Illuminating Mothers In Their Own Light: Empowering Women To Tell Their Own Stories

Motherhood is incredibly hard work. The airbrushed world of #maternity images on social media lies to us—it is nothing at all like that. Mothers have the most difficult responsibility of all: they have to not only create life but relentlessly, carefully nurture it; nothing less than this level of obsessive commitment to their babies before everything else will shield their child against a difficult world.

Mothers have to balance the incredibly visceral reality of maternity – an experience that nothing in the world can prepare women for – with the sacred responsibility of bringing the next generation into the world. However, the maternal journey, like any new and difficult experience, bestows upon its recipient powerful life-changing perspectives and insights that can be applied anywhere in the world—provided mothers are empowered to dream and imagine.

For many women, it is a sad reality that motherhood as an experience leaves them depleted shells of their former selves. The fact that a fetus can literally extract calcium from a mother, even at the expense of her bones, is an apt metaphor for the toll that motherhood can sometimes take on a woman.

However, if catalyzed effectively, women can find themselves reborn and transformed in the crucible experience of motherhood. To do this, I believe that women must traverse independent journeys of motherhood – journeys where they discover their unique, bright personas, and learn to see themselves as more than just flesh and blood vessels to manufacture life.

As a maternity and baby photographer and as a mother, this was a journey that I experienced, first through my own life, and then through these mothers, after many months of virtually interviewing women across the globe.

Many of the core themes that underline the idea of an empowered mother are those that millennial mothers may already be familiar with: taking out the time for self-care, celebrating and enjoying delightful moments with their children, and staying resilient against adversity. However, for every mother who is able to navigate the world of motherhood, there are many more who silently struggle, and ultimately lose even the idea of hope. They lose their independent spark, and in the process, perform motherhood as a punitive chore from which there is no end – a mindset that adversely colors their image of themselves and their world with insecurity. This is what they bestow on their children. And so, generations are born with a warped worldview which leads to poorer outcomes.

This is not a future that we want. And so, the ‘100 Self-portraits 100 Dreams' book empowers women to tell their own stories in a journey of self-discovery and expression. Through self-portraits, they learned how they had passively accepted how they viewed themselves and their role in the world – before deciding to change it.

One of the mothers featured in the book loves to make her child laugh. So, she’s featured close-up shots of her face wrapped up in funny cartoons. Another mother loves to walk a lot, so she’s submitted photos of her walking, a small silhouette, set against the backdrop of a massive scenic terrain.

What is important is that these are self-portraits. No one should tell mothers that they should pose for the most important and meaningful moments in their lives. I want them to capture themselves as mothers at their most genuine and most honest – and in the process, appreciate how beautiful they are as mothers.

Mothers have a lot going for them. They innately understand the power of resilience, the constant maternal harmony between gentleness and firmness, and the transformative and uplifting impact of kindness and compassion to uplift. Because mothers can empathize and care with an immense capacity, they innately understand how to communicate in ways that truly resonate. Now multiply this a hundred times by bringing together mothers, and in the process, bringing together diverse worldviews and insights, all anchored by the common chain of motherhood, into an ecosystem of support. Mothers everywhere join hands to guide themselves, the next generation of children, and the next generation of women.

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For far too long, society has taken for granted the uniquely incredible strengths, capabilities, and perspectives that mothers alone possess. These are qualities undervalued in how much impact they can have on people, communities, and causes. A warmer holistic vision of the future can be created through a reset that puts mothers at the center of many much-needed societal transformations. One founded on the realization that there are opportunities at every corner and mutually prosperous futures can be sown and raised the best way possible – by nurturing them together.

In the words of Maxim Gorky, “Only mothers can think of the future because they give birth to it.”

Shikha Khanna Anand, Portrait Photographer & Curator of Mothers United Moment. The views are the author's own.