Actress Abigail Hawk Shares Her Keynote Address

Actress Abigail Hawk was the #MomCongress2020 Keynote, at the June 13 virtual Town Hall. Below are her remarks. Members can also watch a recording of the town hall in the online member community.

By Abigail Hawk

I don’t want America to be great again. I want us to be GOOD.

To ourselves and to each other. I am not good right now. I am struggling. How can anything I say or offer be of any value right now? What message can I possibly deliver to you that will not ring hollow? I am desperately trying to find where I fit in all of this current chaos; we all are.

There are two pandemics plaguing America: the new kid on the block named CoVid and the ancient one called Racism. I want to be on the right side of history here, for myself, yes, but also for my children. And so, for the last two weeks, I have sat in my discomfort. I refuse to be a performative ally. I didn’t even know what that meant two weeks ago. I am learning; I am unlearning. I have reached out to my family; my friends in law enforcement; those who are protesting, grieving; those who have children; who feel pulled in multiple directions, who are mired in the intersectionality of it all.

And I realized, in the words of Meghan Markle, “The only wrong thing to say is to say nothing.”

If struggling through post-partum depression has taught me anything, it’s to trust my gut. Our instincts exist for a reason. Our instincts are why, as moms, we know our babies better than anyone. We are in tune to our children’s every physical, emotional, and mental shift. Our instincts are why my mom woke up with a start and knew when I had been in a car accident. They are why, as moms, when our babies cry, our breasts respond by producing milk. Trust your gut. Lean into those beautiful maternal instincts.

Right now, my gut is telling me we need to collectively rediscover and conduct a dedicated exploration of things we may have packed away because they are uncomfortable. For me, there are conversations I need to have with family. Some intentional unlearning. Some gentle re-directing of how I spend my energy. A lot of listening. And knowing that at the end of the day, my mental health is vital. Your mental health is vital. No one can pour from an empty vessel. I urge you to put on your own oxygen mask first. And rest when you need to. Drink water. Eat an orange. Call a friend. But “keep your foot on the gas.”

Let’s begin our marathon in love.

To truly advocate for maternal mental health policy and initiatives, we MUST talk about race. Because for many black mothers, indigenous mothers, and mothers of color, their mental health concerns are discarded. Discredited. Dismissed. BIPOC mothers’ health is disproportionately affected and negatively impacted from the moment they become pregnant. The US is in last place among developed nations in terms of maternal mortality. The death rate in our country is disturbingly high – for every 100,000 live births, we lose 11.8 Hispanic mothers, 13 white mothers, 32.5 indigenous mothers, and 42.8 African-American mothers, meaning black women are over 3 times more likely to die from complications of pregnancy than white women.

I read an enlightening article by A. Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez, who strives to amplify Black women’s voices. In her own words: “Black Americans are more likely to have high blood pressure, kidney failure, and diabetes than their white peers. These are all conditions that leave us more vulnerable to Covid-19, too. We are dying of Covid-19 at a rate nearly three times higher than white people. I also think about masks. When unmasked, we Black mothers fear our loved ones will suffer from the risks associated with complications from the disease. When masked, we fear the risks associated with complications of bias and racism.” She continues: “Between Covid-19 and police brutality, the burden of grief is yet another risk to Black mothers’ health. Expressing [that] grief is one of the few coping tools that Black mothers can call upon to help navigate the stressors of the world. But when we miss out on the opportunity to do so — an understandable decision considering the constant flow of traumatic stories that we’re exposed to — our health suffers.”

Trina Greene Brown of Parenting for Liberation states, “Black mothers require healing because of the pre-existing disparities in access to both physical and mental health resources, coupled with the added pressures of round-the-clock caregiving, financial uncertainty, school closures, and social isolation that is uniquely impacting Black mothers.”

Kelly Glass, a mother of two black sons, puts her pandemic experience like this: “I almost resented the way that white parents spoke of self-isolation with such grief. It reminded me that as a Black mother, I’ve always been acutely aware of the dangers in this world that are out there for my children just for existing.” Her words have stuck with me. Here I am concerned about maintaining my sanity while my sons are home with me and Kelly is concerned about her sons’ day to day survival.

I will never understand, but I stand.

George Floyd had a knee to his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. 8 minutes and 46 seconds. In his final moments, he called out for his mama: his source of comfort and strength. All mothers were summoned when he called out for his mama.

This post from Mary Helen Kennerly resonates with me:

“Mama. He called Mama. I feel like I could scream until flames rip out of my throat. He has called up great power. I want all of us to turn, all of us who have heard Mama in a store and thought it meant us. [We] have been summoned. And any of us who have ever cried out Mama, we hear it too, down in our bones. It’s a cry that can’t go unanswered anymore. We need to gut all the spaces in our lives where systemic racism has quarter.

“We speak out of the deep mystery from whence all life springs. White [mamas]: Nurture antiracism in your life like you would a child in your arms, even if you’ve only just heard it named. Learn what it means and how to foster it. Care about it, give it space in your life. Come to understand it, even if it’s difficult and challenges everything. Mama is coming.”

Nothing is stronger than a mother’s love. Which makes nothing more important than a mother being whole and well.

As Kimberly Seals Allers so gorgeously put it: “Black mamas are air to their children, giving them the elements they need to breathe. To survive. Black mamas are meaning-makers. Weaving words to help us create the tapestry of our lives. Black mamas soothe – with hums, hymns, hugs, and hot food. Black mamas protect.”

Mamas protect. We give our children breath; we are their air. So here we are moms, together. We have an opportunity in this moment to affect change, to push policy that fosters the mental health of all mothers. I want to read you an excerpt from a book I co-authored with other moms.

“I watch you breathe. Tiny hat and tiny swaddle encompass you snugly, where, mere moments ago, that was my job. We were strangers sharing space. Blood strangers spooning, you in my womb, bunny in my burrow. And now, here you are, sprawled before me, tiny stranger who I’ve somehow known my whole life. We’ve breastfed a couple of times now, your little mouth rooting for my nipple, my jaw gritted with determination, grimacing every time you succeed. It hurts so much. I remember this with your brother. I remember being chapped and raw and bloody and calloused and hard. But my will was harder, and I persevered. I silently promise I will with you, too.

But my heart burns. It threatens to burst from its ribbed barrier, for I am so in love with you, you see. It is this instantaneous thing. How strange. With your brother, I did not feel this love-at-first-sight imprinting of souls. My devotion burned steadily. With you, it is hungry, ferocious and wild, the growing pains an all-consuming conflagration. I seek to feed it, to sew you to me. But you won’t latch. I can’t satisfy you. You eat as if it bores you, casually grazing, luxuriating. You mock my battle with insomnia, as if you instinctively grasp that sleep is an elusive mate but 2 am is friendly. I find myself defeated, my heat snuffed out.

I recant my silent promise to nurse you and I pump instead. You are now “bottle-fed.” My companions become a hard kitchen chair and a pink pumping bra and a black granite counter and a crushing sense of guilt. Your father holds you shirtless, skin to skin, bonding you to him, and I sit with my feet on the cold tile floor. I connect with a machine that evicts my milk and squishes my nipples with a relentless errr eeee errr eeee errr eeee, its reverie only broken by the thrum of the aquarium filter. I am lonely. The cold creeps up like the serpent of Eden, beckoning me to slip under, calling me to darkness. Sometimes, I eat his dark fruit. Sometimes, I think it would be so easy. Sometimes, I lose myself in nausea and cellulite and ovarian torsion and sleepless nights and blood sugar spikes. I overflow with self-loathing. Water pools in my ankles, feeding the root systems of purple trees. My hair is a field of dry wheat. With your brother, it fell out and returned lush and soft, new growth, a new season. But it’s brittle now, and it won’t fall out. It just hangs there like chaff, like ash spaghetti. The night’s negative spaces hang the moon.

But mornings come, and coffee helps. A fresh pot brews, the beans bitter and strong. I pour in some almond milk and contemplate the fake coral in the aquarium. The tank needs cleaning; the dog needs fed; your brother’s lunch needs packing. Tasks beg my attention. But I pause and take stock of me taking up space. The landscape of my corporeal form is new. My hips have shifted; there are new dimples, new hills and handles with which I retain water and hold you. New pale stretch marks have broken ground, as if some sharp-nailed witch drew spells down my buttocks with white chalk, tattooing protective lines of maternal instinct into my skin. Gravity has pulled my breasts further down like small mountains after a mudslide. My areolas bend in awkward angles, broken tilt-a-whirls. They still spit milk sometimes, as if they seek your lips. How strange.

The sky is ablaze with radiant color; a laser beam of sunlight streams through the kitchen window, temporarily blinding me, and it reminds me: the soul that breaks open contains the whole universe. It is there in the golden ratio swirl of your hair and the logarithmic spiral of your fingerprints. There are Fibonacci-sequenced galaxies in your eyes and constellation freckles scattered across your nose and your fingernails are crescent moons and your skin is made of star stuff. And I tell myself I’ll soon shave with ease. I’ll soon sleep for 5 hours straight. I’ll soon see you smile, new teeth breaking forth like crocus shoots in spring. I tell myself it’s okay to be sad. Picasso painted miracles during his Blue Period. And I tell myself it’s okay to be tired. Even God rested on the seventh day. I tell myself it’s okay.”

We contain miracles. We’re women, and we can do hard things.

I am a mother. Being a mother is the hardest role I have ever played. There’s a reason you hear that phrase all the time; it’s the truth. I am not sure anything could have prepared me for the emotional onslaught I face on the daily as a mother. The shock and awe tactics, the manipulation, the frustration, the disappointment, the hurt.

But I’m privileged. I’m privileged because I have a partner who is present. Daddy took his parental leave and was the primary caregiver for my second son, while I returned to work. Although I could have taken off as much time as I needed, I would not have been paid. There is no sick time or maternity leave in my line of work.

I’m privileged because even without paid maternity leave and sick time, I had a job to come back to. A job with people who supported my need to pump every few hours, giving me the space, privacy, and time to do so. A job with people who made sure nursing pads were at the ready, in case I experienced an unexpected letdown. A job with people who gave me confidence by way of Spanx and Uggs and kept the donuts coming after I was cleared of gestational diabetes. A job with people that have tissues on hand, because I cry a lot now. All the time. I cry at Geico commercials.

I’m privileged because my ob actually listened to my concerns when I told her something felt wrong this time around. I’m privileged because I have all the support in the world, and I still feel like I failed my second son.

Here’s a prime example. I posted a photo on my private Facebook page of me feeding him with a bottle. I had been exclusively pumping for about a week. The icy fingers of post-partum depression had started to curl their way around my heart. I captioned my photo, “When your mom posts so much on Facebook she drives you to drink.” A friend made the unsolicited comment, “I sure hope that’s breast milk in there. #breastisbest!” Here’s the thing. It WAS breastmilk in there. But regardless of the bottle’s contents, she judged me, in a public forum, one where the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I joined Facebook in the first place to streamline my sharing process. I progressed rather quickly from privately posting once a week to my career and my life being dictated by social media. Social media is obviously the fastest, most convenient way for us to exchange information, not to mention engage in “sharing.” There’s a reason we “connect” to the internet – as humans, we need connection. Never more true than right now, when so many of us have been sheltering in place and are desperately missing physical contact. Never would I have thought I would be delivering a keynote via Zoom, but here we are! Connected! Sharing!

There’s always a downside, though: open book means open season. You’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t. Someone will always question how you mother. There’s always a troll or a super brave keyboard warrior just itching to cut down your confidence.

But the “mom-shaming” doesn’t just happen online. I remember taking my son out for a walk. I was only going out for a little while. Just a short walk, from one end of the park to the other. I brought along a 2 oz bottle of Similac. Unscrew the cap, screw on the rubber nipple, and voila! An instant gourmet meal! I remember two older women, coming up to me: “Shame on you.” I looked up in alarm; were they speaking to me? Oh yes, I had their full attention. Their faces were contorted with disgust. “You should be breastfeeding. You are a young, capable woman. What you are doing is not good for the baby. It’s not natural.” I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry, to defend myself. “I don’t want him to eat my sweat. My boobs are bleeding. I needed a break!” Instead, I blushed and said, “I’m sorry. I’m new at this.” That was the day mom guilt blossomed inside me.

There was another time I took him out for a jog, but before I began my run, he decided he was hungry. Even the most well-intentioned of babies tend to run on their own schedules. “FEED ME SEYMOUR!” So I sat down, lifted up my sports tank and started feeding him. Not two minutes later… a young woman walked by WITH A BABY: “There are children here. You should cover up or do that at home.”

This time, I took a deep breath and locked eyes with her and said, “I am feeding my son. He was hungry. I am doing my best, just like you are. We’re both just trying to survive.” She stood there; I sat there, both of us in this abyss of awkward silence. Then, a very quiet, “You’re right.” We shared a smile.

As my mother taught me, “You must be strong in your own personal convictions and not be swayed by others’ feelings towards your choices.”

When it comes to mothering, we must boldly go where we’ve never gone before, but in the meantime, we are still playing “catch-up” with women’s equality. Women can do it all, and honestly, we are doing it all, especially right now: we are mothers and teachers and homemakers and sibling peacekeepers, all while trying to juggle working from home…but our ability to multitask comes at a price. We are outpacing our own bodies. We’re exhausted. In America, the focus is still largely on the baby – not the health and well-being of the mother. Why do we only have one six-week postpartum check-up? Without support and constant care, breastfeeding rates plummet. 1 in 5 American women suffers from a maternal mental health disorder. Less than 15% of women with one of those disorders will receive treatment…

In Japan, postpartum centers are gaining popularity. New mothers can stay overnight and receive care from therapists and midwives with everything from breastfeeding support to mental health counseling to pelvic floor rehabilitation. China has a “sitting the month” rest period, where new moms don’t wash their hair or drink anything cold. Mexico has “la cuarentena” – the 40-day rest. France provides at least 10 sessions of physical rehabilitation for their pelvic floor. In the Netherlands, moms are given a “kraamverzorgster,” who makes in-home visits for a week and a half after delivery and is trained to provide healthcare to both mom and baby, and also assist with shopping and cooking.

These countries acknowledge that the mother’s well-being directly affects her child’s future health. A depressed mom is less likely to stimulate her child. An exhausted one is less likely to breast-feed. The US must do more. We must go beyond providing physical spaces to express breastmilk and granting six weeks of maternity leave. Breastfeeding should be discussed at prenatal, postpartum, and pediatric visits, so that mothers are prepared and know their options when their expectations do not meet reality. Lactation consultants should always be covered by insurance, and every mother should get a personalized visit from one during that crucial first week they are adjusting to life with a newborn. Mental health screenings need to go deeper and into more detail. Healthcare providers need to make sure new mothers know that if they cannot – or choose not – to breastfeed, they are not a failure.

We are making strides. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is now recommending “that postpartum care should be an ongoing process, rather than a single appointment, and that services and support should be tailored to the woman’s individual needs.” The college also suggests women should have some contact with a care provider within the first three weeks postpartum.

Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa’s newly implemented Infants at Work Program gives 8 weeks of paid parental leave and allows all new parents to bring their infant to work with them every single day up to age 6 months. “We want to normalize a reality where having children and advancing your career are not mutually exclusive.” A Long Island community wellness center called WowMoms merges parents’ self-care needs with the care needs of their children, bringing a sense of family community. These are concrete steps to help new moms cope and embrace the connection of motherhood without sacrificing their sense of self.

What more can we do to encourage mothers? How can we more effectively use our platforms? We can start with transparency. Being a mom is hard. It changes you, body and soul. We are bombarded with digital projections of parental perfection – we need more body positivity, more inclusion, more diverse voices being heard, more mothers leading. If you haven’t followed #amplifymelanatedvoices yet on Instagram, it is pure joy and a hearty helping of perspective. Social media is a visual diary of what matters to us; it can demonstrate our allyship and our activism beautifully, if we use it to lift up and love.

Yes, it can be wonderful; yes, it can empower, but your social network is all around you. So look up. Look out. Look up to. Look out for. Find the connective tissue. Put your phone down. Social media is not going anywhere. Your mama network is all around you, even if it is six feet apart right now. And for those of you who are now empty nesters… remember your hard days. Find that mama who is struggling with a screaming toddler while juggling her newborn and smile at her. Smiling costs you nothing. But it could buy her a spark of hope.

What if our little by littles became a force to be reckoned with? For the first time in history, our Congress is actually representative of who we are as a nation. We have more women in office than ever before. More women mean the issues that matter most to us become the issues that are addressed by our lawmakers. Let’s boldly build our longer tables. Even if no one joins us to break bread, we will have created space for ourselves.

C.S. Lewis once said, “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” We can choose, as Dylan Thomas wrote, “to not go gentle into that good night.”

Poet and activist Sonya Renee Taylor declares, “We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction…we should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.”

My postpartum depression and anxiety have clouded my journey as a mother, but I am a survivor, and the evidence of that is right before my eyes. My sons are strong magnetic souls I get to steward. My 8-year-old is an inventor, a code maker and breaker, a mad scientist whose ideas flow out of him like lava. My 3-year-old is a wildling who conquers puzzles, devours books and hates clothes and is the greatest cuddler on the planet. My volcano and my tornado. They play; my husband and I pray.

In John Steinbeck’s classic novel, The Grapes of Wrath, Rose of Sharon, after giving birth to a stillborn baby, recognized the life-saving liquid she possessed and in the ultimate act of mothering, breastfed a starving man, uttering these three simple words to him: “You got to.”

We got to. We have got to welcome other mothers, as they are. Because every mother counts, not just the ones who look like you or think like you. No mother is an island. Every mother counts.

I offer a prayer from 8th-century Buddhist monk Shantideva:

“May I become at all times, both now and forever:

A protector of those without protection

A guide for those who have lost their way

A ship for those with oceans to cross

A bridge for those with rivers to cross

A sanctuary for those in danger

A lamp for those without light

A place of refuge for those who lack shelter

And a servant to all in need.”

In other words, may I become at all times, both now and forever:
a mama.