#ILoveYourMotherhood: Because We Do!

Today we’re launching a new hashtag on Instagram: #ILoveYourMotherhood!

(Did you know we’re on Instagram? We are! Follow us!)

As you may know, we’ve worked hard over the past month to grow our account on Instagram. Not just by numbers, though we’ve seen growth there as well, but by interacting with more moms.

The mission of Postpartum Progress is to “create healthier families by raising awareness, reducing stigma, providing social support and connecting mothers to help for perinatal mood and anxiety disorders like postpartum depression.” By existing in the social sphere and actively seeking to interact with more moms, we’re raising awareness and reducing stigma. You’re doing the same, every time you share your own story, whether online or with a friend.

As we went about liking, or rather heart-ing your photos on Instagram, we found ourselves drawn to pictures of you, pictures of your children, and pictures of you with your children. Yes, your dog is also cute, but we really love watching you find your footing in motherhood. You post such beautiful photos; you post such real photos. Photos of the hard days, the good days, the boring in between days, the messes, the joy in getting to the messes, the cleaning of the never-ending messes; you share your motherhood with friends, family, and the web at large.

And we love that.

We want to celebrate your motherhood and the ways you’ve chosen to share it online. It’s fine if you share only beautiful photos, celebrating the highlights of your life. It’s fine if you share the nitty gritty, the dark details that also exist. It’s fine if you share the mundane, the not-so-glamorous. We love it all, because it’s yours.

#ILoveYourMotherhood is a way to celebrate you, Warrior Moms, and the way you mother your babies, your children, your now grown adults. It’s a way to celebrate the mother in you. It’s a way for us to acknowledge the hard work you put in to getting to where you are today, even if it’s one step ahead or even two steps back from where you stood just yesterday.

#ILoveYourMotherhood is for the mom who isn’t quite sure she’s doing motherhood “right” just yet, who doubts her every move.

#ILoveYourMotherhood is for the mom who can’t find joy yet in the pictures she shares, but she shares them in hopes of someday looking back and remembering.

#ILoveYourMotherhood is for the mom who is just trying to make it day by day.

#ILoveYourMotherhood is for the mom who finally found herself in motherhood. For the woman who lost herself when she became a mom. For the mom who isn’t sure who she wants to be when she grows up.

#ILoveYourMotherhood is for the Pinterest-happy mom, the slacker mom, the craft-allergic mom, and the “hey-he’s-wearing-clean-underwear” mom.

#ILoveYourMotherhood is for all moms.

We’ll be featuring moms from our community on our Instagram account with the #ILoveYourMotherhood hashtag, regramming (with permission, as always) your photos, and commenting on photos with the hashtag. Anyone can participate, of course, and we hope you’ll use it as a tool to connect and lift up other mothers in your life—because what mom couldn’t use a positive comment on her mothering skills. Honestly.

We’re excited to love your photos, to connect more with you, and to use this as just another way we raise awareness of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. The more we talk about the truths of motherhood, the more moms will find support when they need it.

Keep up the good work, moms. Because #ILoveYourMotherhood.

#ILoveYourMotherhood: Because We Do!
Be sure to visit us on Instagram and like our official launch photo, an image from one of Warrior Mom Ambassadors, Samantha Alper Konikoff. You can learn more of her story on Instagram!