+
More

This mom-to-mom mentorship network is transforming new parents' lives.

A woman peered into the double stroller and asked, “Are they twins?”

“Yes,” I responded.

“That must be difficult,” she said.


I heard this comment often when my twins were first born. It was difficult. Really difficult.

When I think back to that time period, two things helped me get through it: joining a group for moms of multiples (twins, triplets, etc.) and having a mentor.

A mom mentor is a parent to older children who gets matched with a first-time mom.

She provides support and feedback for the new mom. In my case, my mentor was assigned to me through a parenting group. She called me weekly in the beginning and then less often as I became adjusted to my new role as a parent of twins.

There are various types of mentor groups available. I spoke with the founder of two, one I participated in. Both mentor programs use peer volunteers who are matched up with a recent-mom mentee.

The group I belonged to is called Keeping Pace with Multiple Miracles.

I spoke with Pam Pace, one of the founders, about the mentor program she created with co-founder Donna Baker.

The mentor program began after Donna and Pam met in the hospital in 1994. Donna gave birth to triplets while Pam was on bedrest, pregnant with triplets. Donna became a mentor to Pam when her triplets were born three months later. They continued to support one another and then founded the nonprofit group. Their sister-like bond became the inspiration for the support they hoped to provide others.

I also spoke with Christine Sweeney, LICSW, who founded the Parent Connection in 1991. This program is based at Best Israel Hospital in Boston. It was created due to a need the OB-GYN nurses identified during followup calls from women who recently gave birth. Many of the new moms reported feeling overwhelmed or early symptoms of postpartum depression.

One of the greatest benefits that parents have gained from mentor programs is a support system.

When you first become a parent you may feel alone. If you don’t have family or friends nearby who understand your experience, it can be isolating. For many people, having a mentor provided a support system they were lacking. Even those who did have family or friends nearby said they didn’t always feel comfortable sharing the negative aspects of being a new parent with them.

Alexis Petru participated in the mentoring program Mentoring Mothers, located in San Francisco. According to Petru, “There’s still a stigma for women to talk about the ‘dark side of parenting.’ We’re still supposed to subscribe to that Hallmark-approved ‘enjoy every moment’ romanticized view of motherhood. During my mentoring group it was the first time I could really vent about my complicated feelings of motherhood … the anger, frustration, sadness and loneliness that goes along with the joy and wonder of raising children.”

Sweeney noticed a similar experience in her mentoring program: “Since there isn’t an agenda, expectations, or judgments, women feel safe discussing their struggles. Some women who had difficulty getting pregnant may think they can’t complain about how hard it is to be a new mom. A mentor gives the new mom a sense of relief and safety that they can talk about their feelings.”

Plus, women who are already moms can reassure new mothers, giving confidence and resources they can't get elsewhere.

Being a new parent is overwhelming. A lot of new parents question if they are correctly taking care of their baby. “A lot of new moms have questions about breastfeeding. Their mentor can help them provide answers and give them a sense of what is normal,” said Sweeney. The mentor can answer their questions and let their mentee know they are making progress, which increases their confidence.

In addition to answering questions, a mentor can help their mentee when they might not know how to ask for help or realize they need it. “Sometimes the new moms might have marital problems or financial issues, and the mentor will help them to get the resources they need,” says Pace. Sweeney also added that mentors are occasionally the ones to identify when a new mom is struggling with postpartum depression and will help the mentee receive the proper mental health services.

Ultimately, mentors can help new moms with their ultimate goal: being the best parent possible.

By having a support system and the proper resources, new parents are better able to care for their babies. Mentors help care for the new moms when they are focused on caring for their newborns. This enables the mentee to be a better mom to their newborn.

Where to find a new parent mentor program:

Check with your local parent groups or at the local hospital to find a mentor program for new parents. In Massachusetts, new parents can check out Keeping Pace with Multiple Miracles or Parent Connection, but many other cities host parenting mentorship programs too.

If you don’t have a mentor program near you, ask a friend or family member if they can be your new parent mentor or if they could recommend someone to mentor you. A weekly check-in phone call offering support and advice is what most mentors provide. Who knows — you could end up starting a mentorship network of your own!

This story originally appeared on Mother.ly and is printed here with permission.

Sponsored

ACUVUE launches a new campaign to inspire Gen Z to put down their phones and follow their vision

What will you create on your social media break? Share it at #MyVisionMySight.

True

If you’ve always lived in a world with social media, it can be tough to truly understand how it affects your life. One of the best ways to grasp its impact is to take a break to see what life is like without being tethered to your phone and distracted by a constant stream of notifications.

Knowing when to disconnect is becoming increasingly important as younger people are becoming aware of the adverse effects screen time can have on their eyes. According to Eyesafe Nielsen, adults are now spending 13-plus hours a day on their digital devices, a 35% increase from 2019.1. Many of us now spend more time staring at screens on a given day than we do sleeping which can impact our eye health.

Normally, you blink around 15 times per minute, however, focusing your eyes on computer screens or other digital displays have been shown to reduce your blink rate by up to 60%.2 Reduced blinking can destabilize your eyes’ tear film, causing dry, tired eyes and blurred vision.3

Keep ReadingShow less

Karlie Smith shows the meal she's bringing to the restaurant for her son.

A mom who admitted she packs her 2-year-old a meal when they go out to dinner has started an interesting debate on TikTok about restaurant etiquette and how it applies to young children.

The video posted by Ohio mom, Karlie Smith (unbreakablemomma on TikTok), has received nearly 600,000 views and has over 1,850 comments.

“Call me cheap, call me whatever, but if we’re going out to a restaurant, I’m packing my kid a meal," Smith, 21, said in her post. "I do this for many reasons. On Friday nights, my family and I get together, and tonight, we’re getting food out. My son is not getting food out.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

Man rewatches shows from his childhood and his recaps of the bonkers storylines are priceless

Rob Anderson's hilarious recaps of shows like "Mighty Ducks," "Beethoven," and "7th Heaven" might make you wonder how they got made in the first place.

@hearthrobert/TikTok

These plots makes zero sense.

While there are no doubt some timeless classics from our childhood that remain every bit as amazing as we remember, many are straight-up cringey upon a later viewing. Really, it’s to be expected as societal viewpoints change…sort of a marker of how far we’ve collectively come.

And so, what do we do with these problematic pieces of old-school pop culture? Well, we can certainly update them to better reflect a more modern attitude, but that also comes with a set of potential problems. Or we could simply never watch them again. Certainly an option given all the content out there. But then we might miss an opportunity to better understand what seemed to work for the mainstream then, and why it doesn’t work now.

And then there’s the third option—allow ourselves to be entertained by their cringiness.

That’s certainly the route taken by Rob Anderson. Over on TikTok, Anderson has taken ultra-popular movies and television shows from his childhood and given them hilarious recaps capturing how absurd some of the storylines are.
Keep ReadingShow less
@Steve_Perrault/Twitter

Some moments never get old.

On November 19, 1999, a man named John Carpenter made game show history and quite possibly gave us all the greatest game show moment of all time.

Carpenter was a contestant on the very first season of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” shot in America. Hosted by the late Regis Philbin, the quiz show featured three "lifeline" options to help them with difficult questions, the most popular being able to “Phone-a-Friend.”

Carpenter had impressively not used a single lifeline for any of his questions. That is, until question 15. The million-dollar question, to be exact.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Woman decides that she is the love of her life and marries herself at her retirement home

“I said, you know what, I’ve done everything else. Why not?”

77-year-old woman decides she's the love of her life and marries herself.

We joke about marrying ourselves or a platonic friend if some arbitrary amount of time has passed without a proposal from an imaginary suitor. And sure, some people do wind up marrying a friend in more of a business arrangement, but it's not very common that someone follows through with marrying themselves.

Dorothy "Dottie" Fideli, decided that she was going to break the mold. The 77-year-old sat down and thought about all of the things she had done in life and who was with her the entire time cheering her on. It was an easy answer: herself. She was her biggest cheerleader, the person who always showed up and the love of her life, so Fideli made the plan to marry herself.

On a beautiful May day, friends and family gathered in the O’Bannon Terrace Retirement Community, where Fideli is a resident, to witness the ceremony.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

12-year-old Texas girl saves her family from carbon monoxide poisoning

She knew something was wrong with her mom and brother, which wound up saving her whole family.

Fort Worth 12-year-old helps save family from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon monoxide is called a silent killer for a reason. Many people don't realize they're experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning before it's too late. The gas is colorless and odorless and tends to have a sedating effect that causes people to sleep through the fatal poisoning. Having carbon monoxide detectors is one of the most effective ways to identify the gas before it's too late to get out of the house, but not every home has one.

A little girl in Fort Worth, Texas, experienced a terrifying encounter with the deadly gas, but her quick actions saved her entire family. Jaziyah Parker is being held up as a hero after she realized something was wrong with her family members and called for help.

The girl called 911 after she noticed her mom pass out. On the call with the dispatcher, Jaziyah says she thinks her mother has died before explaining that there was something now wrong with her baby brother, who was just 5-months-old.

Keep ReadingShow less

Drew Barrymore speaks during the FLOWER Beauty launch at Westfield Parramatta on April 13, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.

Drew Barrymore, 48, has been in the public consciousness since she starred as Gertie in 1982’s mega-blockbuster, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. So, it makes sense that many people of a certain age feel as if they’ve grown up with her.

Barrymore has consistently starred in hit films and movies that are rewatchable cable-TV staples, such as “Charlie's Angels” (2000), “Never Been Kissed” (1999), “Scream” (1996), “The Wedding Singer” (1998), “50 First Dates” (2004) and “Fever Pitch” (2005).

Now, she’s an even more significant part of people’s lives as the host of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which runs every weekday on CBS. So far, the show has been a big success, attracting an average of 1.21 million views per show, and ranks as the #4 talk show in syndication. It was recently renewed through the 2024 season.

Keep ReadingShow less