One year ago on July 29, I posted my very first photo to my Raising Mothers Instagram page, thus starting this journey to more. More exploration, more thought, more community, more love. Over time you have helped me build this space brick by brick with the strongest foundation. You’ve shown up and read and commented and made room for one another. Over 80 essays and interviews and literary works later, and this is just the start. To each and every one of our readers: thank you. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for helping us flourish. Thank you for opening your hearts and minds. Thank you for sharing our words all over the internet. It’s your willingness to be present and read every piece our writers offer up that creates these ties to our shared sisterhood and bonds us together, despite the ugliness of this world and what it might try to offer us. To all of our contributors: you. You are the other part of this equation. Without you, this site wouldn’t exist …

Our Stories Deserve So Much Attention I cannot stress enough just how vital I feel this space is. Putting in all these woman-hours is no easy feat though. A month ago I created a Patreon account for Raising Mothers in an effort to help support the upkeep of the site, the writers (and eventually illustrators and photographers). This is very much our space as much as it is solely mine. It is my plan to grow this space to be a robust and fully engaged community. I want to be a platform for voices that are marginalized or silenced and any bit helps. Below I’ve included my spiel on my Patreon account but I am also including a link to my PayPal. [themify_button style=”large purple rounded” color=”#843179″ link=”https://www.patreon.com/raisingmothers” text=”#FFFFFF” target=”_blank” ]Support monthly via Patreon[/themify_button] [themify_button style=”large purple rounded ” color=”#843179″ link=”https://www.paypal.me/SherisadGRM” text=”#FFFFFF” target=”_blank” ]Support Once via PayPal[/themify_button] Raising Mothers is made possible by a rotating host of amazing writers that have been gracious to lend their words to my mission. I’ve featured stories on miscarriage, aging, co-parenting, adoption. We’ve interviewed preemie mothers, mothers …

When Raising Mothers launched 9 months ago, I seriously had no idea what would happen here. I asked friends to submit essays (for free!) and watched as this place grew from one post a week, to two, to now 3. I struggled with the idea of writing myself because I didn’t feel this should be about me, and so far I still haven’t had to write–I want to. Raising Mothers started growing more and more on Instagram and strangers became friends. Women from all over contribute on a regular basis, sharing their stories of personhood and motherhood. I am forever grateful. I wanted to wait a few months and get a bit closer to my 1 year anniversary to do a reader survey, but then I had a thought. I’d like to spend this time tweaking the course of Raising Mothers so that I am properly meeting your needs. Things will be changing here visually over time and I just want this place to feel like you’ve come home. I have BIG plans for the future of …

We’ve made it to the very end of the year! I’ll be taking the next two weeks off and will be back on January 5 with all new content from a host of amazing and dynamic women. In the meantime, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the past 6 months.