Inside Look: “Dear Mama, You Matter” by Amanda Hardy, PhD, LMHC
Length: A Moderate Read
Topics: Self Love for Motherhood and the Postpartum Period
Current Status: Not Available Yet
I have had the incredible honor and pleasure of being one of the first people to read this fantastic book written by Amanda Hardy as part of her launch team. Amanda has worked as a therapist, an assistant teacher professor, a childbirth educator, and a postpartum doula. She wrote this book as a series of love letters from herself to the mothers of the world, with small glimpses into her life as a both a professional and single mother of two teenage boys. I can’t wait for it to be available for purchase so I can add it to my client library! “Dear Mama, You Matter’, is all about the transforming experience of motherhood, how to have a healthier postpartum period, and signs that your postpartum mood disorder may need medical attention.
Honestly, I enjoyed all of this book. It has a unique focus on the postpartum mother not just growing a person (pregnancy and mothering), but changing as a person. I particularly liked Amanda’s butterfly analogy. She questions why people expect a postpartum woman to “get back to her old self”, not just quickly, but ever. We don’t look at a butterfly and ask them when they are going to go back to doing caterpillar things, so why do we do this to mothers? Mothers, Amanda points out, have changed, grown into a completely different version of themselves. Every mother struggles and succeeds at different things, growing as a person while they grow as a mom. The idea of asking us to “get back” to our old selves, well, it completely negates all of that hard earned growth!
As a mother myself, I absolutely loved this analogy. I felt deeply understood and even learned about myself as both a mother and a person. As a birthworker, I am thrilled that these beautiful words, and feelings behind them, will soon be available for families everywhere. Amanda speaks simple truths throughout her book. One of my favorites comes right out of the introduction in bold print “the more we love on the mamas, the more they can love on their babies . . . we can change the world by raising our children to know they are deeply loved and that they matter. The best way I know to do this is by showing mamas that they are also deeply loved and that they matter” (Dear Mama, You Matter 15 Hardy). Of course! I couldn’t have said it better myself!
I found myself physically nodding along as Amanda described the over excursion that many mothers feel pressured to put ourselves through, seeing her words clearly describe both myself and many of my postpartum clients. As she points out later, all moms are superheros. The fallacy of one mother doing better than another, or being a “super mom” is just that. A fallacy. She writes, “You can do all the things. You can take all the family trips. Enroll them in all the educational camps. Painstakingly research which sunscreen is the safest. You can. Those aren’t bad things. Of course not. What’s problematic is the way our society has sold (yes, and I literally mean sold) us on the idea of what a good parent looks like and what they do. Essentially, these decisions have been paired with the Supermom good mother myth” (Dear Mama, You Matter 103 Hardy).
Every mother out there is in the postpartum period, whether they had a baby five months ago or fifteen. We have all been compared to our old selves and other moms. We have all had days where we don’t feel like the butterfly that we are and wonder what happened to that happy caterpillar, speaking or thinking harsh criticisms of the person we have become to ourselves with no grace or love. As Amanda puts it, we have all judged ourselves against the imaginary supermom that society and Instagram tells us must exist. This book was written to help change that voice to one of patience and love. To fill the cup of mothers, allowing them to create even more love to pour into our children. Finally, it was written to give simple, achievable tips to help, not just to point out the problems then leave us to wonder what to do next or overwhelmed with unattainable solutions. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has given birth, is going to give birth soon, or will be the support person of a person giving birth.
Dear Mama, You Matter: Honest talk about the transition to motherhood will be available for purchase on May 5th, 2020 on Amazon!
As always, thanks for reading and God Bless!
*All Photos used in this blog can be found in “Dear Mama, You Matter: Honest Talk About Transition Into Motherhood” and were illustrated by Holly Norian.