emphasizing the culture change needed alongside policy change).
Amber is a former English teacher who now spends her time homemaking, homeschooling, and freelance writing. She loves to advocate for the well-being of mothers and is always reading a few books at once. Amber lives with her husband and three daughters in rural South Dakota, where she grew up.
Can you briefly describe an experience of birth and/or motherhood which has brought you most fully into a sense of being the adult in the room?
Yep. That would be healing from my traumatic birth/postpartum and homebirth VBAC-ing my next baby and setting myself up for a totally different postpartum experience.
With the traumatic birth, my second birth, I repeatedly was told that all is fine, I have a healthy baby, etc. but the way I was treated (my baby was taken surgically from my body in a situation where I essentially had no choice) was difficult, and a disempowering birth experience sets you up for issues postpartum (as you know). Postpartum was also hard because we'd just moved and were in a new community and not yet established (in a home or relationally or anything), and we were also having some issues in our marriage that becoming parents had surfaced.
The homebirth was really healing for my marriage, and really empowering re: me claiming my place as an actual adult, fully differentiated from my parents/family of origin. The OB I had with my traumatic birth was someone my brother recommended, and the homebirth made everyone in my family nervous. Both of my brothers are in medicine, and my parents are very anxious people. It was a massive initiation for me into trusting myself (and trusting God as well) completely, even in the face of opposition from people I know love me, and even though that's something I'd been working on for years. I knew I needed to do it, and I did it. It was one of the most empowering moments of my life, hands down. Not just because it went well, but because I chose something that felt fully aligned, despite my anxiety (it runs in the family) and the opposition of my family. And then with that postpartum, my husband and I were much more on the same page about what the priorities are and what I need, and I also was more able/willing to ask for what I needed, not just from him but from others as well, a huge step in maturity that is for some reason so hard for so many women!
What resources do you find most supportive in tending your unique configuration of obligations and passions? Where do you yearn for more support?
Honestly, other women writers! Other women doing what I’m doing: mothering and exercising my creativity alongside that work of mothering. Conversation with them (like you, Jan!) has been invaluable support. I'd say I yearn for more support in the area of my mental health. At the risk of sounding like I’m trying to keep up with the zeitgeist (apparently ADHD and autism are sort of trendy diagnoses these days), I’m almost certain I have ADHD, or what would be labeled an ADHD brain. I’ve read deeply on the subject and that alone has been a source of deep healing for me (shame reduction etc). But now I need actual practical help. I’m beginning Brainspotting this year and am excited, as I’ve never tried any somatic therapy and know I need it. I was a sensitive child and I have childhood trauma (small T) that I know lives in my body, even though I've processed it intellectually. I want to be more regulated for my kids' sake, especially now that I'm homeschooling, and I want to be more organized (a major challenge) so that I can attend to all the needs of my family but also my writing life without feeling like I'm constantly dropping a ball or feeling anxious about forgetting something.
I'm always incredibly curious about how a vision for moving through the world develops within the individual, especially in how that relates to becoming a parent. Are there any particular images or stories (fictional or otherwise) that you hold close to your heart and allow to shape your mothering?
This is an interesting question! One thing I can think of is the (non-fiction) book Radical Homemakers. It gave me a sense of what a future with kids could look like...that I could be tending to a home (and mothering), not in a way that was oppressive or small, but the opposite, as an act of rebellion against an unhealthy culture. It’s a collection of stories of women across the nation embracing the role of homemaker as an intentional act of justice and liberation. It was recommended to me by a teaching colleague (hi Emily if you’re reading this!) years before I had children, when I was working at a very progressive, feminist charter school. I think I would have had a harder time with leaving paid work to be home with my kids, even though I felt a strong soul pull toward it, had I not read this book that gave me a vision of doing so in a "feminist" way.
You recently completed training to be able to lead The Cycle Show, which is an interactive educational workshop on female body literacy for girls from 9-12 years old. Can you share a bit about what drew you to engage in your community in this way and what vision you hold for this work in the future?
The Cycle Show feels like a total divine gift. I’m in awe that I get to do it, honestly, it’s such a great fit for me! Once I heard about it (a few years ago) I knew instantly I’d be involved but wasn’t sure when, and then a way was made (that’s truly how it felt) for me to get certified last year. I’m a former middle school English teacher, something I loved but didn’t love the broken system I was part of, or the way the work consumed my life. So I still get to teach, but on my own time terms. I was also a founding teacher at a girl-focused school (the same one I mentioned above) and worked there for most of my teaching career, so I love working with girls and I still get to do that!
And then the content—it’s simply revolutionary. Every grown woman could go through this workshop, and with the exception of maybe midwives or fertility care practitioners, every one would learn something about herself that she didn’t know. It’s very detailed and factual. And, it’s emotional and hands-on and creative too! It’s just so wonderful.
Big picture, I see body literacy for women as a top need for women’s empowerment, and I’m thrilled to be setting that foundation for future generations, 10-15 girls at a time! Regarding my specific vision for the future… I’m not sure! So far I’ve just done local workshops, but instructors definitely do travel all over! I'm trying to be really mindful of my outside commitments during these years when my kids are younger. We’ll see!
What do you see as being one of the biggest challenges facing modern mothers in a tech-saturated, consumption-driven culture? Do you see a way in which individual mothers might begin making in-roads on resolving that challenge?
What comes to mind immediately for me is the “community” and “connection” that social media offers, especially in the context of the lack of in-person community and connection that is the reality of our modern world. This is such an issue. Mothers — new mothers especially — should ideally be surrounded by a robust network of other people, but it’s the norm for mothers (all of us really) to instead be isolated in our homes, away from extended family and vibrant goings-on of a healthy community and instead seeking all that on the little computer in our hand.
The digital age is so harmful to all of us in ways I feel like we’re just beginning to understand, and I think it’s particularly harmful to mothers. As far as trying to resolve that challenge, I think it's mostly becoming aware that online versions of connection and community, while they can be supportive, simply do not fulfill the need, even though it feels like it can. Our bodies/brains don't register it as true connection. The next step, of course, is building in-person community, which is hard! We moved from a city we loved to a rural area to be closer to my family of origin.
I also have been increasingly mindful over the years of early motherhood of my social media use as a writer. I noticed that when I spend less time on social media, even creating/sharing my own work, it's better for me. I have more time and desire to reach out to people personally/in-person if I'm not trying to "connect" online. This is a huge topic, so I'll stop there for now.
I also think one of the biggest challenges is that so many women (myself included!) have been conditioned to live almost exclusively in their masculine energy. And we live in a culture that over-values the masculine as well. This makes motherhood hard in so many ways! But that's a massive topic, so I'll just stick with my initial answer!
BONUS QUESTION: What question do you wish someone would ask you, either in conversation or in an interview? Would you be willing to share what that question is, and then answer it for us?
Honestly I think I just wish that people were more genuinely curious about motherhood. I noticed a long time ago that, broadly speaking, motherhood was not seen as something interesting or worthy of genuine exploration, say in art or academia. I also noticed that many people were not sharing about motherhood in this way either, even casually. Like everything you would read about motherhood would just be descriptions of the very on-the-ground challenges (poop, things being spilled, so many demands at once, et.) and then a bunch of syrup-y clichés about how amazing it is even as it’s so hard. Not that there's anything wrong with writing like that, and it's generally true, but I find motherhood really deeply, existentially interesting and crave more deep exploration of it.
So for me, as an example, I would love for people to ask me questions like How did you decide to be at home with your kids? How has that experience been for you? What have you learned from motherhood? What’s been hard to figure out? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently? etc. I suppose I probably can't answer all that here, but if a reader also craves this kind of deep reflection on mothering, they can come on over to
!II. Ask a Midwife
Please note: This is not medical advice.
Q. In birth, is it an emergency if the baby’s cord is wrapped around his neck?
A. The short answer is RARELY.
A deeper understanding requires some familiarity with the anatomy and function of the umbilical cord. Connected at one end to the placenta and at the other end to the baby’s abdomen, the cord is comprised of two small arteries (through which blood flows from the placenta into baby’s body) and one large vein (through which blood flows from baby’s body back to the placenta). These arteries and vein spiral through a resilient, rubbery substance referred to today as Wharton’s jelly. This jelly protects the vessels from being pressed shut through compression, whether that compression is coming from the baby’s hands in utero or coming from passage through the mother’s pelvis during birth.
During pregnancy, the umbilical cord is serving as the fetal respiratory system, digestive system, and excretory system. It is the well-protected pathway by which a growing baby, from the very first weeks of life until shortly after birth, receives nourishment through the mother’s breath, food intake, and stored nutrients.1 As Deborah MacNamara wrote so beautifully in her book Nourished, “Our first table wasn't rectangular in nature but a cord that stretched and wove us to our biological mother in keeping with some ancient developmental template. This umbilical cord made of connective tissue, arteries, and a vein is designed to bring a steady flow and exchange of oxygen, nutrients, and blood between us. It is here that we have our first feast as our mother's body fuses with ours and generously serves us.”
Especially in the earlier weeks and months of pregnancy, the growing baby moves freely in and around the growing umbilical cord. This liberty of relationship between baby and cord can lead to some interesting (but largely non-problematic) entanglement between the two. Ultrasound observation has shown babies playing with their cords, sometimes sucking on them and sometimes holding the cord and squeezing it in both hands.
All this to say, the cord is designed for resilience, both within pregnancy and all the way through birth. Because of the casing surrounding the vessels, a cord can be wound around the baby’s neck, shoulders, hands, and abdomen and (as long as there is adequate length to the cord) remain uncompromised. While many practitioners may have been trained to treat a cord around the baby’s neck as an emergency which requires swift intervention (and some will even view a cord around the neck as a valid reason to recommend a birth via c-section), the reality is that up to a third of babies seem to end up being born with their cords wrapped one or more times around their neck, or looped around an arm, shoulder, or the baby’s abdomen. And in MOST cases, the cord is both long and loose enough that the baby has no difficulty emerging even if there are one or more loops of cord around the neck.
Occasionally, a cord is short and snug enough that it becomes helpful to gently support the baby’s head in staying close to the mother’s thigh so the baby can “somersault” out and then be unwrapped from the cord. Even if the cord has been pulled tightly in these last moments before birth, the resilience of the cord is such that circulation is generally quickly restored within seconds of the baby emerging and being unwrapped, allowing the baby to be supported by oxygen via the cord while transitioning to take those first lung-clearing breaths.
III. Shelf Life
Ft. Childhood Unplugged: Practical Advice to Get Kids Off Screens and Find Balance, by Katherine Johnson Martinko
Childhood Unplugged is a title I've had on my desk for well over eight months now, dipping in and out of pages as the fancy strikes me. This has been the month in which I finally sat down and read it cover to cover. If I could place a copy in the hands of every parent or parent-to-be I know, I would. (At this point, it might be worthwhile for those in the millennial generation who are not yet parents as well, simply to aid in comprehending the magnitude of how those of us who have grown up with tech-saturated childhoods have experienced the alteration of our minds and relational capacity. Perhaps Childhood Unplugged might aid in identifying the pathways by which adults, alongside the children, might find restoration.)
Author Katherine Johnson Martinko begins with an examination of currently available research around the mental and physiological wellbeing of kids relative to device usage, information which is perhaps most jarring because it is so non-sensationally stated. She intersperses research about the influential presence of screens with conversational anecdotes and the thought process behind her own family's structured experience of technology. And despite “Part I: The Personal and Social Cost of Screens” only taking up 29 pages in a 142 page book (not counting the endnotes, index, or recommendations for further reading), the stage is well set for the remainder of the book. By the end of Part I, a clear picture has been drawn both of the available evidence around the impact of screens on child development and on the range of memories and life experiences now being sapped from the modern child growing up in the vicinity of a smartphone. Play, as Katherine emphasizes, is how children learn to BE in the world. And play, along with connection, observation, and creativity are core childhood experiences which have been widely traded in for the now-dominant after-school experiences of homework, shopping, and absorption in a personal device.
The antidote to this erasure of core childhood experiences, according to Childhood Unplugged, is to alter course both for the children and as a family. If you're already a reader of Katherine's Substack blog The Analog Family, you don't need me to tell you that her wheelhouse is practical advice, rooted in reality. And Childhood Unplugged is full of such advice. She covers the baby and toddler stages, elementary aged children, and teenagers with an eye to healthy developmental stages and both feet firmly planted in the realm of lived experience. Instead of pitching convoluted gadgets and gizmos, she proposes such solutions as making a drawer of kitchen utensils the toddlers can use for creative play and sings the praises of dirt, leaves, and pinecones. She also warns against excessively tidying children's play areas, since dismantling their projects every time they step away for school or for outdoor play can be both frustrating and discouraging to sustained games.
For older children, she covers the integration of household responsibilities, how to have conversations around screens, and the ongoing importance of security and release through routines. She explores the importance of parents honoring children's collected treasures, as well as giving them a space of their own in which to tinker undisturbed, without management or guidance. And she addresses, with a refreshing lack of squeamishness, the varying elements in considering how and when to begin to introduce independence in walking or biking to local destinations. For teenagers, which is where devices often make some appearance even in previously screen-free homes, she examines (again without squeamishness) accountability, responsibility, and the ongoing role of the parent in setting and holding the tone of the home environment.
The emphasis on the parent's duty in caretaking their children's lives combined with the real-world, relationally-oriented roadmap for how to thrive in a low-tech environment is a potent combination. There is no proverbial bible thumping about tech usage, heavy on principle and light on practical application. Katherine repeatedly presents clear examples for moving into a healthier relationship with technology such as phones, computers, television, and iPads, examples referencing the sort of everyday life that many families are bound to recognize as bearing some similarity to their own. And the slim size of the book—again, 142 pages excluding the endnotes, index, and recommended reading—means this book has the capacity to serve as both a quick introductory read and as an ongoing companion in the journey of child-tending, a steady counter voice to the guilt parents might feel in saying no to their children when it comes to screens.
Before anything else, I see Childhood Unplugged as a parent's manifesto of hope. Katherine Johnson Martinko's confidence that individual choice still matters and that home and intimate connection with the natural world can still be fully central to a human way of living is the implicit frame for her discussion of the harms unfettered engagement with technology causes to children. Also deeply apparent throughout her work is just how much Katherine values children. Not only does she advocate for removing screens as a form of caring for their brains and the quality and range of their childhood experience, she also encourages parents to set down their devices and engage—REALLY engage—with their children. "When devices are absent, children reclaim their rightful place in the family."
And parents claim their rightful place as well. Part of what Childhood Unplugged asks of the reader is to adopt a way of living that might feel wholly unfamiliar to those of us who have adapted to a world oriented around the ongoing distraction of screens. To make such a significant shift in a world where the absence of personal tech use has come to be considered a high degree of deprivation requires a reclamation of personal authority, the willingness to become the adult in the room and withstand the discomfort of inevitable tension. It requires being willing to do the work of stepping aside from what has become the path of least resistance to seek a version of life which is worth the cost of the effort paid for it. It requires being willing to answer the myriad daily invitations to a way of being which supports connection and engagement, and to hold the responsibility of turning away what would degrade that way of being. For, as Katherine writes, "You can give your child an even better childhood by saying no." Childhood Unplugged makes a solid case for doing just that.
Childhood Unplugged: Practical Advice to Get Kids Off Screens and Find Balance is available directly from New Society Publishers, or wherever books are sold.
If you’re a parent, run—don’t walk—to check out Katherine’s Substack blog The Analog Family. She writes deliciously readable articles around maintaining a healthy relationship to the tools of technology and fostering a home and community environment of family connection.
Download Printable Version Here:
The service of the umbilical cord does not end once the baby takes a first breath. At the time the baby emerges from the mother’s body, the cord and fetal-side placental veins still hold up to thirty percent of the baby’s blood volume, all of which needs to flow through the cord and into the baby’s body before the cord naturally closes off and removes itself from the baby’s circulatory system. The bulk of this re-infusion happens in the first five minutes after birth, which means that even in medicalized birth settings delaying cord clamping and cutting for a MINIMUM of five minutes is necessary to ensure the baby is not left short on her own blood. During this time, stem cells are also flowing into the baby’s body, providing support for her body’s spontaneous recovery and healing from the duress of the birth passage.
I love this structure so much, and that you’ve included a printable PDF. Amazing. Thank you for asking me to be your first guest. Grateful for our (Internet) friendship Jan❤️