Warning: This episode includes discussion of stillbirths, pregnancy loss, miscarriage and death.

In the final episode, Chine and Maddy explore what motherhood teaches us about loss, grief, change and death. What does a mother’s grief – even a mother’s fear of grief – reveal about what it means to be human?

We explore the painful and difficult realities of stillbirth, pregnancy loss and the death of children after birth, as well as how parents deal with their own mortality. We look at both the potential and limitations of technology in saving premature babies’ lives, and ask how parents cope with the grief of life not turning out how they had hoped for their children, including anxiety about the climate and the state of the world. How does grief – about the climate or the loss of children – lead women into different forms of activism? We ask whether machines can help us grieve, or whether grief is an inevitable part of motherhood; and take a look at the most famous example of maternal loss: Mary, the mother of Jesus, who in the traditional Pieta imagery, cradles the dead body of her son.

Chapters:

00:00:00 Navigating the Pain of Loss

00:02:56 The Impact of Pregnancy Loss

00:05:57 The Spiritual Dimension of Grief

00:08:59 Motherhood and Identity

00:12:05 The Journey of Healing

00:15:07 The Role of Technology in Parenthood

00:18:04 Grief and Hope in Parenthood

00:21:01 The Uniqueness of Each Loss

00:23:46 Coping with Maternal Grief

00:26:58 Finding Meaning in Loss

00:30:51 The Intersection of Grief and Love

00:40:03 Motherhood and Climate Activism

00:49:31 The Messiness of Motherhood and Loss

Featured in this episode:

Dr Karen O’Donnell from the University of Cambridge, and author of The Dark Womb; Lizzie Harvey, head of content & communications at Theos; Professor Dominic Wilkinson, medical ethicist and neonatal intensive care doctor; Dr Sarah Apetrei of the University of Oxford and author of The Reformation of the Heart: Gender and Radical Theology in the English Revolution; Lorna Powell and Bongi Kellner from Mothers Rise Up.

The Team:

🎙️ Hosts: Chine McDonald (@ChineMcDonald) and Madeleine Pennington (@mlmpennington)

🎬 Executive producer: Stephanie Tam

🎧 Audio editor and sound engineer: David Benjamin Blower

🎛️ Recording engineer and assistant producer: Daniel Turner

💡 Produced by the ‪@thinktanktheos‬ www.theosthinktank.co.uk/

Breast is best, or best is fed? In this episode, we tackle one of the most controversial aspects of mothering: feeding. Everyone seems to have an opinion about it. But, as Maddy and Chine find out in this episode, debate about whether and how mothers feed their children has been going on for centuries – including Victorian prudishness about the Virgin Mary breastfeeding Jesus.

No matter how we feed our children, will there always be ways to shame women? Why is feeding often talked about in machine-like ways such as milk ‘production’ and ‘lactation’, and how is technological advancement such as developments in ‘biomilk’ going to transform feeding?

We talk to a range of experts to explore how mothers bear witness to something that society as a whole has forgotten – that we are part of nature, that our bodies require care and nourishment, that we are vulnerable and dependent, and also that the ways in which feeding opens a door intro transcendence. We explore theological ideas of feeding and what it tells us about Christian concepts of God, including 14th century mystic Julian of Norwich’s writing about ‘divine milk’.

Chapters

00:00 The Centrality of Feeding in Motherhood

03:00 Motherhood vs. The Machine: A Broader Perspective

06:01 Personal Experiences with Feeding

09:11 Cultural and Historical Context of Feeding

11:59 The Role of Technology in Feeding

15:02 The Politics of Feeding: Societal Pressures and Judgments

20:38 The Politics of Motherhood and Responsibility

22:42 Cultural Perspectives on Breastfeeding

27:11 Maternal Imagery in Religious Contexts

34:15 Artistic Representations of Motherhood

43:01 Embodiment and Spirituality in Motherhood

Featured in this episode: Joanna Wolfarth, cultural historian and author of Milk: An Intimate History of Breastfeeding; theologian Rachel Muers, chair of divinity at the University of Edinburgh; the Very Rev Dominic Barrington, dean of York Minster; Rev Ayla Lepine, associate record at St James’s Piccadilly and former Ahmanson fellow in art and religion at the National Gallery; Dominic Barrington; medical ethicist and author Claire Gilbert, author of I, Julian.

Keywords

motherhood, feeding, breastfeeding, cultural history, societal pressures, technology, maternal health, infant feeding, public policy, women's experiences, motherhood, breastfeeding, cultural perspectives, maternal imagery, spirituality, art, responsibility, societal norms, religious contexts, embodiment

The Team:

🎙️ Hosts: Chine McDonald (@ChineMcDonald) and Madeleine Pennington (@mlmpennington)

🎬 Executive producer: Stephanie Tam

🎧 Audio editor and sound engineer: David Benjamin Blower

🎛️ Recording engineer and assistant producer: Daniel Turner

Warning: This episode includes discussion of pregnancy and childbirth, including birth trauma and child loss.

Chine and Maddy go back to the beginning, and explore the physical and spiritual changes that takes place in pregnancy, and the embodied nature of giving birth.

How has something that is a universal human experience come to signify something alien and traumatic? How does becoming a mum alter the sense of individualism Western society pushes us towards, and open our eyes to interdependence? In a so-called post-religious age, have we lost some of the rituals that recognise the transition to motherhood as a transcendent, spiritual and existential experience?

We discuss the ways in which machines help women and their babies thrive; but as scientific advancement accelerates, how might the prospect of growing babies in artificial wombs or ‘bio-bags’ affect the place of mother and challenge our conceptions of what it really means to be human?

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction to Motherhood vs. the Machine

00:03:11 Exploring the Complexity of Mothering Work

00:05:01 Personal Experiences of Pregnancy and Childbirth

00:11:20 Cultural Narratives and the Experience of Labor

00:17:49 The Role of Community and Support in Motherhood

00:23:21 Racial Inequality in Maternal Health

00:29:52 The Future of Pregnancy: Technology and Machines

00:38:11 The Transformative Nature of Motherhood

00:45:14 Conclusion and Reflection on Motherhood

Featured in this episode: Theologian Rachel Muers, chair of divinity at the University of Edinburgh; writer Mary Harrington, contributing editor of Unherd, and author of Feminism Against Progress; Lucy Jones, author of Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood; Professor Dominic Wilkinson, medical ethicist and neonatal intensive care doctor

Keywords

motherhood, pregnancy, childbirth, technology, maternal health, cultural narratives, community support, racial inequality, personal experiences, future of pregnancy

The Team

🎙️ Hosts: Chine McDonald (@ChineMcDonald) and Madeleine Penninton (@mlmpennington)

🎬 Executive producer: Stephanie Tam

🎧 Audio editor and sound engineer: David Benjamin Blower

🎛️ Recording engineer and assistant producer: Daniel Turner

💡 Produced by the ‪@thinktanktheos‬ www.theosthinktank.co.uk/

With thanks to the Fetzer Institute