Notes: From Motherhood

Jade Marklew
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A real, raw, and honest talk for mums. Hosted by Jade — an accredited mental health social worker and mum — this podcast is a mix of the messy, beautiful, exhausting parts of motherhood no one really warns you about… and the quiet strength it takes to get through it. Each episode shares personal stories and gentle advice — not the picture-perfect kind, but the kind that meets you where you are. Whether you had a smooth birth or a tough one, whether you're feeling lost, proud, angry, grateful (or all of it at once) — this space is for you.

  1. 5d ago

    EP18. Why a Calm Mother Is Not the Goal

    "Just stay calm." If you get a full body reaction when you hear it, this one is for you. Most mums who yell don't need to be told that a calm response would be better. They need something that still works when calm is hard to reach. In this episode Jade explains why success at holding a boundary doesn't mean never feeling angry, and why calm gets talked about like a personality type when it's really about capacity, accumulated demands and the meaning you give the moment. The same mum can handle a spilt drink gently at 10am and lose it over one at 5pm. You'll hear why yelling can become a shortcut (it works fast, so the brain learns it), and a simple sequence for holding a boundary: get clear on what needs to happen, use fewer words, and follow through in a way that matches the boundary rather than your frustration. Plus what to do when you can feel the yell building (make the moment smaller, ask what the next thing is that needs to happen safely, and hand over to another safe adult if you have one), and how to repair when the boundary held but you sounded sharper than you wanted. Measure your success by whether you stayed connected to the boundary, not by whether you felt calm. New here? Start with last week's episode on finding your orange zone (EP17). If knowing the strategy and being able to use it in the moment feel like two different things, that's the gap we go deeper into inside Unshakeable Motherhood. You can find the details on the Your Mama Journey website: yourmamajourney.com One thing to try: pick one boundary you repeat often and make the words simpler before the next hard moment. As always, this podcast does not replace therapy. Leave a comment and let Jade know which topics you'd like her to talk about.

  2. Oct 17

    EP17. I Yelled at My Child, What Now?

    You know the advice. Get close, use fewer words, stay calm. So why do you still hear yourself say, "I have told you four times to put your shoes on"? This episode is not another lecture on why yelling is bad. It's about what changes in you between ask number one and ask number four, because that's usually where the useful work is. Jade walks through a normal workday morning and a pair of shoes that won't go on, and explains why the same behaviour from your child can feel manageable one day and unbearable the next. Your available capacity changed. That doesn't make you an impatient mum. She introduces a simple traffic light picture: green, orange and red. The orange zone, the moments before the yell, is the part you can actually work with. You'll hear what to do when you notice yourself in orange (pause the repetition, get close, give one clear instruction and notice your own state), how to repair after a yell without adding "but you weren't listening", and why "I yelled" describes a behaviour while "I am an angry mother" is a story about who you are. The aim isn't to never yell again. It's to notice yourself earlier, and to treat what you notice as information for next time rather than evidence against you. If you know how you want to respond but find it hard to get there in the moment, that's the gap we go deeper into inside Unshakeable Motherhood. You can find the details on the Your Mama Journey website: yourmamajourney.com One thing to try this week: what does your orange zone look like before you snap? As always, this podcast does not replace therapy. Leave a comment and let Jade know which topics you'd like her to talk about.

  3. Jul 27

    EP16. Being Heard: Moms Matter Calls, Birth Stories and Signing With Babies — with Suzanne

    Most mums get asked about the baby. Almost no one asks about her. In this episode Jade sits down with Suzanne — a US-based mum of four grown children, doula and a student of NVC — to talk about what happens when a mother is properly listened to. Suzanne walks us through the Mom's Matter calls she runs twice a week: a small, structured Zoom where two mums each get uninterrupted time to speak about anything at all in motherhood, and are then reflected back to, asked about their feelings, asked about their needs, and finally checked in with about what's happening in their body. No advice. No teaching. No fixing. From there the conversation opens out into some of the most useful ideas we've had on the show. Why all feelings are information rather than good or bad, and what that does to mum guilt. The difference between a need and the strategy we're using to try and meet it — and why so much of parenting is that gap. How journalling and speaking out loud do different jobs, and why doing both is not doubling up. Why signing with a baby is as good for a mother's mental health as it is for the baby's language, because naming an emotion with your whole body moves something that naming it in your head doesn't. And then birth. Suzanne has just finished Pam England's Birth Story Medicine training, and she and Jade get into why birth stories get flattened into "it was beautiful" or "it was hard, but we got through it" — and what we lose when we do that. Jade talks about the unspoken rules we write for ourselves as children and then quietly live by for the rest of our lives, and why the most difficult birth still holds moments of strength, and the most beautiful birth still holds moments of fear. If you've ever said "I don't want to be dramatic about it," this one is for you. As always, this podcast does not replace therapy. You can contact Suzanne at suzannedecredico@gmail.com and the links mentioned in this episode are below: Moms Matter calls, and Suzanne's work — Moms-Matter.orgbabychatt.com takes you to Suzanne's Little Hands Talking facebook pageYou can find Suzanne's Doula page at - SuzanneDecredicoDoula.comNonviolent Communication (Marshall Rosenberg) — cnvc.orgDr Yvette Erasmus, whose classes the Mom's Matter listeners all met through, and whose exercise the call format is adapted from — yvetteerasmus.comPam England, Birth Story Medicine — birthstorymedicine.com Molly can be found at - MollyCaroMay.comSigning Time / Baby Signing Time (Rachel Coleman) — signingtime.com and mysigningtime.comMama Inner Circle

  4. Jun 29

    EP15. I Didn't Feel It Straight Away — Bonding, attachment & the myth that love is instant

    Did you feel that instant rush of love the moment your baby was placed on your chest? Jade didn't — and on the surgical table after her emergency c-section, when the nurses offered to lay her daughter on her chest, she said "no, not right now." If you've ever carried that quiet guilt, this episode is for you. This week on Notes From Motherhood, Jade unpacks the myth that bonding is instant and automatic — the worry she hears more than almost any other in her therapy room. You'll hear the difference between bonding and attachment, why a love that grows in slowly is no less real, and how secure attachment is actually built: not in one magical moment, but in a thousand ordinary ones — the 2am feeds, the pick-ups, the days you feel completely checked out. Jade also draws a clear, compassionate line between the normal human moments of anger and overwhelm, and the kind of ongoing harm that actually affects attachment. If no one has told you lately: you're doing better than you think. 🎧 A gentle heads-up: this episode touches on birth trauma and difficult feelings after birth. As always, this podcast isn't a substitute for therapy. A quick note on the science, because mums often ask whether there's a deadline. Attachment isn't a finish line a baby crosses on a particular day — it builds in stages across the first year or two. Babies form a clear, specific attachment to their main caregiver from around 7 months, a phase that runs to roughly 18–24 months. By the end of the first year those patterns are organised enough to actually be measured, which is why the standard attachment assessment, the Strange Situation, is used with babies from around 11 to 20 months. Heidi Healthclinicaltrials But "established" doesn't mean "sealed." Attachment continues developing into the toddler years and beyond, as children come to understand that a caregiver who leaves will return. There's no window that slams shut at birth, at six weeks, or at twelve months — which is exactly why showing up over time, and repairing after the hard moments, matters so much. An early rough patch doesn't decide the outcome. ScienceDirect On delayed bonding being completely normal Postpartum Support International — Mother–Infant Bonding: It's Not Always Instant. Around 1 in 5 mothers experience some difficulty bonding at first. https://postpartum.net/mother-infant-bonding-its-not-always-instant/ Endeavour FoundationOn rupture & repair / the Still Face (Ed Tronick) Tronick & colleagues, Infants' Meaning-Making (peer-reviewed, NIH). In Gianino & Tronick's work, mother–infant mismatches were repaired about 70% of the time at the next step, with new repairs happening every few seconds. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3135310/ ReimagineThe Power of Discord (Tronick & Gold, 2020) — the accessible book version of the rupture-and-repair idea.On the "good enough mother" (Donald Winnicott) Centre for Perinatal Psychology (AU) — The 'Good Enough' Parent. Winnicott described the good-enough mother as one whose adaptation to her baby gradually, and healthily. https://www.centreforperinatalpsychology.com.au/good-enough-parent/ Heidi HealthSeleni Institute — The Gift of the Good Enough Mother — notes that babies actually benefit when mothers fail them in small, manageable ways — as distinct from major failures like abuse or neglect. https://seleni.org/advice-support/2018/3/14/the-gift-of-the-good-enough-mother NswnmaOn the stages of attachment Cleveland Clinic — Attachment Theory (Bowlby's four stages, plainly explained). https://health.clevelandclinic.org/attachment-theory

  5. Jun 4

    EP 14. What We Carry Into the Birth Room & Why it Matters — Emma's Story

    What if the hardest part of giving birth has nothing to do with the birth itself? In this episode, Jade sits down with Emma — a mother of two and small business owner — for a tender, honest conversation about the things we carry into pregnancy, labour and motherhood long before our babies arrive. Emma had two C-sections, four years apart, and two completely different experiences. The difference wasn't medical. It was what she came to understand about herself — and what she finally let herself say out loud. She shares what it was like to go into her first birth with her childhood trauma buried and unspoken, the obstetrician who gently saw through her at her six-week check, and how being honest the second time around changed everything. This is a conversation about what surfaces when we're at our most vulnerable, the quiet power of telling just one trusted person, and how Emma slowly found her way back to herself — not through anything big, but through the smallest, most ordinary moments of joy. In this episode, mama, we talk about: Why mental preparation matters as much as the nursery or the birth planHow our past can resurface in the birth room without warningWhat changes when someone helps you carry the weightBuilding a slower, more intentional life out of the need to stop people-pleasingFinding "her" again, years on — and why it's the little things that bring us homeWhat it's really like to revisit your birth story through journaling 💛 A gentle heads up: this episode includes discussion of childhood trauma and abuse. Please take a moment to check in with yourself before listening, and come back another day if today isn't the right one. As always, Notes From Motherhood is here to walk beside you — it doesn't replace therapy. Want to do some of this reflective work yourself? DM the word JOURNAL to @yourmamajourney.co on Instagram for a free sample of the Embracing Your Birth Journey journals.

  6. May 2

    EP13. Matrescence Doesn't Sink in Right Away: Carla on Motherhood, Milk & Mum Shoes

    Jade sits down with Carla — a Venezuelan-born, Montreal-based urban planner and mum to a two-year-old — for an honest, unhurried conversation about matrescence and the long, slow work of becoming a mother. Carla doesn't sugarcoat any of it. She talks about the year of therapy before trying to conceive, the pregnancy loss that came before her son, the eighteen months of feeling "uncomfortable" in her new role, and the day she pumped breastmilk in an office bathroom and quietly wondered how any of this is actually allowed. It's an episode full of the contradictions matrescence is built on. Carla shares the resentment she felt toward her husband — a deeply involved, loving dad — simply for being able to walk out the door. The cool mum shoes she bought to feel like herself again. The breastfeeding moment by the St Lawrence River that turned the hardest thing she's ever done into one of the most beautiful. And why she sat down and wrote her own birth story — not for anyone else, but to take back control of the words. If you're in the thick of it right now — folding washing, breastfeeding, driving, surviving — this one's for you. Carla's parting wisdom: time is elastic. Find the small pleasures. Put the music on.

  7. Apr 21

    EP12. The Story Almost Every Mother Is Carrying (And Never Quite Tells)

    Almost every mother has told her birth story. But almost none of us have told the whole thing. We've told the dinner party version. "It was long but fine." "Ended up being a C-section, but the baby was healthy, so." The edited, tidied-up version that fits into the space other people are comfortable holding. Meanwhile, the full story — the one with the feelings attached, the thing the midwife said, the look on your partner's face, what you were actually thinking when they put the baby on your chest — is still sitting inside you. Shaping how you mother. Underneath the impatience, the anxiety, the quiet voice that says "maybe I'm just not cut out for this." In this episode, I talk about why so many of us never get to tell the whole thing, the research that proves you're not imagining it, what matrescence actually is, and what starts to shift when a mother finally puts her story somewhere outside of herself. Whether your baby is three months old or ten years old — this one's for you. 🎁 Free community, journal prompts & book chapters → Mama Inner Circle 📖 The Birth Story Journal → yourmamajourney.com 📸 Follow along → @yourmamajourney Alexandra Sacks, TED Talk →A new way to think about the transition to motherhood

  8. Apr 9

    EP11. Postpartum Anxiety Isn't Your Fault—Here's What's Actually Happening

    That constant checking. The "what ifs" you can't turn off. The feeling like you're the only mum experiencing this? You're not broken. About 1 in 4 postpartum women experience maternal anxiety—and it looks different from regular worry. In this episode, Jade (an accredited mental health social worker) explains the difference between worry and anxiety, why motherhood changes everything, and a simple technique using attention-shifting that actually helps your brain recalibrate threat signals. You're not meant to survive motherhood in a state of fear. This is how you start to change that.

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About

A real, raw, and honest talk for mums. Hosted by Jade — an accredited mental health social worker and mum — this podcast is a mix of the messy, beautiful, exhausting parts of motherhood no one really warns you about… and the quiet strength it takes to get through it. Each episode shares personal stories and gentle advice — not the picture-perfect kind, but the kind that meets you where you are. Whether you had a smooth birth or a tough one, whether you're feeling lost, proud, angry, grateful (or all of it at once) — this space is for you.

Information

  • Creator
    Jade Marklew
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    18
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Jade Marklew
  • Show Website
    Notes: From Motherhood