Five other people live in my house, six if you include the cat. That’s 24 ears. At any given moment I am sure not more than two ears, not from the same people, are actually working and can hear me. Mothers spend a lot of their time going unheard.
What?
Huh?
Sorry, I didn’t hear you.
That is the soundtrack of my day.I talk and no one hears me.
Two years ago I got up on a stage and I was heard and people listened.
Mothers are the historians, the keeper of the family stories, the teller of tales. In our heart are the stories of our children, in our minds the stories of our mothers. We share them with each other over coffee, over phone lines, over pages. Ann Inmig has given a microphone to those stories through Listen to Your Mother. To the funny, to the heartbreaking, to the everyday realities. She has put hundreds of us on stage and said, I will listen.
It’s a pretty amazing feeling to be heard.
I got up on stage in 2012 days after my second miscarriage. I gained strength listening to other women’s stories of struggles, of birth, of loss, and of life. I was able to forgot about my grief and pain and celebrate what the beautiful, messy, funny, loud, hard thing that is motherhood. I was listened to and heard.
In 2014 Listen to Your Mother will be in 32 cities. The submission process for Chicago will start on Monday. I encourage you to consider telling your story. It’s in you, we all have one in us. Funny or sad, joyful or troubling, we all have stories, and they all deserve a chance to be heard.
- Get inspired and watch this great video about the growth of LTYM
Listen to Your Mother helps others
Listen to Your Mother proceeds support local women’s charities.
This year’s charity is Recovery on Water (ROW), a
support service and exercise program for women who are currently in
treatment or have been through treatment for breast cancer.
