by Danielle D. Jenkins, PsyD

School is....starting?

So many parents have been struggling with what to do about schooling within the framework of a global pandemic. Many families have to have the only parent or both parents working to make it financially. Even in families where there is a parent staying home, what to do about school has not been an easy decision. As with many parenting decisions, there are some people out there who seem so confident that their decision is the best one (for them and everyone else). And it can feel like there’s someone who is going to judge you for whichever decision you make. The reality is that very few people have a choice that feels good right now.

This means many of us are in a situation of making lemonade, which can be hard work. Doing things you don’t want to do is not fun. It takes creativity, which for many parents is in short supply since March. We have already used it up with the solutions we’ve come up with for...

By Danielle Jenkins, PsyD

Mother’s Day is here in the US. With Mother’s Day comes a spectrum of experiences and responses. The idea of Mother’s Day is sweet. A day we celebrate the Mother’s in our lives. The thing is that many women feel disappointed by the unmet expectations, overwhelmed by the ongoing mental load of motherhood, and the burden of planning celebrations for their mothers and mother-in-laws while taking care of their own families. The dirty secret is that a lot of moms aren’t real fans of Mother’s Day. If you are, that’s wonderful. Maybe this blog post will help you see why some people are not fans. If Mother’s Day feels like a chore or a trigger for grief, this article is most certainly for you.

Perhaps you’ve lost your mother. You may be grieving your mother’s death or abandonment. You might struggle to enjoy Mother’s Day because it reminds you of what you lost or maybe never had. Give yourself space...

By Danielle D. Jenkins, PsyD

A hallmark of early parenthood, especially of early motherhood, is the feeling that this is not what I expected. Some people adjust easily to this reality and others take a while (and even some therapy) to fully integrate the difference between the expectation and reality. Right now, however, with a global pandemic, this difference between expectation and experience is widening. Women are experiencing changes to birth plans, an even greater lack of help and support, and likely some level of crisis while they are most vulnerable. The women I know who have just delivered are struggling with loneliness and fear.

So, we know things are not going to be as we expected or hoped for. That is hard. It is okay to grieve that. Give yourself space to grieve what you wanted and even planned for. It’s okay to be mad and sad that you have not had the experience you wanted (whether we are talking birth or postpartum). Let me say that again. You are allowed to have...

by Danielle Jenkins, PsyD

So, there’s a concept in psychology that I talk about all the time with my clients. “The Good Enough Mother.” This phrase was coined by Donald Winnicott. When doing research on thousands of babies and their interactions with their mothers, he observed that babies and children actually benefit when mothers make manageable mistakes. The great news with his research (and lots of subsequent research) is that children not only do not need us to be perfect, they actually benefit when we make mistakes and recover or apologize when needed.

This is great news, especially right now in the midst of a pandemic and kids being home from daycare and school. While some families are living their best lives right now, many are navigating tricky and stressful family dynamics. Home schooling may not have been their dream come true. Coworking with their partner with babies and toddlers underfoot is also not ideal for most of us. Tensions will get high and...

Guest Blogger, Rev. Liliana Barzola

Imagine your heart is a container. It is holding all the pain and bliss you’ve experienced. It has all these magical chambers and different rooms.

As we grow and develop we try to stay in the good feeling parts of our hearts, where the playful and wonderful feelings are stored. When we experience loss we often section that part of our heart off. Like a room that was once a fun place to play, it becomes a dark and dreary part of our heart. We close that part of our heart off. We don’t want to look back or feel that again. We do this all the time and pretty much without noticing that we do it.

When your beautiful baby is earthside and beaming you with pure love and bliss, it’s overwhelming. This child stares into your eyes in a way no human has ever looked at you before. The energy is so pure and divine. You feel such depth. And then something strange happens. That baby love beam hits one of those quarantined off rooms and bursts...

For part two of mom shaming, I really wanted to explore why we mom shame. It feels terrible and we know that, so why do we do it? In part one, I told a recent story of how my sister was mom-shamed on social media by “friends.” You can read about it here if you missed it. I had been mulling over this topic for a long time, but when it landed on my sister I couldn’t pass it up. The Big Sister Bear in me wanted to come out with claws but I once I took a moment, I didn’t think that would be actually helpful. Shaming shamers is not going to change what has become an epidemic in our culture. It happens subtly in face-to-face interactions, but in the land of social media, it is constant. CONSTANT. And if we are honest, in our heads, sometimes it’s worse. And we all do it. You know you’ve had that thought, “I would never…. give juice boxes, let my kids watch ___, let my kids eat ____, do ____.” So what? When we all know what it feels...

This is a blog post that I’ve been writing in my head for a long time, but recently I was reminded in a powerful way about one of my biggest concerns for mothers of our times. In September my sweet niece turned 3. My sister posted a series of super sweet pictures of her daughter with her birthday “coffee” (steamed coconut milk from a coffee shop). I remember having a fleeting thought that the headrest in the car seat looked weird from the angle of the picture, but knowing my sister’s nearly obsessive tendency to double check car safety, I didn’t think another thing about it. I made a comment about my niece’s new haircut (a birthday tradition from Aunt Kiki) and went on with my day. I noticed later that the post was comment free. Weird. Didn’t think much of it. 

Scroll to the end of the day, my sister shared what happened. A mom who my sister went to middle school with briefly and became Facebook friends with at some point made a really...