Motherhood Is Not a Solo Act: Why Maternal Mental Health Needs a Village

What if the real reason you feel overwhelmed as a mother isn’t because you’re doing it wrong — but because you’re doing it as a solo act?

We tell new mums to "ask for help" while designing a world where help is hard to come by. We expect women to raise children with invisible villages that no longer exist — and then wonder why so many feel isolated, anxious, or not like themselves.

The truth is, most of us weren’t meant to mother in silence.

In many parts of the world, new parents are surrounded by elders, neighbours, friends — not just in celebration, but in the daily. Someone to hold the baby so you can shower. Someone to make you a meal, or simply ask how you really are — and stay long enough to hear the answer.

But the modern shape of motherhood, especially in the West, has become something else entirely: isolated, individualised, and weighed down with unrealistic expectations. You’re meant to bounce back, keep it together, and somehow find time to “enjoy every moment.”

And when you can’t? It feels like a personal failing — not a systemic one.

This isn’t just a poetic longing for the “village” of old — it’s backed by science. Research shows that poor social support is one of the strongest predictors of postpartum depression and anxiety. And when we do have support — emotional, practical, or peer-based — we’re more resilient, less likely to burn out, and more likely to feel connected to ourselves as well as our child.

We need to talk more openly about the real emotional cost of isolated motherhood, and build alternatives that honour the full spectrum of maternal experience.

Motherhood is not a solo act — it was never meant to be.

You don’t need to carry the emotional load alone. Whether you’re finding your way after birth, deep in the shifts of matrescence, or simply exhausted from holding it all — you deserve space, reflection, and support.

It might look like listening to the Not Calm Mums series on the Calm app while you rock the baby to sleep. It could be a quiet walk with a friend who asks how you are. A supportive conversation with a therapist or accredited coach who doesn’t judge.

A visit to the World Maternal Mental Health Day website to see what help is available in your country. Joining a WhatsApp group of mums who are awake at 3am too. Or a future moment — like our Everyday Retreat or Summer Wellcation — to reconnect with yourself and others.

Because your needs matter too. And you deserve support that feels real, accessible, and kind.

We believe your wellbeing is worth investing in. Not just for your children, but for you.

Other Support That Might Help

Support doesn’t have to be loud or complicated. Sometimes it’s a quiet reminder that you’re not alone. Here are a few places and resources that offer care, connection, and calm — whether you're a new mum, deep in the school years, or simply someone carrying a lot:

• Not Calm Mums – Calm App: Real talk and realistic moments from the Calm team — designed just for mothers who feel, well, not calm.

• Motherkind Podcast: Honest conversations on motherhood, mental health, and finding a deeper sense of self.

• World Maternal Mental Health Day: Learn more about the global movement, find local initiatives, and access maternal mental health support by region.

• Postpartum Support International: A hub for international help — including support groups, helplines, and professional referrals.

• Pandas Foundation: Offers a free helpline, support groups, and resources designed to meet parents exactly where they are.

• The Motherhood Group: An award-winning platform centering Black mothers' experiences of matrescence, mental health, and systemic barriers.

• Happy Mum, Happy Baby: Giovanna Fletcher’s podcast and platform is packed with non-judgemental, emotionally honest interviews about parenting, identity, and mental health.

• Mothers Who Make: A peer support network for mothers who are artists, creatives, or makers.

• Local library baby-and-me groups / playgroups: Sometimes support is as simple as showing up for rhyme time and chatting to another parent.

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Let’s Stay Connected

At If Lost Start Here, we don’t believe you should have to navigate this alone. Whether you’re looking for everyday wellbeing guidance, 1:1 support, or group experiences like our Summer Wellcation, we’re here to walk alongside you.

Join our mailing list to hear about ways we can support you — coaching sessions, courses, and gentle check-ins for your emotional wellbeing.

Join the List for More Guidance and Connection

Give Yourself a Break: A Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Loving Your Kids and Lowering Your Expectations

It should be noted, before we dive in, that there are truly unlimited ways to “homeschool” or “unschool” or “free-school”, unlimited ways to follow curiosity and to experience passion-driven, joyful education. This is just one mom’s path, in the midst of a world-altering crisis and in no way speaks to the path of any other homeschool family or system. I am posting this not to say: give up, do nothing. But rather, to say: give in, keep loving. I hope this perspective helps you to give yourself a tiny break and encourages you to find your way through, in any way that works for you and your family. You are doing a good job. You’ve got this.

In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, rapidly intensifying shelter-in-place orders and now-mandated home-based education for many, my friends keep asking me:

“How do you homeschool ALL the time?! I am going crazy!! What’s your secret?!”

To which I keep responding:

“You do realize that ‘homeschooling’ is much harder in the midst of a global pandemic when we are all panicked and locked indoors, right? Have you considered just doing a completely mediocre job??”

This, I realize now, is not what the good parents of the world want to hear. They want the real shit. The ins-and-outs of our day. They want to know how we know that our kids are learning and well-adjusted and challenged and engaged. We do not nervously laugh-cry when we are asked this. We deliver. 

So, here is everything I did today (which may be yesterday to you, or multiple days ago at this point..but does anyone even know what day of the week it is anymore? Let’s assume the construct of time will be dismantled soon.)

Ok…here we go.

It’s after 9am, but likely before 10. (Ok, it may also be after 10. I am not sure. These are trivial details now.)

We eat breakfast, pausing to be thankful that we have food and access to supermarkets (and that coffee is still allowed).

We flip through State Capital cards which happen to be strewn across the table and decide we could all really use a road trip around the continental US. (I feel like I’ve maybe never even heard of Frankfort, Kentucky before, but this must not be true?)

We make juice (convinced that ginger will save us). Kids cut fruits and veggies and craft and press their own concoctions. (This is probably science? Is “potions” a class?)

We eat chocolate because it’s delicious and this is self-care. (Also science.)

Stop everything! A package has arrived with massive blankets that look like tortillas. A photo shoot is necessitated!!

Now we’re dragging the blankets everywhere we go. (“No you can’t take it in the bathroom.” “Fine don’t let it fall in the toilet!” “No I don’t want to drag you around the house in it!” “Ok, last time! Wheeee!”)

The magic of the moment is waning. 

The 11-year-old and I escape to watch Watch Harry Potter 5 (younger child reads Captain Underpants with homebound-husband then watches the movie...I’m assuming they watch other things after this as their movie is shorter but I am enraptured and intermittently sobbing so really cannot be sure.)

There are cuddles for all.

Movies are done and a “we should really do something productive” feeling surfaces. (I try to quell it but cannot.)

We Watch a 6 minute math tutorial on Khan Academy before deciding...“meh.”

We Read Harry Potter 7. It is the last book in the series and we are 81% of the way through. (I know this because my Kindle app is actively torturing me. #crucio) I’m doling out pages slowly, a seasoned addict, fully aware of the withdrawals we are all about to experience. I am sob-reading now and it’s time for a change of pace. 

Still in HP-mode, we decide to watch Voldemort Make-Up Tutorials.

We do our own special effects make up. (Warning: hide your “good” make up.) (Pro tip: GO OUTSIDE)

Stop everything! Our large dog is licking our small dog and it is ADORABLE. He looks embarrassed by our laughter and we decide that he is a dog who holds himself to People Standards which is a very very complicated space to occupy. We feel for him but continue laughing. (The human experience is highly nuanced.) I think we are teaching empathy and humility but maybe we are just teaching that dogs are funny?

It’s feeling tired-y as it nears the “you’re either going to get ready for the day or you’re destined to eat an entire sleeve of Oreos at some point” threshold. (Getting ready still feels a bit too hard.)

We play charades. The kids choose things like “washing machine” and “pants”. (They are not good actors...but we do not let them in on this secret because there is still ample time to hone-in on their theatrical skills.)

We move on to play a game where you get to throw burritos at each other. (They are very good burrito throwers.)

It is lunch time. We eat at a table that some people would use for learning but that we mostly just use for eating (and burrito-related games). It used to be a nice table but is currently covered in paint...so I guess it is art now? (In a 900sf house with two dogs and two children it is very important to have functional pieces like this.)

While we’re at the table, we draw pictures of each other with our eyes closed. The 6-year-old cheats (but results suggest otherwise). The 11-year-old might be a prodigy.

We tour The Museum of Modern Art online and tell him we’ll love him even if he spends all of our (now) imaginary money on Art School. He assures us that YouTube tutorials will suffice. 

We celebrate the news with a Lizzo dance party - the regular, unedited version because the Kidz Bop version is garbage (and we will not settle for anything less than “100% that bitch”.) We answer follow-up questions about “DMs” and the lure of spending time with professional football players. This is probably social studies? Maybe health, too?

Stop everything! Our snake has shed! The aftermath must be examined!! Muffin looks like a brand new man and we are all here to encourage him to be his shiniest, most noodle-y self.

It is now time for second lunch. In these strange times I’ve decided that I should not be eating food without utilizing the large bottle of buffalo wing sauce that I panic-bought at Target three weeks ago. Second Lunch is spicy and reminiscent of something you might find at an Applebees. This is self-care, now. (Unprecedented times, indeed.)

Kids disappear with boxes and scissors and tape. I am asked to cut yarn but I DO NOT ASK why because I don’t want to impede on this newfound independence. Also, I do not want to help and asking questions makes me complicit in the outcome of this project. (Plus, I need to stare at my phone.)

One child emerges from the bedroom as a dancing cardboard robot. He has painted on abs and a butt made of aluminum foil. We laugh hysterically because these are “buns of steel” and their execution is magnificent.

Child two has designed a remote control car and is operating as, I don’t know what (?) I wasn’t totally listening but something like the engine, or some sort artificial intelligence system??? Either way, she hands us the remote and it is, quite literally, the only time we’ve been in control of anything all day. Her override system is powerful, though, and she ends up going rogue. It’s ok because she is almost instantly back in the bedroom with the boxes and the scissors and her brother and all is silent for 10 glorious minutes.

Stop everything. The creativity has run out in all of us.

Everyone is lobbying for more TV (but we’re saving that for later when we’ll need to fully ignore them and get some work done.) 

We lay around and listen to the Poetry Unbound podcast. (It’s possible that I am the only one listening but I mumble something about “osmosis” to myself and carry on.)

We pull out first grade spelling flash cards (despite the fact that no one here is in the first grade). We agree that English is nonsense and tentatively plan to learn Latin. The six-year-old assures us all that Spanish makes more sense and walks us through her app where she expertly clicks through pictures of corn and horses and airplanes as words the rest of us don’t understand come tumbling out of the phone.

It’s 5 now (maybe?) and we have determined that if we do not leave the house that we will literally suffocate. 

We’ve heard about a project where kids go around town leaving delightful little chalk rainbows in their wake, a sign of hope and connection in otherwise unstable, disconnected times. Our neighbors are elderly so the kids make the rainbows big and extra-bright outside of their homes. We tell them that other kids may have left rainbows behind, too, and to see if they can count them on their journey around the block. They find “zero” but draw “probably 55”. The adventure is a success.

On the way home the kids find an empty basketball court and design giant chalk homes complete with rooftop decks and “more than 2 bedrooms” (an obvious slight to us, but we let it go).

Back at our tiny home, it is time for a bath.

I need to do some work, which feels pressing, but will have to wait until we’re back on dry land. For now a half-hearted mermaid impression is all I can be expected to produce.

Ok, out of the water. Kids are hungry because they didn’t eat second lunch. (Feels like their problem...but, fine, we will feed them.)

We eat dinner. It is pasta again, because we don’t understand how to save our food stores (and pasta is delicious).

We queue ANOTHER movie.

I, mostly-unapologetically, ignore them for two hours so that I can write hard hitting pieces like this. Except for the nine times I pop in to say “Sorry guys, almost done! Are you having fun? (Am I a good enough mom?) Anyway, cool cool cool, back to business! I love you!” I wish the head of the journalism program I dropped out of in college could see me now. (Except, no, not really see me as I’m still in yesterday’s PJs…which are actually PJs from TWO yesterdays ago, but who’s counting?)

We throw burritos again.

It is feeling dark enough to sleep now. We implore the children to brush their teeth (a process that spans multiple lifetimes but somehow we do not visibly age), then there are the meltdowns (whoops we missed our window), then hugs, mini-dance party, cuddles, everyone in our bed, circle back to Harry Potter and accidentally read for two hours which means we all wake up late again tomorrow.

Finally, I look around and let my eyes fall upon their little faces…faces with remnant make-up and rosy cheeks, faces that have hurled forth insults and uttered accidental poetry. Maybe it’s some mixture of gratitude that they are healthy (and silent) and the coziness of our too-small bed, or maybe it’s the realization that, holy shit, this all goes by so quickly, but, somehow, amidst the pressure to do it all right (and the fear that I’m doing it all wrong) there is really no where else I’d rather be.

Are you in search of connection and support through this time? Head to our guide for inspiration or navigate from our home page: If Lost, Start Here

Cafes for Life: Are Cafes Good for our Mental Wellbeing?

Last night my daughter Ottilie ended up in the ER. It wasn’t serious. That’s not this story. As we walked off the beach, my son threw a stone at her and though she was supposed to duck behind the boogie board, she didn’t. It punctured her eyebrow and off we went to get it glued and pulled back together. 

This morning, at Kindergarten drop-off, Ottilie wobbled. She was worried about the plaster getting wet, worried about the rain forecast, worried about it being Monday morning and that she would be away from me again.

And I wobbled too. I felt her anxiety—felt it with my own, seeping through my body. I carried all of it into the beginning of my week too: The moment I saw the blood streaming down the left side of her face and my son screaming ‘it’s her eye, it’s her eye’. The fear of what might have happened, of washing away all that red to figure out how serious it was, the anger that my son had caused this and that my daughter was in pain. 

I felt it keenly this morning when I awoke, that long evening in the ER waiting room, with kind doctors and nurses paying attention to this little girl still in her beach wetsuit, trying to stay calm and positive as I wanted to vomit into the trash can. And I felt too the effects of that very large glass of rose I used to dull my nerves on an empty stomach when I got home, and the kids finally slept. I felt it again and again, the vulnerability that is our world with children, and the times our lives smash into pauses of the non-self-care kind, but of the nothing-else-matters-because-my-kid-is-hurt-and-I-do-not-care-in-this-or-any-other-moment-how-many-followers-I-have-on-Instagram kind.

But we’re here now. On a Monday morning. With all the feelings. In need of pulling it all back together, to similarly glue the opposing sides of myself. To get back to work, to life. I know I’m supposed to do this: drop off the kids, walk home to my study, sit down and work. But instead I do this: drop off the kids and drive to a café. Sit down and work. Because this, getting myself to a café, feels good to me.

Here, in this bustling space, with the sound of the espresso machine, and frankly quite horrible music playing, here is my solace. This café is the balm, these people I don’t know sitting next to me, are the answer that I’ve found to sitting also with the sometimes ickyness of life. It’s cafés that I turn to for something, some cossetting. I don’t go for a run, I don’t go to the gym, I head here. To cradle a large latte and to feel ok again. 

Home represents something else: maybe a spiraling down, an empty space to fill with feelings, the weight of family needs that populate it. But here, there’s no empty something to fill, it’s already filled to the brim with chatter and other people lives, adjacent to my own. None of this belongs to me, but I get to witness and to brush against other people’s stories, to be distracted from my own. 

Maybe I’m avoidant. But I know I’m not running away. I still bring the crap with me, it just sits better here, perched on a stool looking out at the world. It’s not a ‘let’s not do this’, more of a ‘let’s do this’ but with a blanket of cafeness. Can that be a word? What’s does that even mean here—warmth, people, place?

My life is a long-read in cafes—my coming-of-age story happened not at the Hacienda in Manchester in a period of music that was to become quite defining (Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, Stone Roses, you know), but at the now defunct Cornerhouse café (since morphed into Home) a pretentious enough place that reflected my tendency to rave in my own mind and happily alone. Attending University in Edinburgh it was the Elephant House where JK Rowling wrote some book. In London, actually Caffé Nero (sorry - there’s a nice one in Chiswick). In San Francisco, there were too many to count—this was the polyamorous part of my café love (in a pinch we’d go for Ritual, The Mill, Coffee Bar and the Equator locations). This was when I could get lost in a neighborhood, and find its people lounging in some carefully designed caffeinated environment. 

Then came one of the blows to being a new parent: realizing that toddlers don’t do well in fancy, artisan places—which is why Blue Bottle’s takeaway counter at San Francisco’s Ferry Building does so well for us, and Sightglass doesn’t. And also, the realization, if I could not do anything else in my day with a baby in the sling, too knackered to function in the sleep deprivation months, I could get myself to a café where I knew the barista and a handful of people. They would be kind enough to acknowledge me as a person, not just a mama, and I could have that sensation that I was still a grown up, because going for coffee was something only real adults got to do, right? A little older, my kids now know the equation, playground + coffee shop (the brits do this best: see Bath’s Alice Park Cafe). When we travel, our sight-seeing comes with best guides to coffee shops as much as things to do with kids (thanks The Almond Thief, Moo and Two, Society Café, The Hobo Co, the Hairy Barista, The Hatch and Cargo Coffee – our favourite places that dotted our summer holidays). 

Maybe I’m weird. Maybe this is an unusual anomaly to put out there in self-care (which autocorrects to self-café btw, which makes no sense at all). But there’s some science behind this. And it’s all around ‘minimal social interactions’, which are vital to our mental wellbeing. The NPR podcast Life Kit put me on to this, a study by Dr. Gillian Sandstrom at the University of Essex that she conducted on whether people were happier even through weak ties, i.e. connections with people that we barely know and with whom we have limited contact. In short, she studied the impact on people of their interaction with a barista. She defined two groups, one that had just a functional interaction with the barista, and the other who chatted a little more with them. Then she asked them some questions on the way out of the cafe. Her study concluded that people were more satisfied, connected and happier, if they had engaged the barista, even for just a little while. 

Cafes do this work. The work of connection, of putting people in front of us, with our nods and their smiles, our how are you's and what about the weathers. They helps us. I know that, less scientifically, because for my dad who cares full-time for my mum, a cup of coffee in a café means he’s less lonely. A few words exchanged and he’s a person again not just a carer. 

Cafes are our third spaces, that mythical place between work and home. Sometimes they are even our work locations as I type away on my laptop. As high streets fall apart and our communities fragment, cafes are becoming one of the few places we can actually go to be with others. They are vital to our wellbeing. 

Real-world initiatives are building on this, like the Chatter & Natter tables now in over 1000 cafes across the UK (including at Costa and piloted this year in Sainsbury’s) that sets aside a table for strangers to chat and aims to combat loneliness. This scheme brilliantly responds to two very contradictory things: that 75% of us would like more real-life conversations and that we don’t know how to do this. Ever found yourself sat in a cafe and looking around at all the other people sat alone too who you might be able to chat with if you didn’t feel so uncomfortable about approaching them? Chatter & Natter tables make it easy: if you want to talk to someone, you choose to sit at one of these tables. You don’t need to forge forever friendships, but you can make your day better by talking to a person for the time it takes to drink your coffee, maybe even for longer. It’s an ingenious, and super simple, way of making the world less lonely. Even the guinea-pig themed café in FleaBag had Chatty Wednesdays.

Cafes for us are the main way we get to be in the world while deciding how and if we interact with other people. Some cafes are really getting this by actively building connection into what they do or finding ways to provide sustaining spaces of comfort and intimacy. Some are just making sure they exist beyond the beverages on offer. London’s Drink Shop Do has built connection (and craft and bottomless brunches) into their space with an active program of events and a welcoming style. Brooklyn’s IXV promotes a no-waste, people-first ethos. New Jersey’s The Peccary gets the central role baristas play, and puts their wellbeing, their knowledge of the product and their interactions with customers, at the heart of what they do.

Sometimes it’s in an even more direct response to our mental health needs: In Chicago, Sip of Hope is one of the first cafés where 100% of their profits go towards suicide prevention and mental health education. Wallers Coffee Shop in Atlanta was founded to take on the stigma of depression, through offering music, mental health first aid, even a wall of resources. Dear M&S has been getting in on the act for a while: select cafes have for the past few years been used after-hours for Ruby Wax’s Frazzled Cafes. And there’s even a network of Happy Cafes worldwide, realized in association with Action for Happiness, that count our psychological wellbeing next to the lattes on their menus.

Self-care takes many forms. Being in a cafe is one of them for us. Maybe even for you too?

Tell us about cafes you know that are your respite from the world, or make space for something you need, or that make mental wellbeing part of their impact. Over the next few weeks we'll look more at some of these places and bring them into our guide for in real-life locations that help us better live our lives.

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Discover more places to feel connected

Fox + Kit | Tumbling Towards Joy

“Coffeehaus + Playground”

When I first entered Fox + Kit, my two children in tow, I quickly placed a mental bet with myself: How long would it take us to (1) break something beautiful, or (2) be kicked out entirely?

The cafe felt, distinctly, like somewhere grown-ups like me weren’t allowed to enjoy anymore. Live plants, marble tables, swinging rattan chairs, gorgeous modern furniture in dusty pinks and deep blues. They must not know how sticky we are (?), must not know that I have a 3-week-old banana in my purse, just waiting to tumble out.

The baby-pink-clad barista (a detail I would be remiss to overlook) standing beside a bevy of drool-worthy pastries (another key fact) didn’t appear to share my hesitation. With a smile, he asked if we’d been in before, if he could get a coffee started for me, and if the kids would be heading into the play space. 

And, that’s when I saw it … a giant glass wall cordoning off what can safely be considered the most aesthetically-pleasing play area I’d ever seen. Custom woodwork, faux-grass, plush stones, stackable cushions, cozy corners and caves, space for reading and running and dress-up (and whatever other weird things kids do when they are loosely-supervised). We were awestruck, our feet moving forward before our brains could catch up.

So, I stumbled through my coffee order and we continued toward the play space. “We’ll put it in a tumbler for you, so you don’t have to worry about spills in there,” they called after me. I didn’t know exactly what a tumbler was, and the kind, pink barista clearly didn’t know that I’d fully resigned myself to any discomfort associated with spilling things in public (but I was very excited for a special cup). I wanted to drop into my most gravelly voice and tell him, “You don’t know the things I’ve seen…” but I already had the rotten banana to deal with, so I thought it best not to press my luck. (It was the kid’s job to get us kicked out, after all. Wouldn’t want to steal their glory.)

Entering the play space was like entering another world; a world where quality design meets functionality, a world where the color palette doesn’t send your eyes darting back and forth seeking reprieve, a world where kids slide happily down hills with nothing more than pirate hats, books and one another to entertain them. Miraculously, my kids (ages 5 and 10) were both instantly hooked. I grabbed my coffee (a cool, copper tumbler, with a spill-proof lid that I still can’t quite understand the dynamics of), gave them kisses, told them I’d be in the cafe, then left. 

Walking back in to the cafe felt illegal. 

Can I sit here? Are these swinging chairs for the VIPs? When my kids come running out, loudly-insisting that I come see their half-heartedly executed tumbles, is that when the jig is up? When does the shame part start???

But…it never came.

The kids played, ran in and out, insisted that I meet their new friends and watch their questionable gymnastics feats, took a short break for croissants and chocolate milk (their little mini-tumblers even cuter than mine)…and they played, and I worked (and breathed, and relished in the beauty of the space). 

The novelty of this might be lost on someone who hasn’t spent the better part of a decade feeling excluded from the spaces they once found comfort and solace in. And, of course, no one is really *actively* telling you that you can’t enjoy the spaces you once occupied (that would be discrimination) but there is certainly an air of “your crying baby is ***really*** fucking up the vibe and if you don’t leave on your own volition, we might be forced to hipster-stare you into oblivion.” Sometimes just because you’re “allowed” to be somewhere, doesn’t mean you’re welcome there.

When husband and wife designers David and Kyoko Westberg set out to create a space for parents and children, they considered every detail, most notably, a way to make guests feel comfortable, content and accepted for what they are: very nice people (with very loud smaller people, in tow) who all just want some good coffee and yummy snacks.

At Fox and Kit, we’ve found a space that makes us feel both welcome and at ease, even productive. (No one even mentioned the banana.)

Website www.foxandkit.com / Facebook @foxandkitmarin / Instagram @foxandkitcafe