Sometimes we forget the power of language and
the way it evolves. I'm particularly grateful
for new words that offer a container for a previously
unarticulated truth. Like the new term bed rotting.
New TikTok trend deemed as bed rotting. Bed rotting.
Bed rotting. Bed rotting. I'm gonna bed rot for
the rest of the day. Bed rotting is the word
for laying in bed for hours and doing nothing,
which could be classified as depression, yes,
but most of us moms would call it the perfect
Mother's Day. Or the phrase girl dinner. Have
you heard of this one? This is my meal. I call
this girl dinner. I call this girl dinner. Girl
dinner. Girl dinner. Girl dinner. Girl dinner.
Girl dinner describes the small random meals
we throw together on those rare occasions where
we only have to feed ourselves, like some apples
and peanut butter. a gobstopper, some kimchi,
and a handful of flaming hot Cheetos. It's random,
it's convenient, it's minimalist. It may or may
not be nutritious, but girlies everywhere finally
found a phrase for those meals that men would
never classify as a meal, but that we've been
throwing together for decades. Or the retort
I just learned the other day, touch grass. If
you have teenagers, you probably know this one.
Go touch some grass. What does touch grass mean?
I was nominated by Amina to do the touch grass
challenge. Go outside and touch some grass like
I'm doing right now. Touch grass is what you
say to people who need to take a chill pill from
the digital world and go outside to reconnect
with nature. It's the toddler equivalent of you
need a nap. It's what could be said to those
keyboard warriors that pop up in Facebook comments
and Twitter feeds. And if anyone tells me to
call Twitter X, I would say to you, go touch
grass. All of that to say, when new terms enter
our vernacular, they not only enrich our language
and connection to one another, but they also
validate our personal experiences. These things
help us feel seen, which is a powerful thing
to be. It's all any of us really want to be.
Seen. And there's a new word that helps us feel
just that. 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. what we've learned throughout this
series is that moms are the ultimate system changers
Moms change faith systems, economic systems,
community systems, medical systems, cultural
systems, family systems, and countless others.
But you know what system motherhood changes first?
Our own. Our very own biology and brain chemistry.
If you've ever felt like you were losing your
mind after becoming a mother, well, you kind
of were, but not in the way culture makes it
sound, not in that silly sitcom -y way of, when
did I put the milk in the pantry? It's more than
that. See, your brain was literally rewired.
And there's a term for this. You may have heard
it. It's called matrescence. It's like adolescence,
but instead of growing into adulthood, you're
growing into motherhood. Here's Lucy Jones, author
of the book Matrescence, on this metamorphosis.
My experience of becoming a mother was one of
great astonishment and shock. how much harder
the work of caregiving was. I was amazed by my
beautiful baby but I was especially bowled over
by the sense of metamorphosis and that I was
a different person. I'd been led to believe that
pregnancy, childbirth and early motherhood would
be a kind of external and environmental change.
But actually it was the most, well, physical,
but psychological, emotional, mental, social,
existential experience of my life. As the months
went on, as my daughter was growing, I felt kind
of strangely altered and rewired. And as a journalist
who writes about science and health, I was interested,
fascinated in what was happening to me. I started
to read about the science of the maternal brain,
the science of hormones, what actually happens
in that period. And at the same time, I was really
struggling. I thought that maybe there was something
wrong with me to be feeling so kind of discombobulated
and bewildered. Matrescence is the metamorphosis
every mom is intimately, terrifyingly familiar
with. It's as seismic and sacred as it sounds.
Just like adolescence, matrescence is hormonal.
It's emotional, messy, transformational. But
here's the problem. We don't treat it like that.
Most of what we hear about the maternal experience
is drenched in condescension. Mom brain, momnesia,
baby blues. That sounds cute, which is the opposite
of what that experience was for most of us. We
often see this tired stereotype of the scattered
mom who used to be sharp but now wears mismatched
socks and calls everyone buddy. But the truth
is, your brain isn't malfunctioning. It's rebuilding.
Pregnancy and parenting don't just change our
lives. They literally rewire our neural pathways.
According to neuroscientist Dr. Sarah McKay,
the maternal brain doesn't dissolve. It evolves.
In her book, Baby Brain, she unpacks exactly
how motherhood sculpts our brains and reshapes
our minds. We've been led to believe it's for
the worse, but it's actually for the better.
Things like empathy, memory, multitasking, and
motivation become sharper, becoming rewired to
suit a new role. You're neurochemically recalibrating
to keep a human alive, and that's just the beginning.
Here's Dr. Sarah McKay to talk about this process,
what exactly happens to the brain during matrescence
and beyond, and what might change if we stop
treating mom brain like a punchline. and started
honoring it like the superpower it really is.
So this is a word that people use, as you said,
different words around the world to describe
feeling forgetful. lack of attention the inability
to kind of function in the way that you felt
that you were cognitively able to before pregnancy
or parenthood and if we look at women around
four out of five women will put their hands up
and say hey yes that's me i i feel that way but
what's really interesting is when we bring these
women into the research lab either during pregnancy
or in early motherhood and apply a range of cognitive
tests we just simply don't pick up any evidence
of broad scale cognitive decline these women
aren't aren't losing their minds, they aren't
becoming more forgetful. So we've got quite a
paradox here. We've got the experience of women
saying, hey, the subjective experience of feeling
forgetful, and then the objective lab testing
saying, hey, look, we're not really picking anything
up. So what's going on in the middle there? And
certainly as a neuroscientist, when I was told
that this was a thing, I just sort of dismissed
it. I thought, what would Mother Nature's intention
be? to make women kind of more stupid during
pregnancy and and motherhood and certainly our
understanding from the mammalian kingdom is mothers
show cognitive enhancement they get better at
doing what they do when when they go through
pregnancy and motherhood various researchers
have gone in and looked at that and there's there's
a number of explanations in there one is it's
very much associated with a sense of well -being
so women who are more anxious depressed, sleep
deprived, typically report lower wellbeing during
pregnancy or early motherhood, are much more
likely to rate their memory as poor, even if
they sit down and do memory tests and we say,
hey, look, your memory's fine. So there's a real
kind of a self -perception part of that. Another
part is why do we remember and how do we remember?
And memory depends on attention, what information
we take in. and what information we filter out
and our pregnant brains have been reorganized
to focus in on keeping this new little human
alive and to read their social cues and to understand
who they are so we've really got an enormous
shift of attention either when you're pregnant
you've got a baby in your belly um or keeping
this this new little person in your life healthy
and safe and alive so we've got an enormous shift
in attention and if we forget you know you forget
we've the classic way you've put your keys or
to check your emails. It's not because you're
experiencing some kind of cognitive deficit.
It's simply that your attention was focused somewhere
far more important. And then thirdly is this
concept whereby women are sort of expected to
do it all. We have this dreadful phrase, super
mum. If she's a super mum, no one needs to help
because she can do it all. And when you're trying
to do it all, you simply can't. And when you
drop the ball. We've kind of been primed as girls
and women through our lives that when we've got
our brains and then you sort of add in reproductive
hormones or reproductive function, that that
is synonymous with cognitive decline and emotional
instability. So if you aren't really coping,
you forget one thing, well, you just internalize
that and blame your brain. I'll blame baby brain,
blame my hormones when the issue might be social
support. It may be that you simply can't do it
all because it's a really big, it's an entire
new career that you're suddenly being, you know,
taken on board. And so that's kind of what I
think baby brain is almost like kind of a phrase
we use to describe that sensation or that kind
of experience of not being able to do what we
did before. It's not a cognitive issue. It's
a social issue. When your brain changes, everything
else starts to change too. You don't just look
at your baby differently, you look at the world
differently. You look at yourself differently.
You notice things you've never noticed before.
The cracks in the healthcare system, the price
of childcare, school lunch options, the broken
sidewalk outside your neighbor's house where
the stroller always gets stuck. Suddenly the
things that felt abstract now feel personal.
The policies, the pain points, the cultural assumptions.
And while the world may tell you you're just
a mom, the truth is your very biology is coursing
with an extra dose of courage, tenderness, and
strength. First your mind shifts, then your priorities,
and then your convictions. These are the qualities
of a powerful leader, and they help you get clear
on what you really care about. You take a job
that pays less but gives you your evenings back.
You raise your kids with more presence, less
pressure. You advocate for a friend's kid who
doesn't have a voice in the school system. I
love how Ellen Pompeo, yes, that's Meredith Gray,
of course, talks about this shift on Call Her
Daddy. You know, the truth is, at work, I'm not
100 % at work when I have kids at home. I'm absolutely
not. You cannot be a mother and have children
and give 100 % to your job. You can't. Because
there's a part of you that somewhere else you
split into different pieces. You're no longer
just you. You split into different pieces. And
you know what that does? It makes you more soulful.
It makes you richer. It makes you funnier. It
makes you feel more. It makes you more empathetic.
It makes you angrier. It gives you this. range
of emotions that you can't even imagine having
without this person. You will be yourself times
a thousand. Everything becomes different and
that's how it's supposed to be. Whatever systems
we find ourselves in as moms, our very presence
is capable of shifting that system, rewiring
it in the same way our brains are. It doesn't
have to be loud or flashy, but it's radical.
And here's a secret every mom eventually learns.
The system isn't going to save us. We are the
system. And when mothers shift, so does the world.
So the question is no longer what we have to
survive, but what we get to create. And when
we decide to create, our job is simply to get
to work, to make art, to raise kids, to write,
to do equations, if that's your thing, to explore
and experiment. Because we never know how what
we create will impact generations. Our job is
to show up and get to work. One example of how
what we create can impact generations is found
in the 1990s TV show, The Cosby Show. Up until
that point, moms had rarely, if ever, been portrayed
on TV as having careers outside the home. However,
the female writers of The Cosby Show decided
that Cosby's wife, Claire, was going to be an
accomplished lawyer. Her character was winsome,
smart, good at her job, and also a great mom
and wife. For the first time, moms were seen
as whole women who could do multiple things at
the same time and not become a cliche. This was
so revolutionary that it sparked a cultural phenomenon
known as the Claire Huxtable effect, where young
women and moms flooded law schools becoming lawyers.
There are countless studies about how profoundly
Claire Huxtable's character shaped a generation
of women. simply because a handful of writers
decided to write scripts that went against cultural
norms. Society tends to paint motherhood in pastels,
soft pinks, baby blues, tidy quotes about cherishing
every moment. But any mom knows motherhood is
technicolor. It's screaming red, bone -tired
gray, neon joy, midnight blue grief. It's all
of it, loud, sacred, disorienting, alive. And
matrescence? It's not a gentle fate. It's a full
-blown color shift, the kind you don't come back
from because you were never meant to. What if,
instead of laughing off the hard parts or shrinking
to fit the script, you honor them in your own
life? What if you stop measuring your experience
against what it should be? and instead named
it for what it is. Not a punchline, not too much,
not a cliche, but something that deserves to
be seen. A story that's shaping future generations
because motherhood deserves to be reclaimed.
We'll be right back. Let's talk about the word
reclaim. It's one of those words we toss around
a lot. Reclaim your time. Reclaim your space.
Reclaim your power. But it's older and wilder
than you might think. Back in the 14th century,
reclaim meant to call back a hawk. Picture that.
A wild, untamed bird circling overhead and a
falconer holding out a gloved hand calling it
home. That was reclaiming, calling back what
had flown away, not taming it, not trapping it,
just recognizing that what's wild and distant
might still belong to us. Later, the word took
on more volume. It came to mean to protest, to
cry out against, to bring back from an erring
path. It became fierce, loud, intentional, a
fight and a return. And maybe that's exactly
what we're being invited to do now. We don't
reclaim by going backward. We reclaim by restoring
what was meant to be whole. Our time, our wonder,
our voices, our joy. We've given a lot away and
it's time to call it back. So let's bring this
idea to the spiritual level too because the language
of reclaiming, of restoration, of calling back
the scattered and the lost is woven all throughout
scripture. The gospel story isn't about behavior
management. It's about wholeness. It's about
things being made right, not just in theory,
but in you. I think it's actually really helpful
to see this image in the Bible of God as a laboring
mom. It might surprise us that actually several
times throughout scripture, God is a mother in
labor. And those spaces are actually not just
about God as a mother in labor, but they're often
paired with God as a warrior. Which seems really
strange to us because we don't put moms and warriors
together, generally speaking, in our minds. But
in the ancient world, they did. And the connection
is this. When mothers in the ancient world were
giving birth, it was the closest space to death
that they might face. And they either would die
in childbirth or they give birth to new life
and new hope. And so, warriors, for men, the
space where they were most likely to die was
in the heat of battle. And they'd either die
or be victorious. And so, because of this, in
our ancient documents, all surrounding the Bible
and the Bible itself, we get this imagery of
a crisis of a woman crying out in birth pain.
and of the hope of new life. And this combination
actually tells us something more broadly about
the idea of what does it mean to be restored?
What does it mean to be reclaimed? And you get
this language several places. So, Isaiah 42 has
a woman, I love she's just like screaming out
in childbirth, and her cry is paired with a warrior
crying in battle. And we have God who is like
a mother doing this. He's like a warrior and
like a mother. And we have this language also
in other places in the New Testament. So, for
example, Jesus compares his death and resurrection
to a mother giving birth and the cry and the
labor pains that she would be in, like the grief
of his death. and her giving birth, like the
joy, the rejoicing in this new life and resurrection.
And so, when we talk about a biblical picture
of reclaiming and how God initiates that, even
the biblical text itself gives pictures of God
initiating that like a birthing mom and like
a mom raising her new child. I think this is
really interesting because what it does is it
tells us that the Bible is aware of both the
grief and the difficulty that can come with birth
and that can come with this new experience of
being a mother, but also the hope that comes
with that and this picture of what it means to
be restored. And so it's interesting because
not only is God pictured that way, but so is
Israel or Zion. And so we get in Isaiah 66, this
picture where Zion gives birth and she's nursing.
And then God describes himself like a nursing
mother in the same passage. And then it's used
with all this language of how everything is restored.
So there's going to be peace like a river and
there's going to be hope and the wealth of nations
and there's going to be comfort. And so it plays
these two types. two forms of birthing, God,
who is the birthing mom, who brings restoration
and will not forget her children, but also Israel
responds by also being a mom who is nursing and
nurturing. And so we can see that model of like
God and his people that then mirrors what it
is for us to be like people who respond. And
so this idea is not just about restoration within
a family, but restoration within the world. So
when God makes these When God nurtures, it isn't
only his children, but it has implications for
the nations. It has implications for everybody.
What do you want to call back? Your power, your
patience, your desire, your joy, your hope, your
fire. Sometimes it's just deciding to have more
fun again. Sometimes it's trusting your instincts.
Sometimes it's letting your rage be righteous.
Other times it's getting in the car with no plan
and turning up the music you loved before anyone
called you mom. Sometimes it's rest. Sometimes
it's prayer. Whatever it is, it's time to call
it back. I talk with women all over the world
every year, and they all share the same two feelings.
First, they're exhausted from doing so much.
And second, They feel like there's so much more
they should be doing. Boiled down, this means
we are running around at the pace of chihuahuas
on cocaine while simultaneously feeling fatigued,
numb, and under -accomplished. Almost every woman
I know has driven herself to the veritable ledge
of what she is capable of handling, physically,
emotionally, even spiritually. It's impossible
to overstate how exhausted everyone is, exhausted
by their marriage, their divorce, or dating life,
exhausted by their dream job, their hobby, their
day job, or their side hustle, exhausted by their
kids, the adoption process, or their fertility
journey. We are trapped in a cycle bigger than
our circumstances. But just because exhaustion
is so remarkably common doesn't mean we should
settle for it. There are parts of Louisiana where
major hurricanes roll through every few years,
often impacting the same low -lying parts of
the city. Homes are destroyed from mold and water
damage, and people lose all their belongings
and have to start over. It's horrific what these
families must endure. Frequently, These families
stay and choose to rebuild. But then a few years
later, another hurricane hits and destroys their
lives again. And watching this process and the
emotional, financial, and physical toll, many
of us would ask, why don't you just move? But
most of them say they won't leave because it's
the only home they know. Sometimes, exhaustion
is the only home we know, the only way of being
that we know. We're so used to being battered
by life's hurricanes that we don't realize there
might be other options. Often, if we want to
experience something different, we simply need
a new strategy. A friend sent me a post by author
Regina Thomasauer where she outlines two road
trip scenarios. So imagine you're on a long road
trip in a car by yourself. You're determined
to get to your destination efficiently. You're
hungry and have to pee, but you don't want to
stop at a gas station because it will slow you
down. You keep punishing yourself, pushing, ignoring
your discomfort so you can cover more distance.
You're convinced that you'll be able to enjoy
yourself once you get there. That's option A.
Here's option B. You're on a long road trip in
a car with a couple of girlfriends. Each of you
has packed a basket of delicious goodies to snack
on, and you're currently passing around some
chips and guacamole. You have interesting podcasts
and audible books to listen to, Whitney's blasting
on the radio, and some of you are singing along.
The destination is clear, and you're excited
to arrive, but you're also open to taking in
some interesting sights along the way. You meet
the most interesting woman in the restroom at
one of the rest areas who told you about a special
waterfall that only locals know about. So you
take a 15 -minute detour and put your feet in
the water, which feels amazing. Which trip would
you rather be on? A or B? One more detail that
might impact your choice. B gets to the destination
first. Know why? Since A was determined to make
good time, she ignored the check engine light,
alerting her that the car was overheating and
needed to stop for a break to cool down. She
persisted and is now on the roadside waiting
for AAA to tow her to the nearest mechanic. This
illustrates two options, a life without pleasure
and one that includes pleasure. Don't settle
for a numbed out life or miss life entirely because
you're so productive in your preparation for
living. You are never meant to fade away. You
are worthy of feeling good along the way. You
are meant to fly and find your way home. Lieutenant
Colonel Marvin Willett -Gonin was one of the
first U .S. soldiers to liberate a Nazi concentration
camp. Documenting his experience in his journal,
he wrote an astonishing entry dated May 23, 1945.
This is what he writes. It took a little time
to get used to seeing men, women, and children
collapse as you walked by them. One had to get
used to the idea early that individuals just
didn't count. It was shortly after the British
Red Cross arrived, although it may have no connection,
that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived.
This was not at all what we men wanted. We were
screaming for hundreds and thousands of other
things, and I don't know who asked for lipstick.
I wished so much that I could discover who did
it. It was the action of a genius. Sheer, unadulterated
brilliance. I believe that nothing did more for
those internees than the lipstick. Women lay
in bed with no sheets, no nightie, but with scarlet
red lips. You saw them wandering about with nothing
but a blanket over their shoulders, but with
scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post
-mortem table, and clutched in her hand was a
piece of lipstick. At least someone had done
something to make them individuals again. They
were someone, no longer merely a number tattooed
on the arm. At least they could take an interest
in their appearance. That lipstick started to
give them back their humanity. It doesn't take
much to help us reclaim our sense of aliveness,
but it does take something. And so to close,
let's talk about desire. Jesus asks a question
that makes a lot of us uncomfortable. Seven times
in the Bible, he asks a very specific question.
He asks, what do you want me to do for you? Wanting
is a tricky thing, isn't it? Sometimes we're
afraid we'll want the wrong thing. Or we've become
convinced that wanting is bad or selfish or greedy.
Maybe we're tired of desiring things only to
be disappointed repeatedly when they don't happen.
Or our longings feel incongruent with the options
around us. So we learn to reduce our longings
to a more manageable size. Make dinner. Pay the
bills, look at Instagram, and then do it again
the next day. I have spent a lot of time ignoring
my needs. This wasn't necessarily a conscious
decision. Somewhere over the years, I picked
up the message that it's better to be low maintenance.
easy to have around, and have minimal expectations.
I wanted to be the person who met other people's
needs but was so in control of my life that I
didn't need any help. But then I found myself
resenting the people around me for not intuitively
knowing what I needed or wanted. And I learned
that we can bury our wants, needs, and desires
and pretend they aren't there. But they still
are. Simone Weil once said, the danger is not
lest the soul should doubt whether there is any
bread. But less by a lie, it should persuade
itself that it's not hungry. One thing that strikes
me about Christianity is that it begins with
an invitation to desire. It's a message for those
of us who hunger and thirst. And nearly every
interaction that Jesus had with people addresses
their needs and longings. To the weary, he offered
rest. To the lost, he speaks of finding your
way. To the hungry, he provides nourishment to
people who were outcast. He offers a family.
Jesus takes longing seriously, but sometimes
we don't. C .S. Lewis in his book, The Screwtape
Letter, says the enemy's ploy is first to make
humans flabby with small passions and desires,
then offer a sop to those diminished passions
so that their experience is one of contentment.
They know nothing of great joy or sorrow. They
are merely nice. In another writing, Lewis poignantly
observes, we castrate the gelding and bid him
be fruitful. Author John Eldridge builds on this
idea, adding, as a society, we are producing
a generation of men and women whose greatest
virtue is that they don't offend anyone. Then
we wonder why there's not more passion for Christ.
How can we hunger and thirst for Christ if we've
ceased hungering and thirsting altogether? Perhaps
it's time we raise our expectations and get passionate
about taking hold of what God is offering us.
In Proverbs 4 .23, we're told, Sometimes we interpret
this verse as a clarion call to protect ourselves
from contamination and letting our hearts be
influenced by evil, which is essential. However,
when I think about not losing heart, I'm also
very aware of the fact that everything that makes
life worth living flows from the heart. As Eldridge
puts it, to lose heart is to lose everything.
Intimacy, romance, love, adventure, meaning,
purpose, courage, sacrifice, and joy. Nothing
of human greatness is accomplished without heart.
It's where desire stirs and fuels our creative
energy to write symphonies and climb mountains
or make babies. We need this wellspring of life
within us to fully live and not merely get by.
And so what all of this has been about is simply
a reminder that it's time to come alive. You
were never meant to do motherhood flawlessly.
You were meant to do it fully. I know you want
certainty. I know you want to get it right, but
that's not how this works. Motherhood is not
a math problem to solve. It's a wilderness to
move through. It's a long becoming. And so here's
my benediction for you. May you grow comfortable
with the mystery. May you sit beside your fears
and doubts with courage. May you trust that becoming
undone is sometimes the first step toward becoming
more whole. You're not failing. You are forming.
And just when you think you've reached your limit,
when the questions feel too heavy, when the ache
for who you were meets the love for who you're
becoming, I want you to remember this. You walked
through the first door. And you're still walking.
You carry the bloodline. You are the backbone.
And with every step you are not just surviving,
you are unfolding history. I know you want to
know, where do we go from here? But the answer
isn't a place. It's a posture. The beauty is
not in knowing, it's in living it. This experience
of being a mom is something only the worldwide
society of women will ever experience. And so
we must stay close to one another and remind
each other that yes, motherhood is hard, but
it is also full of ecstatic joy, endless possibilities,
and most of all, it is wildly. holy. 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 Shoemaker. Special thanks to Dr.
Beth Stoffel. 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 show has moved you,
share it with someone who needs to hear it. And
for feedback, you can reach out at media at themom
.co. And from all of us here at The Mom Co.,
thank you so much for listening to Bloodline
and Backbone.