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IN OUR OWN WORDS

The Midlife Mama Story Collective

Those of us who have arrived at motherhood in our middle years have done so after journeys that are sometimes heartbreaking, often heartwarming, and always deeply personal. While the roads we’ve traveled have been uniquely our own, together we represent the changing face of motherhood today.

These are our stories.

Natasha Dworkin's newborn

One of the things I yearned for when I was newly pregnant, at the age of 46, was to hear stories and to connect with other women like me, who had landed on the parenting road after half-a-lifetime without children.

But I had trouble finding them. There weren’t mommy bloggers my age; there weren’t parenting books written by older moms; and there wasn’t a single group on Meetup.com that was targeted at my demographic.

What I discovered about myself at that time, and what I’ve learned about other midlife mamas in the years that have followed, is that when we have children later in life, we often do so quietly

Most of us aren’t blogging about our experience, joining meetups, shouting our pregnancies from the rooftops (or the modern equivalent: posting our ultrasounds on Instagram). We are hunkering down, making way, steadying ourselves for the transition from one life chapter to a new one.

And whether our journeys were unassisted or assisted, whether we are birthing or adopting, there are so many risks, so many things that could go wrong. It can feel feel safer to hold our cards close to our chests, to keep things under wraps.

But we are also yearning for examples of other women who’ve traveled similar roads, for the solace that comes with knowing we are not alone. I devised the Midlife Mama Story Collective to be a place where we can own our stories, share them, and in doing so, help to expand the definition of motherhood in the 21st century.

The face of motherhood is indeed changing: It is my face. Yours. Ours.

Welcome and thank you for sharing,

Natasha Dworkin | Midlife Mama | www.midlife.mom

Owning your story

is the bravest thing you’ll ever do.”

-DR. BRENE BROWN

Please Read Prior to Submitting Your Story

Thank you for sharing your story of later-in-life motherhood. It will become part of this online repository. Together, we can find community in our shared experiences, while also broadening the common perspective of what motherhood looks like. I deeply appreciate you taking the time to participate.

Some questions to consider as you write about your experience:

  • What did your journey to motherhood look like?
  • Did you intentionally wait until later in your life to become a mom?
  • What have been some of the challenges you’ve faced as an older mom?
  • What have been some of the unique gifts and benefits of entering motherhood later?
  • What do you wish more people knew about new motherhood in our 40s and 50s?

*Note that by submitting this form, you are agreeing to have your story, including any photos you upload here, published online, on a publicly accessible website. Your submission may be edited for length, if necessary, but its content will not be altered.

**Note that images submitted with your story must be no larger than 2000px wide by 1500px high. If you don’t have image editing software on your computer, you can use a free online service to crop your photo to the proper dimensions.

Submit Your Story

Your privacy is very important. This website does not store your personal information, like your I.P. address, when you make a submission.
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