Here’s how launch week went for the magazine

Before I scheduled this email, I posted the magazine launch on LinkedIn, which felt (to my nervous system) quite dangerous. After all, sharing the amazing work of myself and the collaborators for that publication meant I wasn’t simply sitting on my couch in despair during a period of work leave.

A leave I desperately needed in order to have my physical and mental health restored. In fact, it is still an ongoing process in which I’m trying to calm my nervous system down every few days from feeling like I’m being chased by lions.

The lions? The standard high expectations I have for myself around work in career and at home.

Truly, what is the “correct way” of being on leave? It’s a thought I’ve had many times.

I think of mothers on leave after birth who return to side comments of “must be nice” or passive aggressive remarks about having to carry a coworker’s workload. I think of the mothers who spend their hours of vacation time and sick leave to near bankruptcy because fathers feel pressured to stay on the clock or simply because mom is still the primary caretaker in 2026.

A few statistics I found show the cost of the mental load is higher in women than men. According to the 2025 Modern Families Index study by Bright Horizons:1

• 74% of working mothers say they carry
  the mental load for parenting, compared
  to just 48% of working fathers

• 42% of working mothers report
  depression and anxiety, compared to 28% in the general population

• 65% of working parents report burnout,
  with mothers bearing the brunt

I don’t think any of you would be surprised by these numbers. I suspect everyone reading this can name a handful of ways society could help elevate the demand through paid parental leave, childcare affordability, and flexible working hours. But right now I want to ask again: what is the right way to be on leave?

More companies than ever are acknowledging the importance of mental healthcare for employees, but the practices of accelerated efficiency are crushing everyone I know. At least half of the people I’ve encountered in group therapy have felt their years of career experience are being pushed aside by ai generated demands.

It is a medicine I don’t particularly want to swallow in place of human beings producing human work.

Perhaps that is why the Motherhood Magazine project felt so life-giving.

• Instead of editing generated ai content to sound more on brand, published contributors were sharing their lived expertise, human experiences, art, and poetry

• The goal of the project has been to pull us away from the screens embedded into every part of our lives by publishing a physical magazine

• The magazine is a tangible resource that can be brought into life as we live it: from the playgrounds to the lunch breaks to the hands of our mom friends

At the end of the day, I want to find more delights in being transparent, vulnerable, messy, and human.

Buy the Magazine

I’ve always appreciated when authors give insight to their sales, especially after launching something into the world. There tends to be a great sense of success during initial promotion, but writers wonder “Is everyone else successful but me?”

First, I think sales transparency gives us the ability to make better goals for ourselves. Second, sales transparency removes the uncomfortable feelings of self-promotion and leads us behind the door of community building. That is, after all, the place I really want to build anything from: community.

It’s been one week since the launch of the Motherhood Minute magazine and I am happy to report that 32 magazines have been printed, with 7 of those paid by me for each contributor of the summer edition.

With pricing variations for sales at either $12.50 or $17.50, I’ve made a commission of $175. I’ve invested $113 back into printing costs so I could have 20 copies in hand.

In person promotion has been the most difficult sell so far, either because I don’t know how to sell a magazine to bookstores, or I’m still gaining confidence face to face. I’m hoping to find some holiday markets and try my hand at in-person events for the fall and winter issues.

Hopefully, a steady increase of sales will allow me to start paying contributors per feature and donating to featured nonprofits who specialize in maternal mental health.

If you would like to help promote the Motherhood Minute magazine, here is an information sheet I’m distributing to vendors. Thanks for helping us spread the word! You can also access the PNG or PDF of this file here.

• Buy the printed magazine

• Read updates on the Motherhood Minute Printed Magazine

• Information on past Mental Health & Motherhood Summits

• Revisit the archives for free

Reintroductions Were Needed

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Jul 3

We’ve had a core mission statement guiding all of this work: to connect mothers with mental health resources and offer a low-barrier approach that deeply values community and connection.