While motherhood and parenting are certainly related, they emerged as two distinct shame areas. Mother shame is about our identity as mothers or our identity as women who are not mothers. Parenting shame is focused on how we raise and interact with our children. Mother shame is an overwhelming issue for women. Every single participant in a mother role identified mother shame as an issue. And, because motherhood is an identity that is so closely tied to being a woman, it became clear that you don’t have to be a mother for motherhood to be a shame issue. As we learned in the powerful guide on
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