Who is a worthy mother?

Rebecca Wellington asks this question in her book about adoption, and it’s a question we’ve found ourselves asking ever since we read the title of her book: Who is a worthy mother?

In thinking about our own mothers, we feel a mix of emotions. Maybe thoughts of your mother bring up feelings of warmth and happiness, and all the ways she went above and beyond for you. Maybe thinking about your mom brings up disappointment, or even deep grief, in remembering all the ways she fell short.

What makes a mother worthy?

When seeing a woman, our culture is quick to determine someone’s worth based on looks and appearance. Performance and achievement. Skill levels and success.

We disagree.

We know that each of us has worth just being here, existing in this moment.

Just because we’re breathing.

Just because we are who we are.

Just because we’re here.

If we dig just a bit deeper, we hit the deepest truth that any woman who has nurtured a life is a mother.

That could be for 9 months inside her womb or a few short weeks in foster care.

For a time that was cut short, or for a lifetime.  

As Rebecca Wellington puts it in her book, Who is a Worthy Mother?, “When we expand our perspective of who can mother, we step out of the destructive good-bad mother binary.”

We exist to acknowledge these mothers.

SOLACE was born out of our desires to step into quiet spaces with birth moms, providing care & recognition. After choosing adoption, many birth moms feel like they disappear. We wanted to offer recognition, comfort, and healing to birth moms as they process the lifelong grief and loss after placing a child for adoption.

For this mission to be sustainable, we expanded SOLACE to include a box for the many unique paths to motherhood, creating a family, and identity in mothering. We have gift boxes for surrogates, grieving moms, and foster moms. Birth moms have felt what each of these moms have experienced, and we want to honor their path, too. Supporting these moms with a SOLACE box then goes to serve our mission and our work with birth moms.

Sometimes gifting can be tricky – and we let go of the opportunity to recognize these moms. We want to make it easy for people who want to gift to moms in quiet spaces. 

Because the women in the quiet spaces deserve the most recognition.