a dialogue on motherhood

an IFS exploration into motherhood

All Parts is a newsletter for those who no longer want to force or fix their way through life. Our community space is called All Parts Home, where you have access to dozens of breathwork and movement practices, somatic explorations, educational workshops, and more to support self-compassion and curiosity. When you sign up for a membership, you automatically get a comped paid subscription to the All Parts newsletter.

Welcome to the All Parts Collab Series!

Over the course of the next two months, I’ll be sharing 4 newsletters that I’ve written in collaboration with some of my favorite writers and fellow therapists. We explore topics ranging from motherhood, to the intersection of yogic philosophy and psychotherapy, to defining what spirituality means for you, and more.

I thought it fitting that on Mother’s day, we’d start with a beautiful conversation with:

Kaitlyn Elizabeth

from

dialoguing

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Kaitlyn is, first and foremost, a person who struggles to write these types of intros. She is also a psychotherapist and wellbeing coach living in Denver, CO with her son, husband and dog-like cat. She writes a weeklyish newsletter here on Substack called dialoguing. It's NOT a therapy newsletter, but she does write about therapy, about being a therapist while also being a human person ambling about her life and about therapeutic concepts in TV, film and music.

When Kaitlyn and I first hopped on a zoom call to discuss a potential collaboration it felt like we were old pals. In some ways, we were. I’ve followed Kaitlyn’s substack, Dialoguing, for as long as I can remember, and vice versa. Whenever I read her writing I’d think, we would SO be friends in real life. She admitted to a similar para-social relationship with me.

So it’s not a surprise that co-writing this piece was one of the most effortless collaborations we both admitted to have ever experienced.

On the surface this is a conversation between two therapists talking about motherhood. But really it’s a dialogue between two women who aren’t trying to solve anything, who don’t have all (or any) of the answers, and who certainly are not trying to be “right” or “good.”

I wish we all had more of these types of conversations. We encourage you to hop into the comments section to share your own thoughts and experiences around motherhood.

We’ll meet you there.

What parts of your identity shifted in the process of matrescence*?

Kaitlyn: I didn’t always want to be a mother. Likely due to some intergenerational patterns and social conditioning, being pregnant or becoming a mother felt like the worst thing I could do. I didn’t even let myself begin to want it until I was in my late 20’s when I married my husband. Once I opened that gate though, I was all in. It was all I could think about, especially after I got pregnant. Looking back, I can see a lot of that energy was pure and at the same time, some of it was a part of me hoping if I did this perfectly, it would heal something in me. It was a big realization (and disappointment, if I’m honest) to see pregnancy and motherhood as just another place where perfectionism can run wild. The identity transformation happening in matrescence is immense. It can be incredibly expansive if there is enough there to support it.

Eliza: Similarly to you, I didn’t grow up dreaming of motherhood. I always knew, deep down, that I wanted to be a mother, but I couldn’t see past the societal expectations placed on me that I should want to be one. I wouldn’t let myself see past the sacrifices that so many women around me had made at the cost of their own sense of Self. I knew from a young age that I didn’t want the version of motherhood I was raised to believe was the only way, and for a long time I didn’t see another way modeled. So it became something I resisted.

My transition into motherhood ironically began when I no longer felt like I had to- or was expected to- take care of my husband (again, something that had been modeled to me from a young age). My husband and I have worked, and continue to work, really hard at dismantling traditional gender norms in our relationship. He’s been able to own his patterns of learned helplessness, while I’ve been able to recognize when I default to the nagging mother role.

I think this is what’s really allowed me to open up to motherhood in a way that doesn’t feel like I’m losing or sacrificing myself, but rather that I’m opening up to an even broader, more expansive definition of who I am. (note: I’m writing this 8 months pregnant so take everything I say with a grain of salt! I’m still very much in the transition process and know there is still soooo much to learn, unlearn, and experience).

I feel really lucky to now have so many models and examples of motherhood that go beyond that traditional definition I was raised with. For me it’s helped me to feel like I have some agency over how I want this transition to look like.

Kaitlyn: My parts are tagging the acknowledgment of learned helplessness in your husband. So important!! We love a self-aware king willing to do that work.

Agency is a good word. I love hearing you feel that within yourself. I’ve been leaning into this idea–although I suppose it’s more like a sensation–I’ve heard repeated in the world of IFS: When we figuratively feel trapped, noticing if there is a door. Meaning, do I have to be here? Do I have to act like this? Show up like this?

Eliza: Ohhh yes I love the idea of the door!! And I love those questions you pose. I feel called to write those somewhere where I can see them constantly. There is always a door, a window, a crack to crawl through.

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What are common parts of you that come up around motherhood?

Kaitlyn: As I go to answer this, I immediately notice a part saying it is shameful to say out loud the feelings/parts I would normally address, so a self-critic is here. Hey, girl. Other common parts are guilt, task-master, controlling, and several manager parts governed by fear about his well-being/health. I also have a rebel part that wants to throw the script out the window and be my own damn type of mom.

Eliza: Ohhh I really felt my own rebel part come online when I read that last part! I’ve noticed myself resisting some of the advice that I’ve received from other moms. It’s all meant with good intentions, but I notice my rebel part get annoyed at all the “shoulds,” and “need to’s” that seem to inundate mothers. Don’t tell me what to do!

I’m so curious about the controlling part. I know that will be a big piece for me, too, when the baby comes.

A question that comes up is: when and how do we treat our children as exiled parts of our Selves, and at what cost? Like you mentioned that there was a part of you that hoped that if you did motherhood perfectly that it would heal something in you. I definitely resonate with that. But does that also speak to something deeper, which is the idea that raising a child differently to how I was raised will heal the inner child in myself, and is that fair or even a reasonable expectation?

A better way of articulating what’s coming up is: is it fair to our children to think or feel that they will heal parts of our Selves?

Kaitlyn: I’m smiling at the controlling part feeling interesting to you. I would have had a similar reaction before becoming a mother. I didn’t think I was all that controlling prior–a point of unearned pride one might say. I quickly realized that is horseshit. I very much do have a controlling part. I’ve just always turned this energy on myself. Once my little one was earthside I felt soothed by what I could control and a powerless panic in what I couldn’t. Thankfully just realizing the extent to which I thought I had (and should have) control helped me immensely. Just naming that part of me. I remember the moment very clearly, just laughing at myself and the ludicrous notion I could control another being–or that I’d want to, or that either of us needed that. Not only did that help loosen the grip on myself and him, it also provided A LOT of insight into how I was parented.

There is most certainly a cost of treating our children as exiled parts of us. It is tempting to believe that just by giving our kids what we didn’t get, but needed, it will heal us and them. I wanted to believe that. Except I’ve learned time and time again that is not how it works. I have to work on giving those things to myself first and then look up to see if my kid even needs whatever I’m offering.

I would have HATED to admit this prior to having a child, but it’s been very true in my experience. Breathtakingly, true. Humbled to my knees, true. I recall early on in therapy after I became a mother I’d want to talk about him and how he was doing and if I was doing a good enough (read: better) job, etc. She kept bringing it back to me. It pissed me off. She was onto something, of course.

Being the best parent I can be to him is good for him, obviously, but it doesn’t tend to my own internal anguish all that much–far less than I thought it would. Being a good parent to myself is the “key in the lock” moment. I can learn how to do that by attending to how I parent him, certainly. I can take what I learn through parenting myself more compassionately back to how I show up for him, yes. It all gets there in the end, I suppose, but it’s not as directly related as I had suspected.

Also, I very quickly realized what I needed more of as a kiddo is not what he needs. I have moments where I see an opportunity to “heal” something I didn’t have and he literally rolls his eyes at me–at 5!! It’s already starting. I feel like he can see me trying. It’s frankly embarrassing. I’d be better off holding up a mirror to myself instead.

Eliza: “I very much do have a controlling part. I’ve just always turned that energy on myself.” Oof this one hit me hard! I started with a new IFS therapist this week and will certainly need to (but also resist to) work on this part. There’s a lot there for me for sure.

There is an interesting dichotomy that I’ve noticed with the controlling part within me that has already started to change, though. Excuse me while I explain this concept in a very esoteric, philosophical way:

It feels like I just generally have way less fucks to give, but the fucks I do have feel even more important and I can sense a tighter grasp around them. Something to sit with for me.

I love how you described how motherhood has inevitably healed parts of yourself, but in the opposite way than maybe expected or how I was inquiring about. What I hear is that it’s not about putting the onus on the child to heal parts of yourself, or being a better parent to your child in the way that you needed when you were a kid. It’s actually about attuning to your child's needs without projecting your own needs onto them. It’s more about learning to parent those parts of yourself that needed whatever you’re projecting onto your child in the here and now.

And when we do slip into those patterns of projection, it sounds like at least your kid is good at calling you out! Ha!

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We both consider ourselves highly independent. This next prompt explores the perceived friction between independence and the expectation of becoming the "selfless mother.”

Kaitlyn: In a lot of ways the claustrophobia of motherhood, if I were to follow societal expectations, has helped me find my sense of self even more fervently. The parts of me who are creative, independent, ambitious couldn’t survive in the confines of traditional motherhood (I know they maybe can for others). The truth is I didn’t fight for those things within me before motherhood, so by the time this experience came, these parts were like, “OK, that’s enough!!” I’ve learned in therapy, there were parts of me who felt like they were literally dying. The good news is that I’ve found the more I make space for all my parts, the more wholly I show up for my kiddo. A full person with less resentments, more wonder and awe. I don’t need to be with less-self to be the kind of parent I hope to be.

Eliza: I feel like this is similar to what I was saying in the first answer! I don’t have the experience of being a mom to pull from, but again that societal expectation that it has to be this huge sacrificial thing doesn’t really resonate with me because I don’t want to grow to resent my role as mother (I know there will be moments where I will, but I don’t want it to ever become my default).

So helpful to hear your perspective here. As a soon-to-be mom it feels so reassuring to hear from other moms that there is room for all of us to show up and that that is what actually lets you be the best possible mom you can be. It makes me feel hopeful and excited.

Kaitlyn: Carl Jung has us all set with his famous saying, “The greatest burden a child can have is the unlived life of a parent.”

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How has it been for your parts to wrestle with the reality of “it takes a village” in a society that doesn’t have systems in place to support that?

Kaitlyn: I struggled to recognize I needed help, seek it out and accept it in early motherhood. I had parts who thought I should know how to do everything myself and be able to do it myself. I can see now I just had a deep desire to do it well and do it differently, so much so that I didn’t let anyone else get close enough to have an impact. I felt very “needy” at that time while also caring for someone that needed so much from me. It was very meta. I still feel the walls close in around me with how much need there can be–and this hurts on a lot of levels. I can feel the part of me who was told they were too needy as a child and how I don’t want my son to feel that judgement from me, I can feel the mother in me (and likely of many mothers before) who metaphorically drowned under the pressure of doing it all with very little support. I’m learning to notice it’s not his need (and my need before) that is the problem, but the expectation that one person should be the sole provider of said needs at all times.

Eliza: SO much wisdom here, Kaitlyn. Whew. What struck me the most is the irony of you saying you “had a deep desire to do it well and do it differently.” Because doing it differently in today’s world actually means NOT expecting ourselves to be able to do it all on our own. Doing it differently would actually mean returning to the village model where both child and mother’s needs were being met by others in the community.

I don’t mean to call you out because I have caught myself feeling and thinking very similar things and know this will only grow when the baby comes. It’s more just like…how messed up that this line of thinking is so normal?!

Kaitlyn: Truth! I don’t feel called out, I feel called in. I was very much following the same path by doing it so solitarily and self-critically.

Eliza: One major reason my husband and I moved to a more rural area was to have a sense of community that didn’t feel possible in a big city or suburb. It was a big gamble, but we wanted to find a place where we could return to more of a village model, not just for our child, but for ourselves, too.

As I sit here typing this, the woman who lives next door is taking charge of a neighborhood meal train for after the baby comes to make sure we are fed and nourished. We met her 4 months ago. The midwife and birthing center we’ve been working with for our prenatal care has already set us up for a “fourth trimester” group that meets weekly. There’s a volunteer program in our town where a volunteer comes to our home for a few hours once a week after the baby is born to support you in whatever way you need (cooking, walking the dog, laundry).

I recognize how lucky I am to have all this support already lined up. And also, I really had to fight for it. I know many women don’t have that same luxury. It makes me so sad to know that these resources and support are exceptions and not the norm.

*More resources on matresence:

What is Matresence? In the same vein of how much we can change in adolescence, matresence--a term coined by anthropologist Dana Raphael in the 70's--is a transitional stage where parts of one's identity shift and evolve. As Aurelie Athan, a psychologist and professor at the Teachers College at Columbia committed to reviving this term, puts it, "The seismic shift happens in every slice of the human pie, biologically, psychologically, socially, economically, existentially, ecologically and spiritually." (Source: The Bump). For more on this:

"The emotional roller coaster of being a new mom" by Grace Bastidas and Audrey Nguyen for NPR

"'Matrescence,' and the Transformations of Motherhood"by Anna Russell for The New Yorker

Matrescence: On Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood by Lucy Jones