In this episode, we're doing something a little
different. We're going looking for the spaces
that used to hold us, the circles that used to
gather us, the wisdom that used to guide us.
Because something sacred has been lost in modern
motherhood. Not the love, not the devotion, but
the togetherness. You feel it, don't you? The
ache for something older than the schedules and
solo bedtime routines. The hunger for friendship
that isn't just built around shared pickup times
or Instagram DMs. Motherhood today, for many,
it feels like an endless to -do list performed
in isolation. But it wasn't always this way.
Before it was commodified, medicalized, monetized,
and so deeply individualized, motherhood was
communal. It was women gathering in tents. It
was synchronized cycles and shared midwives.
It was the grandmother who rocked your baby while
your sister boiled water. It was long meals,
long labors, long nights, long lives lived together.
And yes, it was messy, imperfect, sometimes painful,
but it was together. And so on this episode,
we're going back to the tent, to the circle,
to the village that raised not just children,
but mothers. And then we're asking the question,
how do we rebuild it? Motherhood is history's
greatest untold story. It's built empires, fueled
revolutions, and pushed the boundaries of science.
And yet, because it happens in quiet rooms, behind
closed doors, it's been left out of the grand
narrative. But make no mistake, motherhood is
not just tenderness. It's raw, unrelenting, a
force that tears you apart and remakes you over
and over again. It's blood, bone, love, and sheer
will. This isn't a story about sacrifice. It's
a story about power, about what it means to become
a mother and what it means to never stop becoming.
This is Bloodline and Backbone. Before there
were hospitals or strollers, before parenting
books and Pinterest boards, There was a tent,
a circle of women, bleeding, birthing, nursing,
weeping, laughing too loud, telling the truth,
doing life in proximity with each other. For
thousands of years, motherhood wasn't a solo
act. It was a shared one, a sisterhood. And maybe
it still could be. I got my first period in sixth
grade, at school. in khaki pants. I remember
the moment like it's seared into my bloodstream
because, well, it kind of was. I remember the
moment so clearly, standing in the bathroom stall,
staring at the stain and realizing with panic,
this is happening now, no warning, no tampon,
no guidebook. So I did what girls do. I tied
my sweatshirt around my waist, avoided eye contact
and prayed for the earth to open up and swallow
me whole. 30 years later. And I still occasionally
find myself having to tie a sweatshirt around
my waist, like a few months ago when I bled through
my jeans on an airplane. It was an early morning
flight, and I didn't realize how heavy my flow
was going to be that day. So I used a light tampon,
knowing I could upgrade later if needed. We encountered
unexpected turbulence on the flight, forcing
the pilot to leave the seatbelt sign on for the
entire trip. And this would normally be no big
deal. But about halfway through the flight, I
could feel that the protection I chose that morning
was vastly underperforming. And we've all experienced
that moment when you know for a fact that you
have to make a plan. Because you've got a situation
on your hands. And here's what I knew for a fact
while sitting in seat 8C. I have definitely bled
through my pants and it's not just a little.
I probably look like I have been free bleeding.
Do you know about this trend? It's wild. And
I do not have a sweatshirt or anything else I
could wrap around my waist. The plane lands and
people begin to deboard and I am sitting in the
aisle seat. And so I can't just sit there and
wait for everyone to get off. And so I stand
up and look down at the seat to assess the situation
and there is blood. everywhere, not just on my
pants, but literally soaking through the seat.
There's no hiding it. We're talking worst case
scenario. And at this point, I'm trying to figure
out whether to tell a flight attendant and offer
to clean it up. I'm wondering what is the right
thing to do in this situation? The passengers
in seat AA and AB next to me are going to have
to shuffle over my bloody seat to get off this
plane. And people are now waiting for me to move.
So I grab my bag, don't say anything, and practically
run to the women's restroom in the airport. Thank
God I had an extra pair of pants in my bag. I
was debriefing this event with my friend and
coworker, Kelly, later that morning, and she
said something that stuck with me. She said that
when things like that happen to her, her first
response is usually to shame herself and ask,
why am I so flawed? Instead of asking, why are
the products I'm using flawed? So interesting
that bleeding is a natural, normal thing that
literally is part of the continuation of the
human race, but it's still embarrassing when
we aren't in control of it. We're supposed to
operate like nothing's happening, even though
a lot is actually happening behind the scenes
with our bodies. It's crazy really how we women
bleed every month for most of our lives, but
the nature of it is so wild and unpredictable
that it still demands our respect and attention.
I'd like to think I'm a fairly evolved woman,
pretty responsible and in tune with my body.
And then look how I was surprised on the plane
that day. It makes sense though. The female endocrine
system is literally responsible for continuing
the human race. So it deserves to dictate our
day every now and then. See, our entire life
happens in our body. And despite all the odd,
embarrassing, ecstatic, messy, beautiful things,
this body is exactly where we want to be. And
yet we women are presented with endless opportunities
to question our bodies. In fact, we're conditioned
to do so. And it starts early on when we get
surprised by how impactful our period is. And
I know for a fact I'm not alone in any of these
experiences. Ask any woman and she'll have a
similar story. The whispers in the hallway or
mouthed across the classroom, do you have a tampon?
Can you check my pants? Is it bad? We're taught
early on to hide it, handle it, move on. But
what if there was another way? What if that moment
wasn't something to shrink from, but to be gathered
into? Enter the red tent. In 1997, author Anita
Diamond imagined just that in her novel, The
Red Tent. She took a verse from the book of Genesis,
a verse that mentions women gathering together
during their cycles and spun it into a powerful
vision, a tent where women withdrew together
during menstruation and birth, not to be shunned,
but to be supported, to rest, to be fed, to tell
stories, and to remember that it is blood that
creates life. The red tent has become a symbol,
a picture of what was and maybe what still could
be. Across cultures and centuries, variations
of this idea have existed. Native American moon
lodges, Hindu and Nepalese purification huts,
confinement rituals in China. Some were oppressive,
some were empowering, but all of them in some
form acknowledged this truth. Women's bodies
move in cycles and cycles need support. Here's
Anita Diamond, the accidental creator of this
national red tent movement. Why is this so powerful
still? I think there are a few reasons, several
of them. One of them is that it gives voice to
women in the Bible. The mother -daughter relationships
are interesting to them, the dynamics between
women as friends. One woman wrote to me, she
said, after I read The Red Tent, I decided I
was going to follow my passion and become an
artisanal baker. Sounds funny, but I think that
because the book honors the work of women's hands,
which is bread and weaving and taking care of
children, with real reverence for that work,
I think that speaks to some people. So there's
that. I think the other reason it's had legs
is because mothers and grandmothers and granddaughters
have shared it. So it winds up being intergenerational,
which was a wonderful surprise. I certainly had
never thought that that... would happen so but
i know that it's handed down women's agency strength
respect for women's work and the importance of
women's relationships even extra familial relationships
are things that keep women alive even in and
sustain them even in really tough times today
we chug coffee swallow ibuprofen and keep going
but maybe the exhaustion we carry isn't just
biological it's also cultural i think we've lost
the pause We've lost the rhythm. We've lost the
room where it's okay to bleed literally or metaphorically.
It's time to reimagine that space. A new kind
of red tent in 2025 made not of fabric, but of
friendship. I would like to propose a new way
of addressing bleeding. See, to be a human is
to bleed and to be a mom is to bleed even more.
We bleed every month. We bleed to bring life
into the world and we bleed when the life in
our womb leaves this world. Our bodies bleed
and so do our hearts. Our hearts bleed for our
babies and for every ounce of pain they experience
in this life. They bleed for our friends' babies
and babies across the globe too. So what if the
red tent wasn't just being better at making plans,
but actually a lifestyle, a posture we moved
through the world with, nourishing ourselves
and one another in ways that quietly rebel against
hustle culture and maternal isolation. It could
look like a standing Wednesday night porch hang
after bedtime. No RSVPs required, just beverages
and folding chairs waiting. Or a woman in your
life who says, you don't have to be fine with
me and actually means it. Maybe it's splitting
a Costco haul with two other moms so no one has
to wrestle the 40 pack of granola bars alone.
Maybe it's a shared Google calendar for babysitting
trades or a text thread that doesn't die after
the meal train ends. Or a fridge magnet that
reads, we mother here. Maybe it's quitting the
PTA to start a monthly potluck that runs on belly
laughs instead of burnout. These aren't just
logistics, they're resistance. Tiny, sacred acts
of defiance in a world that says, do it alone.
Because bleeding is sacred, and sacred things
deserve shared space. In my 20s, my friends used
to lovingly call me a grandma. I went to bed
early and drank tea and played Sudoku for fun
instead of, I don't know, blacking out at music
festivals. I secretly liked that nickname. Being
called grandma felt like a compliment, like I
was being grouped with something sacred. Because
grandmas are sacred. They're also objectively
the coolest people alive. I don't think it's
a coincidence that teenagers are dressing like
grandparents and that grandma core is a trend
where young people are embracing their inner
grandma lifestyle. Now, I want you to try something
with me. Put on the lab coat and slightly unhinged
brain of an evolutionary biologist. These are
the people who study humans and apes over thousands
of years to understand what makes us, us. And
they've been stumped, utterly baffled for a while
now by two weird facts about our species. Number
one, humans have some of the longest lifespans
in the animal kingdom. We live a really long
time, and more notably, we live way longer than
we used to, even just 200 years ago. And number
two, women don't just live long lives. We live
long after we stop reproducing. And in case you're
wondering, in evolutionary biology, this used
to be considered a total glitch in the system.
From a purely scientific perspective, grandmothers
can be considered a failure of reproductive fitness.
What good is an organism that cannot reproduce
itself and cannot help perpetuate the species?
Men can keep reproducing well into old age, but
spoken just like Hollywood executives everywhere,
what's the point of older women? Cue every woman
over 50 flipping the table. But plot twist, those
same past their prime women, they might be the
reason we live so long in the first place. Welcome
to what scientists call the grandmother hypothesis.
See, researchers started digging into historical
records, things like church registries, census
data, even death certificates, and noticed something
remarkable. When a grandmother was at all present,
especially a maternal grandmother, young children
were far more likely to survive. The more proximity
to grandma, the effect was even stronger. And
when grandma was active in that sweet spot between
50 and 75, survival rates absolutely soared.
Why? Because grandma was showing up with a second
pair of arms. She was stirring the stew, rocking
the baby, tending the fire. She was passing down
wisdom, picking up the slack, holding the line.
She brought steadiness to the chaos and calm
to the fear. And this didn't just help the children.
Most notably, it helped the mothers too. Because
when grandmothers help raise the babies, those
mothers could go on to have more children, more
support, and less burnout. The grandmother hypothesis
was first introduced in 1997 by anthropologist
Kristin Hawkes after she worked with the Hazda,
hunter -gatherers in Tanzania. While working
with this group of foragers, she noticed that
grandmothers played an integral part of feeding
their grandchildren, allowing mothers to tend
to her other children. This assistance over time
has allowed women to have more children in shorter
intervals, increasing her fecundity. And a 2012
study by Hawkes has been able to further support
the grandmother hypothesis through computer simulations
that prove that a little grandmothering over
time increase a species lifespan by years. But
over the last century, multi -generational living
has plummeted. At the start of the 1900s, only
7 % of older women lived alone. Today, that number
hovers around 32%. As families spread out across
suburbs and coasts, grandma moved from the spare
room to the retirement village. And just like
that, the quiet infrastructure of generational
support began to vanish. Not to mention that
more grandmothers than ever are working later
in life. So the grandmother effect didn't disappear,
it just got farther away. And for many moms today,
that distance has turned into a kind of loss,
invisible, but deeply felt. So the long life
of a woman, menopause, it's not a biological
oversight. It's not a bug. It's a feature. It's
survival strategy wrapped in soft, wrinkly hands
and hard -earned wisdom. It's legacy. Maybe you
didn't grow up with a grandmother like that.
Maybe you are the grandmother now holding more
than you ever thought you would. Or maybe you're
a mother raising children without a mother of
your own and wondering where that strength is
supposed to come from. Wherever you are, I want
to remind you, you're not alone. You're not the
beginning. You're not the end. You are one link
in a long line of women who carried what you
carry. A line that stretches back to fire circles
and foremothers through grief and grit and morning
coffee. Community isn't just lateral. It's vertical.
Mothers and daughters and grandmothers and great
grandmothers. It's strength that echoes in your
bones and speaks even through silence. You don't
mother alone. You mother among. And maybe now,
more than ever, we need to grandmother one another,
to show up with wisdom and warmth, to bring the
snacks, the stories, the steady presence that
says, you're not doing this alone, sweetheart.
Because yes, grandma core might be trending,
but real grandmothering, that's eternal. And
if there's a soft peppermint in your purse right
now, you're not just carrying candy, you're carrying
a lineage, maybe even another mom's reason to
keep going. You can live in a 3 ,000 -square
-foot home with granite countertops, a home office,
and a fenced -in backyard and still feel profoundly
alone. You can have four target locations within
10 minutes, but no one to call when you have
mastitis. You can wave politely at your neighbor
every morning for five years and never learn
her last name. Let's talk about the architecture
of loneliness. It's not just in your head, it's
actually by design. For most of human history,
communities were built around shared spaces,
markets, town squares, temples, courtyards, communal
wells. Places where people bumped into each other
on purpose or by accident and swapped stories,
food, news, and help. Today, we've traded footpaths
for cul -de -sacs. in town squares with parking
lots. Our cities and towns have zoned out community.
Here's an expert on urban planning and architecture.
This was called The Neighborhood and You, and
it was at the Museum of Modern Art in New York
City in 1945, and there was a set of panels that
were distributed all over the world to talk about
the neighborhood. how it needs to be the basis
of social life. And it just gets kind of creepy.
You know, it's very deterministic. If you live
in a neighborhood, then you will be a responsible
citizen. If you live in a planned neighborhood,
you're going to get along with others. You're
going to have a good social life. It's all going
to be wonderful. And so the planned neighborhood
gets implicated in this social determinism, very
top down. And also this kind of forced idea that
you're going to be friends with people who live
in your neighborhood. I call it social confusion.
You know, having social connection in your neighborhood
is not at all about being friends. It's about
being socially connected on some level, maybe
just a glance, some familiarity with somebody
on some level with a shopkeeper. That's a far
cry from being friends. American zoning laws
have prioritized privacy over proximity. And
the crazy thing is this was kind of intentional.
After World War II, the American dream became
a house with a yard, a car, and a picket fence.
We wanted space, independence, safety. But in
chasing that dream, we accidentally zoned out
the things that make us human, like connection
and interdependence, two of the main things moms
thirst for in 2025. Ice vanilla sugar -free latte?
Question. Where do you go that's not home, not
work, and doesn't require that you spend a bunch
of money to hang out for extended periods of
time? These are what sociologists call third
places. Those magical in -between spaces that
aren't work and aren't home, but where life happens
anyway. Coffee shops, libraries, parks, community
centers, hair salons, the YMCA, the front stoop.
They're the places you show up without an invitation,
where you bump into someone you know, where conversations
start unplanned and kids run a little wild and
you don't have to spend money. These places are
vital. They're the social glue that keeps isolation
from hardening into despair, but they're vanishing.
And the results? Loneliness. Deep, widespread,
architecturally reinforced loneliness. One study
found that over the last 50 years, the number
of Americans who say they have zero close friends
has quadrupled. That's not just a personal problem.
That's a design problem. But that's the good
news. If we design for isolation, we can redesign
for connection. So many of us believe the lie
that loneliness is a character gap. But the truth
is, loneliness is an infrastructural gap, one
that we can rebuild. We can rethink how we gather,
how we connect, how we mother. We can turn driveways
into dinner tables. We can throw a folding table
on the front lawn and call it sacred. We can
meet at the park after bedtime for decaf tea
and unfiltered conversation. We can advocate
for zoning policies that prioritize community,
not just commerce. We can look up from our fenced
-in yards and say, hey, want to come over? Because
moms... We've been holding up the scaffolding
of community forever with carpool lines and group
texts and last minute babysitting. But what if
we stopped patching the cracks and started building
something better? What if we became the architects
of belonging? Women are born with pain built
in. It's our physical destiny. Period pains,
sore boobs, childbirth, you know. We carry it
within ourselves throughout our lives. We have
pain on a cycle for years and years and years.
And then, just when you feel you are making peace
with it all, what happens? The menopause comes.
The f***ing menopause comes. And it is the most
wonderful f***ing thing in the world. You're
free. longer a slave, no longer a machine with
parts. You're just a person. I was told it was
horrendous. It is horrendous, but then it's magnificent.
When a person's identity shifts, it's a big deal.
And motherhood is one of the biggest. There are
a few predictable identity shifts in your life.
Your first period, maybe your first heartbreak,
a career change, a spiritual awakening. But becoming
a mother rewrites everything, your body, your
time, your sleep, your story, even your blood.
It's not lost on me that both womanhood and motherhood
are marked by bleeding. First, you bleed to become
a woman. Then you bleed to bring life into the
world. Both times, the ground shifts. Both times,
you need to circle around you. We weren't made
to navigate identity shifts alone. I had a friend,
a kid's basketball coach, ask me recently, how
do you even define identity? I want to explain
it to my students, but it's actually kind of
hard to put into words. And she's right, it is.
Because identity isn't just me, it's us. It's
formed in relation to who's around us. It's shaped
by communion. And here's where it gets spiritual.
Because the Christian story doesn't just say
God has relationship. It says God is relationship.
Father, Son, Spirit, three in one. So when we
refuse to mother alone, We reflect the very nature
of God. We're meant to circulate care the way
the body circulates blood. Blood is made to move,
to flow from one part of the body to another,
carrying oxygen, fighting off harm, bringing
what's needed where it's needed. When it stops
moving, we get sick. When it moves, we live.
community works the same way we weren't meant
to be containers we were meant to be conduits
mothers were never meant to hold everything alone
we're meant to carry and be carried to give and
receive to nourish and be nourished so maybe
the real story is this you don't just share blood
with your children you share it with the people
who help you mother them with the ones who show
up at your door in your messages in your memories
especially with the ones you bleed with. You
are together the lifeblood of a world that desperately
needs mending. And if you follow Jesus, you know
his blood runs through this story too. Christ
knew that power is not expressed in dominion,
but in communion. So when you feel tired, like
you have nothing left to give, Remember this.
You're not just carrying your family. You are
carrying each other. You are circulation. You
are a life force. You, or rather we, are blood.
This has been Bloodline and Backbone, a production
of MomCo Media, created by Mandy Arrioto. It
was written by Emma Turnbull and Mandy Arrioto.
Produced by Jeremiah Schumacher. Music composition
and sound design by Sleepy Dog Creative. Our
executive producer is Kelly Jo Smith. And our
theme song is Glory by Zuri Alvarado. If this
episode moved you, share it with someone who
needs to hear it. And don't forget to follow
the podcast so you never miss a new story. You
can reach us at media at themom .co. We'll see
you next time on Bloodline and Backbone.