Mothers Day arrives every year wrapped in the same familiar packaging of bouquets, cards, and maybe a brunch or spa day. There’s nothing wrong with that, but motherhood itself is so much bigger than one Sunday in May. We often see the highlight reel of joyful times, but what about the moments in between–the identity shifts and invisible labor; feelings of pride and feelings of isolation; and sometimes, dealing with loss and grief?
To shine a light on those moments, this Mother’s Day, we want to support and honor moms by understanding what motherhood really is through these Talks that give us the full, unfiltered reality of being a mom.
The Mental Load and Myth of the Perfect Mother
The standard of motherhood evolves generation by generation, and it can put a lot of pressure on moms. In her Talk The Perfect Mother Needs To Go, Andrea Jansen makes the case that the bar we’ve set for “good motherhood” isn’t just high, it’s downright unattainable, and the longer we pretend otherwise, the more damage we do to real mothers living real lives.
Kendra Estle goes even further in The BS of Motherhood, arguing that motherhood can be an isolating and exhausting experience, and that we need more physical and virtual spaces where mothers can say that out loud without shame.
Lastly, Diana Spalding shares the devastating consequences that happen when a society does not take care of mothers in her Talk, What if We Nurtured Moms? The good news is, she also has a very simple way of how we can start fixing the problem.
The Health Crisis We Don’t Talk About Enough
Here in Georgia, we have one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country, and Black women bear a disproportionate share of that burden.
Shawnee Benton Gibson speaks to this in Words and Wombs Create Worlds: The Black Maternal Health Crisis. After losing her daughter to maternal mortality in 2019, she turned her grief into advocacy.
As a response to the broken maternal health system our country faces, Dr. Nikia Grayson supports midwifery as a solution. Her Talk How Black Midwives Can Help Our Broken Maternal Healthcare System calls for the training and development of midwives, especially Black midwives who have a closer understanding of their patients’ lived experiences.
On the postpartum side, Auburn Harrison’s Talk Why We All Need to Talk About Postpartum Depression brings personal experience to a condition that affects far more mothers than we acknowledge.
The Identity Crisis of Motherhood: You Are Still You
Becoming a mother does not mean disappearing into motherhood. Reproductive psychiatrist Alexandra Sacks explains the concept of matrescence (the psychological and identity shift that comes with becoming a mother) in her widely watched TED talk, A New Way to Think About the Transition to Motherhood.
For mothers navigating their careers, Irene Mora’s For Women in Pursuit of Motherhood and a Career encourages moms to pursue both a family and a career, and how their kids may just thank them for doing so. Meanwhile, Whitnee Hawthorne’s What Corporate America Needs to Know about Working Moms shows the reality of being a working mother today, and how to use parenting skills to become leaders in the workplace.
Motherhood has always been one of the most powerful forces in the world. These Talks are a testament to that, making room for the mothers who are exhausted, the ones who feel unseen, the ones fighting a broken system, and the ones still figuring out who they are on the other side of having a child.
Sometimes, the most meaningful thing you can do for a mom is to just listen to her. This Mother’s Day, we hope these talks are a good starting point.
Sakshi Jain is a social entrepreneur, fundraiser and artist. She is currently focussed on solutions that enable older adults to live with purpose, prosperity, and joy. At TEDx Atlanta, she is a member of the core team, leading events that are relevant and meaningful to the city’s diverse communities. She moved to Atlanta in 2024 and is always up for long walks with iced coffee (shout out to the Beltline!), trying anything creative, and the conversations that happen along the way.
I love that TEDx makes knowledge more accessible and ideas more contextualized for audiences who will find those ideas most relevant to them. When I learned about TEDx Atlanta, I knew that I had to reach out!
Ed Yong’s TED talk Zombie Roaches and Other Parasite Tales has got to be one of the most delightful and pun-tastic Talks on the TED platform. Ed packs a punch with his theme, but he really nails the storytelling and humor so well that I remember parts of his Talk, down to the pauses, years later. His Talk had me adding ‘parasites making crickets jump into swimming pools’ to my search history, and he made me appreciate and rethink nature, even at its wildest.
Fun, thoughtful, curious.
That has to be the 2025 Pollinator Census, where we were terribly rained out. It didn’t stop us from showing up for the folks who joined the count, and it definitely did not stop us from having fun while learning about the amazing work pollinators do to keep our ecosystem running and the gardeners who help them thrive. I also learned that the most appropriate reaction to meeting a bee was not, in fact, to screech, but to simply allow it to fly away and do its thing. Look out for the 2026 Pollinator Census in a few months!
The annual mainstage event is not all we do! Our programming includes multiple curated, smaller-scale events and experiences throughout the year. These are great to meet people in the Atlanta community and see how you can actually contribute your time and skills, before deciding if you want to commit to volunteering for a longer period.
Another way to get involved is by partnering with us to bring a unique experience–or even experiment–to Atlanta. In just the last year, we have hosted an adventure at Chantelle Rytter’s parade studio, a panel on sustainability and innovation in fashion, participated in the Southeast Pollinator Census, and enabled skills-based volunteering with five impactful Atlanta area non-profits.
TEDx has helped me see sides of Atlanta I probably would not have discovered on my own. I’ve got to be in some really cool rooms and meet people who are obsessed with, and excel at, their craft. I love that at every event, I meet people from diverse walks of life–people who have come together for no reason other than their curiosity and intent. I have met people who are attending their first TEDxAtlanta event, and people who are attending their 15th, simply because we make sure that our programming is unique.
For new experiences, to learn about how the world works, and meet fantastic people!
Interested in volunteering with us and getting immersed in all things Atlanta? Complete the form at the bottom of this link: https://www.tedxatlanta.com/volunteer/
