Spotlight: MOM BABBLE: The Messy Truth About Motherhood by Mary Katherine Backstrom

Hope, humor, and inspiration to families in the trenches of parenthood from the founder of Mom Babble.

Mary Katherine Backstrom spends her days mending booboos, conquering the boogie man, comforting heartaches, laughing at knock-knock jokes, cooking pancakes, throwing baseballs, and mopping muddy floors. In other words she spends her days relishing in the beautiful, constant noise that is a life with children.

In MOM BABBLE, Mary Katherine (MK) Backstrom, founder and personality behind the Mom Babble online community, offers up hope, humor, and spiritual inspiration to families in the trenches of parenthood. With laughter, crying, and eye-rolls, MK's oh-so-real essays about raising littles will delight all the not perfect, not always holy, not completely normal, messy, honest and wonderful moms that hear them. MK's conversational approach connects with listeners like dear friends cozied up on a coffee date.

Excerpt

CRYING IN THE LAUNDRY (pp. 76-80)

Have you ever curled up in a pile of laundry because it seemed like a good place to cry? 

Have you ever sobbed in front of a mirror because you were in so much pain and you just wanted to be seen, but the only person around to share your suffering with was, well . . . yourself? 

Have you ever hurt so deeply that you were certain your body would just stop functioning? 

Have you ever cried until your eyes were swollen, your tears ran dry, and your face looked like it was stung by a hive of killer bees? 

Have you ever let the shower run hot to cold as your shoulders shook with the inner sobs that no longer carried any sound? 

If so, you aren’t alone. 

If not, well, this is awkward. 

Here’s the thing:

I have come to realize the depths of my biggest fears and the sting of my deepest pains are little more than fossils of my life’s greatest beauty. 

Maybe I’m sleep deprived. Maybe I need my meds adjusted. Or maybe it’s just that sometimes life is truly hard, and I think we need to share these pains to normalize the fact that people suffer. 

We all do. 

And maybe it’s good that we do, because I believe you can’t truly enjoy the beauty of life if you haven’t experienced the depths of its darkness. 

Pain, you see, is the anchor of joy.

We can’t have one without the other. Pain and joy are two sides of the exact same coin. 

Don’t believe me? 

We are terrified of cancer because it makes us realize how fleeting and precious life is. 

We fear for our children because we’ve never known love as deep as the love we harbor as parents. 

We mourn a romantic breakup because we remember how beautiful love was before the fracture occurred. 

We can’t possibly feel the sting of want without the experience of wanting not.

We can’t possibly know the valley of loss without once standing atop a mountain. 

In short, there is no pain in this life that doesn’t point to something beautiful that once was.

Pain is a fossil of beautiful things.

It’s a footprint of something that left us. 

And when we experience pain like this, friends, we have two choices: 

We can let these ghosts haunt us, or we can turn them into our teachers. 

As this is the eve of my bilateral mastectomy, I found my laundry pile tonight. A few months ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of thirty-five. Right now, I am scared to death of the scars this surgery will leave on me, physically and emotionally. 

Why did I never appreciate my body when it was healthy? Why did I not relish my feminine shape before it was altered forever by a surgeon’s knife? Why did I feel so shy during intimacy, so embarrassed in a low-cut bathing suit, so ashamed in a formal gown that made me look buxom? 

Today, I ache with sadness over the changes my body will experience. But when I wake up, get through this pain, and heal . . . I can make you a promise: I will do better.

This pain I’m experiencing? I know it points to something beautiful, and I will find that beauty again. 

I will love my body with abandon, relish my health, and allow myself to feel proud of what’s left of my womanly figure. 

My pain will no longer hold me captive. 

My pain will become my teacher. 

Friends, when you find yourself in the darkest times, remember this: you only know what darkness is because you’ve experienced light. 

When you are low, low, low in the valley, let that remind you that you’ve scaled some incredible mountains in your time. 

You’ll scale them again. 

Run your fingers across the scars on your heart and remember the beautiful things that once existed in each crevice. 

Those are what makes life worth living. 

Let lost romance remind you that love is worth chasing. 

Let your sick body remind you that health is worth celebrating. 

Let your broken friendships remind you how deeply you can love and connect with another person. 

When you find yourself curled up in the fetal position in a pile of dirty laundry (literally or figuratively, maybe I’m alone here), just remember there is no hurt in your life that doesn’t point to something beautiful.

Find that beauty, remember it, and cling to it like a cat on a curtain.

Beauty is coming for us again, my friends. Our hurts won’t last forever. 

All we need is a little grace, a little time. 

And perhaps, a pile of laundry

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About the Author

Mary Katherine (MK) Backstrom is an essayist, viral blogger, founder and personality behind Mom Babble, and her social media pages boast more than 92 million views. She has been featured on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and awarded The Today Show Iris Award. Dealing both candor and inspiration, MK has become a well-known presence in the parenting blogosphere. Her publications include The Today Show, Washington Post, Yahoo.com, and Scary Mommy. MK is married to her college sweetheart (Ian), and they currently reside in sunny Florida with their son, daughter, and two golden retrievers.