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  • What I Learned About New Motherhood: Now and Then

    By Jessica

    I am so excited to write a guest post today for Monica at Wired Momma! I’ve been a fan of her site for a while, and she’s written and posted some terrific pieces about motherhood.  She has written about work-life balance for all sorts of places, such as the Huffington Post and the Washingtonian.  She’s also really funny.

    Today I wrote about my undergraduate thesis in college, which happened to be about new motherhood.  I interviewed women — as well as their husbands — before and after the birth of their first child.  This was way back in the 1990s.  I made a lot of assumptions about these women and about motherhood as a 22 year old.  (I know: it’s shocking that new motherhood turned out to be different than what I imagined it to be as a college kid!)

    Please read more about what I have learned since then at Wired Momma.

    How does your experience of new motherhood compare to the women from my study as a college student?

    And if you haven’t taken our new motherhood survey, we would appreciate it if you took a few minutes to complete it!

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  • Learn About the HerStories Project

     

    The HerStories Project is dedicated to helping women find support, reclaim a sense of self, and reinvent themselves during the transitional period of new motherhood.

    When a mother finally emerges from the baby fog of the 4th trimester, she may look around, bewildered, not recognizing her own life. After transitioning out of the survival mode that accompanies the newborn months, mothers often realize that their support system as they knew it is no longer adequate to meet their needs. A mother may feel isolated, guilty, and confused about how to define herself in the context of her new life. Modifying old relationships and seeking out new sources of support is not always easy, and it may feel like an impossible task during a particularly overwhelming stage of life.

    With this project, we have several goals:

    • Seeking your valuable input through our New Motherhood Survey. Take the survey here and add your voice!
    • Consulting a variety of experts to bring you helpful and meaningful information about how to find support during this stage.
    • Sharing our own stories of motherhood and friendship
    • Featuring more powerful HerStories guest contributor essays
    • Creating a book proposal for our project:  HerStories: Finding Support, Staying Sane, and Reinventing Yourself During New Motherhood

    We welcome — and need! — your participation during every component of this project.  By taking the survey, sharing your experiences, and becoming a part of the HerStories community, you can help us to create a useful and supportive resource for new motherhood.

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  • Female Friendship Resources

    Are you looking to learn a little more about friendship?  Confused about where to learn about how to make and keep friends as an adult?

    Try a few of these resources to get you started:

    Websites and Blogs

    GirlfriendCircles.com:
    Such a cool idea!  It’s a girlfriend matching service!  Created by
    friendship expert Shasta Nelson, this online community helps you to
    expand your circle of friends.  See a group of friends who met using this community on Katie Couric’s talk show during her “friendship” episode, featuring Shasta.  Shasta also has her own friendship blog as well.

    Girlfriendology:  Another online community to celebrate and give advice about female friendship.

    Under a Friendly Spell:  Journalist and former editor Carla Flora’s Psychology Today friendship blog.

    My articles on female friendship:

    “Female Friendship:  More Than Just Girls Night Out and Mean Girls“

    “Are Female Friendships More Intense Than Male Friendships?“

    Books About Friendship:

    She Matters: A Life in Friendships by Susanna Sonnenburg.  The memoir of friendship stories that first inspired our reflections about our own relationships.

    MWF Seeks BFF
    by Rachel Bertsche.  This is a memoir about Rachel — a married white
    female — and her quest for Miss Right, a new best friend, after she
    moves to Chicago to be with her new husband.  Also, check out her blog based on the book.

    Friendfluence:  The Surprising Ways That Friendships Make Us Who We Are by Carla Flora.  An examination of friendship based on research evidence and women’s own stories by a journalist and former Psychology Today editor.

    Friendships Don’t Just Happen! 
    A Guide to Creating a Meaningful Circle of Girlfriends by Shasta
    Nelson.  A guide for how to create friendships in today’s busy world by
    the CEO of GriendFriendCircles.Com.

    Twisted Sisterhood:  Unraveling the Dark Mysteries of Female Friendships by Kelly Valen.  After the public response to a New York Times essay about her own painful girlfriend experiences, Valen began a national survey of female friendship and came up with some tough conclusions about the legacy of female friendship.

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  • You and Me

    *Originally posted on April 18, 2013.

    The bond between sisters is strong and deep.  It’s also a relationship that can evolve over time, as women grow and mature.

    Read Julie Burton’s friendship piece about the relationship between her and her sister.  Julie also blogs at Unscripted Mom.

    How has your bond with your sister changed throughout your childhood and adulthood?

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  • A Friendship Mourned

    Originally posted on April 9, 2013.

    Dana Hemelt of Kiss My List movingly describes why she still mourns the loss of a close friend many years later.  Her friend Allysa took her own life, and Dana explains how she remembers her friend.

    Read Dana’s HerStories essay here.

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  • A Dog, Two Families, and Amy

    *Originally posted on April 3, 2013.

    Christine of A Fly On Our (Chicken Coop) Wall describes how she found a friendship just when she needed it most.   Her essay is about the special bonds that are created when two families connect and become important to each other.  Sometimes the bonds of friendship and new motherhood can tie families together forever.

    Read about Christine’s friendship here.

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