Unmoored and Unmothered
Mothering at the Edge of Collapse
Welcome to the first issue of Freedom and Desire.
I’ll be writing here twice a month — weaving together story, critique, memory, and cultural reckoning.
This first piece, landing just before Mother’s Day, is about mothering, grief, collapse, and the people who hold us when the center doesn’t hold.
I’m so glad you’re here.
Like many people, I have a complicated relationship with Mother’s Day. There’s a part of me that still braces for this week every year — not because I forget what I’ve lost, but because memory keeps changing shape. And this year, I keep thinking about what it means to mother when the world feels unmothered.
My mother died when I was 16. It was devastating in all of the ways you would assume and in ways that still surprise me. Since then I’ve collected many othermothers (not Other Mothers) — across genders and generations — who showed up and held me through different seasons.
Since then I’ve collected many othermothers (not Other Mothers) — across genders and generations — who showed up and held me through different seasons.
My beloved Aunt Geanora, or Mimi, as I called her, stepped into that space most fully after Mom passed. We had always been close. She didn’t push, but I needed her, and she knew it. So she stayed. She lived with us in the last couple of years before she died, and it was one of the most important, formative times in my life.
Maybe it's because this was also the beginning of my own motherhood — and Mimi’s steady, supportive, wise, non-judgmental presence was exactly what we needed. She allowed our family to stabilize. In a moment when everything else was in flux — work, parenting, identity — Mimi was our quiet ballast.
And maybe that’s why I feel her absence so sharply now. As if the work of mothering wasn’t already hard enough, we are now doing it in a time of intense and deliberate destabilization.
When I was a teenager, my mom used to joke about moving to wherever I went to college. The teen in me found this highly annoying and a little unsettling, but I remember wondering: would my dad just… stay? What about my siblings? The grandkids? Looking back now, I know the center of gravity would have shifted around my mother. Eventually, we all would have ended up wherever she was. Which might explain why I’ve felt unmoored ever since she left.
Unmoored and unmothered.
Or maybe it’s that the world itself feels unmoored and unmothered right now. Yes, the current political, social, and economic climate is chaotic — by design — and presents threats on multiple levels. But this sense of collapse isn’t new. It didn’t start in 2016. Or 2008. Or the 90s, or the 80s, or the 1880s. Or even 1492.
It’s layered. Inherited. Designed. Deliberate.
And alongside that unraveling, our understanding of mothering has shifted too — stretched, broken, rebuilt. Sometimes out of survival. Sometimes out of resistance.
Our sense of mothering feels fractured in this moment. The wider culture is pulling us back toward a mythical version of motherhood from the 1950s — Tradwives and MAHA Moms, nostalgic for a past that didn’t actually exist.
Our sense of mothering feels fractured in this moment.
Fun Fact: While women have always been central to household and economic life, the modern notion of the "housewife"—a woman devoted exclusively to domestic duties—became prominent during the 18th and 19th centuries. This shift coincided with industrialization, urbanization, and the rise of the middle class, which redefined women's roles within the family and society. As paid labor moved outside the home, and physical work was increasingly outsourced or devalued, women were recast as emotional laborers, unpaid caretakers, cultural props.
One day, I’ll write more about how American culture’s obsession with rugged individualism and the nuclear family has been disastrous for women and children. But for now, I’ll just say this: we’ve gotten ourselves into a real bind by isolating mothers from communities to serve capitalist interests.
And while mainstream culture tries to collapse motherhood into a brand or a performance —I keep thinking about the ones who mother in other ways.
The mothers who raise children and bury them. The ones who feed communities, keep track of birthdays, run childcare collectives, organize bail funds, make space for grief, keep the group text alive, take care of their own parents or elders, teach kids how to name power.
The ones who never had children. Or who never wanted to. Or who weren’t allowed. The ones who didn’t survive long enough to be called “Mother” but mothered everyone around them anyway. The ones who mother quietly. The ones who mother despite never being mothered themselves. And the ones — like me — who are trying to do all of this while grieving, working, improvising, and wondering how to raise a child inside a world we no longer recognize.
This is the root of unmothering: Diminishing the love and labor of those who mother the collective. If we don’t value those doing that grand work, why would we care very much for more typical examples of motherhood?
Unmothering is structural — not just emotional. It’s what happens when systems rely on the labor of care but refuse to honor it. When mothering is demanded but never protected. When it’s extracted, not reciprocated.
And I keep coming back to my own motherhood. My own daughter. What am I teaching her about care? About power? About love that doesn’t always look the way we were taught it should?
Lately, she’s been into the movie Coraline —a dark little fantasy about a girl who finds a twisted, mirror-version of her mother in another world.
And she keeps asking me:
“Are you my Other Mother?”
If this stirred something, I’d love to know what stayed with you.
Under this Moon
Full Moon — May 12, 2025
Candle: Deep purple or black
Support Item: Mirror or bowl of salt water
The Full Moon in Scorpio lands just after Mother’s Day, stirring emotional tides tied to lineage, power, and release. With Saturn at the edge of Aries, we’re being asked to face our emotional inheritance honestly — and choose what we build from it.
Spell / Reflection
I honor what shaped me. I return what isn’t mine to carry. I am not what hurt me — I am what I heal.
Sit with the mirror. Ask: What truth must I face to move forward freely?
What’s in Motion
Catch Your Breath Community Calls with INTERSECT
LGBTQIA2s+ Allyship in 2025: How to Actively Resist Homophobia and Transphobia with INTERSECT
The Body Trust Podcast — In our latest episode, we talk about fatness, pop culture, and who gets to be monstrous, beautiful, or both.
I have a few open spots for coaching. Connect with me on my website, if you’re interested.
Worth Your Time
Coraline (2009) — A dark animated fantasy about a girl who finds a too-good-to-be-true version of her mother in another world. It’s eerie, subversive, and speaks deeply to the themes of mothering, control, and desire.
Poker Face — The second season of this Peacock Original show staring Natasha Lyonne as a flame-haired, drifter/grifter who solves mysteries Columbo style, started last night and I am stoked!
Further Reflection
Where do you go when you need mothering and no one is there?
This hit home. Not only in the ways we expect motherhood to be, to care for us, but in terms of the ways we, as women, are called to hold things together and provide collective care. Great piece; looking forward to more.
I enjoyed reading this so much. Thank you. And it makes me think about the ways we mother and allow ourselves to be mothered. And the ways we seek to fill this fundamental need when access to our known source of mothering is unavailable.