Mother is a Question

This episode, we’re traveling to a place and time when mama was the muse–back when musicians in the U.S. were constantly singing about “the one who’s always true,” as one of these songs goes. One hundred years ago in the U.S., in the early days of recorded music, a lot of the songs people were listening to were about one particular person: mother. Thanks to Sarah Bryan, the Association for Cultural Equity, and to Dust to Digital for inspiring this episode.Mother is a Question is created by Natasha Haverty and Julia Metzger-TraberOur editor is Rob RosenthalOriginal Music by Raky Sastri and Julia ReadManager of The Big Questions Project: Courtney FleurantinCoordinating Producer: Emmanuel DesarmePost-Production: Sandra Lopez-MonsalveExecutive Producer: Genevieve SponslerCover art: Pinterest, anonymous

Comedian and mother, Negin Farsad, got a strange assignment - one that sent her on an unexpected trip– a trippy trip– a hero’s quest– into the depths of her unconscious mind... where it turned out, all the monsters of motherhood were there waiting for her.Four years out from giving birth, Negin hadn’t thought she was avoiding a whole lot.  In fact as a comedian, she considered it her job to reveal the hardest things about her life on stage every night–to turn them into jokes. She had even turned her harrowing birth into laughs.  But little did she know how much was still lurking in the dark unknown.  How much there was to discover.  How much there was to heal.She told us all about it. This conversation is really special, because Tash and Julia got to talk to Negin together!Check out Negin's comedy.  Neginfarsad.com; @neginfarsad  She's hilarious!And the article that she wrote for Afar magazine about this trip.Mother is a Question is created by Natasha Haverty and Julia Metzger-Traber. Our editor is Rob Rosenthal.Original Music by Raky Sastri and Julia Read; other music by APMManager of The Big Questions Project: Courtney FleurantinCoordinating Producer: Emmanuel DesarmePost-Production Audio Engineer : Sandra Lopez-MonsalveExecutive Producer: Genevieve SponslerArt by Richard GrayFollow us on instagram @motherisaquestion

Elizabeth Rush has spent her career writing about climate change--her book Rising was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2019. Before Liz made her decision of whether to become a mother, she felt like she needed to go to the end of the world–Antarctica–and stand face to face with a melting glacier. In 2019, Liz jumped on a research vessel bound for Thwaites Glacier, with a deep longing to become a mother. She knew that the experience might change that feeling–that maybe, even, the glacier would have a message for her: tell her the best thing she could do for the world was actually sacrifice that longing to have a child.Mother is a Question is created by Natasha Haverty and Julia Metzger-Traber. Our editor is Rob Rosenthal.Original Music by Raky Sastri and Julia Read; other music by APMManager of The Big Questions Project: Courtney FleurantinCoordinating Producer: Emmanuel DesarmePost-Production: Sandra Lopez-MonsalveExecutive Producer: Genevieve SponslerArt by Richard GrayThe Quickening by Elizabeth Rush

What if humans could evolve into our most nurturing and creative selves?  What if society were organized around care instead of extraction and destruction?  What if we followed the leadership of those who mother?  Well, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, self-proclaimed Black Feminist Love Evangelist, thinks we have to.  It's urgent.  And she calls this possibility Motherful.  This episode, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, a poet and one of Julia's philosopher heroes, will be our guide to A Motherful World. She is a big inspiration for Julia.  Check out Alexis' beautiful work here:Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines  Alexis Pauline Gumbs (Editor), China Martens (Editor), Mai’a Williams (Editor), Loretta J. Ross (Preface)Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline GumbsSpill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity by Alexis Pauline GumbsM Archive: After the End of the World by Alexis Pauline GumbsDub: Finding Ceremony by Alexis Pauline GumbsAnd pre-order her forthcoming book: Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde (out August 20!)And more great poems, videos and workshops on her instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexispauline/Mother is a Question is created by Julia Metzger-Traber and Natasha Haverty. Our editor is Rob Rosenthal.Original Music by Raky Sastri and Julia ReadExecutive Producer: Genevieve SponslerManager of The Big Questions Project: Courtney FleurantinCoordinating Producer: Emmanuel DesarmePost-Production: Sandra Lopez-MonsalveArt by Richard Gray

Katherine is a farmer.  She always thought of herself as in control, someone who could plan for any situation.  But when her son died after birth, that old her died too.  "The world" she says, "is out of control, and any type of control that I experience is a figment of my imagination."  But the river keeps flowing, the birds keep singing, and the garlic still needs to be harvested. How can it all exist at the same time?  Here's her story.Mother is a Question is created by Julia Metzger-Traber and Natasha Haverty. Our editor is Rob Rosenthal.Original Music by Raky Sastri and Julia ReadExecutive Producer: Genevieve SponslerManager of The Big Questions Project: Courtney FleurantinCoordinating Producer: Emmanuel DesarmePost-Production: Sandra Lopez-MonsalveArt by Richard Gray

We pick up with the story of Anne, a day after she told her kids that she was so unhappy, so lost that to figure things out, she had to get on a plane and put five thousand miles between herself and her life. Mother is a Question is created by Natasha Haverty and Julia Metzger-Traber. Our editor is Rob Rosenthal. Original Music by Raky Sastri and Julia Read Manager of The Big Questions Project: Courtney Fleurantin Coordinating Producer: Emmanuel Desarme Post-Production: Sandra Lopez-Monsalve Executive Producer: Genevieve Sponsler

We open our season with a story that came to us through a listener. “Can you imagine leaving your child?” Anne asks, “No, of course not. Because none of us do. Nor did I, until four days before I did it.” Here’s Part 1 of her story. Mother is a Question is created by Natasha Haverty and Julia Metzger-Traber. Our editor is Rob Rosenthal. Executive Producer: Genevieve Sponsler Manager of The Big Questions Project: Courtney Fleurantin Coordinating Producer: Emmanuel Desarme Post-Production: Sandra Lopez-Monsalve Original Music by Raky Sastri and Julia Read

Being a mother is a portal into the core of human existence. Join us as we hold a microphone up to that portal and listen for the unanswerable, the unspeakable, the mysterious, the awe-some and the kaleidoscopically different realities of mothers.

As the oldest daughter of the oldest daughter of the oldest daughter, Nicole always knew her life didn’t begin and end with her. But when she became a mother, she gained new awareness of how mothering reaches not only into the past—but also into the future. Join us as Julia speaks with artists Nicole and Richael about how being connected to “deep time” shapes how they mother.

Rita was the mom next door—she moved in when Julia was two years old, but there was so much in the songs and the whispers that Julia didn’t know and couldn’t understand.  What was Rita carrying alone all these years?  How did she make it through?  Join us as we make space for the darkness, listen for the wisdom and witness the hidden journey of the mother next door.

Rae is trying to decide whether to become a mother. And Rae is coming at this decision in a pretty unique way—because Rae really feels like there must be a right answer to this question. Join us as Rae tries to figure out how to know whether to step into the ultimate unknown.

When Julia found out she was pregnant, she was bombarded with voices in her head around what a mother was supposed to be. In this episode, Julia turns to Laurel, who is on her own inspiring journey of reckoning with those voices and creating the motherhood that is true to her. Laurel never wanted to be a parent growing up because she couldn’t imagine herself fitting into the narrow frame of heteronormative parenting. But along her windy path toward becoming a mother, she discovers there is so much more possible in who we can become, how we love, and how we create family. Join us as we reckon with who we are as mothers in the face of societal expectations and narrow definitions, and what is possible when we do.

Our journey into this territory of mothering begins. Tasha searches out someone whose deep wisdom about mothering was totally lost on her when they first met ten years ago. Back then, Teourialier Johnson—who Tasha met as “T”—was a teacher of motherhood in an unlikely context. Now, for us, she’s a teacher of so much more, opening to transformation even when it seems all has been lost. Join us as “T” navigates some of the greatest challenges a mother can face, and shares how she attunes to the eternal dance of mothering another human: the graceful movement between listening and guiding, giving and taking, the known and the unknown.

If you listen all the way to our episodes' end credits (which we hope you do), you know the only way we've been able to make this show is because of something called the Big Questions Project. Well, three other fantastic podcasts came out of the Big Questions Project and in the next few months we’ll be featuring them here on our feed. First up, it’s a show called Rock that Doesn’t Roll. It’s the story of how Christian music shapes the world we live in. It's hosted by the very cool, very thoughtful hosts Andrew Gill and Leah Payne who understand and came from the world of this music--and it really is a world. This episode gets into what happens when motherhood and Christian rock music collide. Enjoy.

This week we're sharing the loving and playful podcast, "How to Survive the End of the World" hosted by Autumn Brown and adrienne maree brown. In this episode, "Loving as Family Practice," the Brown sisters explore what they’ve learned about love at the site of their own family, what they are generating as adults building and holding family, mothering children, and some things they have figured out that increase the possibility of love in intentional familial space. Plus zombies. Plus tattoo plans. Autumn Brown and adrienne maree brown, two sisters, share many identities, as writers, activists, facilitators, and inheritors of multiracial diasporic lineages, as well as a particular interest in the question of survival.  Their podcast delves into the practices we need as a community, to move through endings and to come out whole on the other side, whatever that might be.

To wrap up Season 2 we have a love story about a grandmother and her granddaughter -  how they came to know themselves through each other, and how they’ve saved each other’s lives, again and again. It’s a story about home. How we find our place.  Our longing for Motherland.  It’s about destiny– the kind we create and the kind that creates us. And as we prepare to end our season, it’s also a story about taking flight, and saying goodbye.--------------------Listeners, we want to thank you for joining us for the first two seasons of Mother is a Question. However you found us, it’s an honor to have your attention and your ears. And as we enter this next phase - this unknown territory - and recombobulate, we’d love to hear from you. Write us your thoughts, feelings and stories at motherisaquestion@gmail.com and be sure to subscribe to our show if you haven’t to get any updates in the coming months. Follow us on instagram @motherisaquestionMother is a Question is created by Natasha Haverty and Julia Metzger-Traber. Our editor is Rob Rosenthal.Original Music by Raky Sastri and Julia Read; other music by APMManager of The Big Questions Project: Courtney FleurantinCoordinating Producer: Emmanuel DesarmePost-Production Audio Engineer : Sandra Lopez-MonsalveExecutive Producer: Genevieve SponslerInterview Recording (DC): Stefanie De Leon Tzic Interview Recording (Arusha, Tanzania): Munira KaonekaArt by Richard GrayMother is a Question is a part of the Big Questions Project at PRX and supported by the John Templeton Foundation.

Yeye just crossed the threshold into motherhood. And she thinks what she learned during her crossing—when she gave birth—might be the key into the kind of motherhood in which she could be her truest, fullest self. But she’s also still asking questions. “Can you explain to me how we ended up in that situation? Wait, can you say that again? Was it really necessary, or am I another Latina statistic that ended up in this situation?” Join us for our season finale, and be part of crafting the coming season of Mother is a Question.

Join best friends Julia Metzger-Traber and Tasha Haverty as they listen for the unspeakable and crack open the definitions of motherhood alongside mothers from all walks of life.  Through warm, playful, and surprising interviews, this is an invitation into the depths of mothers’ hearts, minds and stories. Each episode is a portal into the kaleidoscopically different and yet universal experiences of what it means to mother. Not your average mom advice show—this is a space for the whispers, screams, and questions. Episode One drops October 4.

Subscribe now!