A friend and fellow writer, Angie Mizzell, contacted me a few weeks ago about a column she was writing for Lowcountry Parent magazine on parenting taboos – those topics that parents just aren’t allowed to discuss.
Angie sent me a link to a TED talk by Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman, the founders of parenting website Babble.com, in which they discussed parenting taboos, including the loneliness of parenting. (Check out the video.)
Angie asked me to offer up some comments and I’m thrilled she included me in her column.
“I think those taboos apply to all moms (and dads) but are so applicable to women suffering from postpartum depression. Postpartum depression may be the greatest parenting taboo of all,” says Holly Fisher, a Charleston mom who’s writing a book about postpartum depression and serves on the board for the Ruth Rhoden Craven Foundation for Postpartum Depression Awareness. “As the Babble.com couple points out, you’re expected to be overwhelmed with love and your life with baby should be beautiful enough for the cover of a magazine,” Fisher says. “If things aren’t perfect, well then, surely you have failed as a mother. What a terrible burden for a new mom to carry.”
Read the full column, “Let’s Give Them Something To Talk About – Shattering parenting taboos,” in the April issue of Lowcountry Parent.
Holly, thank you for contributing to the article and sharing this on your blog. We have to keep talking about these things so parents don’t suffer silently.