I've Been Working in Mom Content for 5 Years and I'm Not a Mom

Published 8/5/26

Let me take you back to April 2020. Being a college graduate in that exact moment was not exactly, or really at all, like I'd expected. While I'd hoped for pomp and circumstance, what I got instead was a parking-lot drive-thru graduation and a sticker that said "congrats." Not ideal.

You know what else I had that I had no idea what to do with? A bachelor's degree in communications with an emphasis in broadcast journalism. And if you're wondering whether I had job prospects, let me save you the curiosity: dear reader, I did not. What I did have was an extremely wonderful and generous team at Chatbooks, where I was interning. The original plan was to work until the semester ended. But when the pandemic hit, they offered to keep me on as a content creator for their podcast called The MomForce. I said yes, relieved and thrilled I got to keep working with a team I loved

Welcome to The MomForce

If you're not a follower of The MomForce Podcast or our community, you're missing out, and here's what you need to know: it's a community full of moms and parents who need a place to land when it comes to all things motherhood. Women who feel like they can ask questions, find answers, make friends, and keep iterating on their own journeys of motherhood.

And at 24, I was brand new to this world. I'd grown up around moms and babies as part of a large family: sisters, cousins, aunts, and friends whose kids I loved and got to help raise in small ways. I'd always wanted to be a mother myself and saw it as one of the greatest callings in life. I hoped I had some understanding of the full-time job of motherhood, and I definitely had the utmost respect for it. But a mother, I was not.

Learning at the Feet of Masters

As I started this job, I felt a quiet awe for the mothers I got to witness. First on that list: Vanessa Quigley, co-founder of Chatbooks, mother of seven, and my new boss. Six years after starting her company, she felt pulled to create a podcast for the same audience Chatbooks was built for: mothers who cared about connecting and strengthening family relationships. The podcast set out to talk to all moms: moms who worked, moms who stayed home, moms with expertise to share, moms who love to laugh, moms who love to play with their kids, moms with nannies, moms without, and every mom in between. Vanessa set out to find the right women to help answer that call, and she did.

As the podcast producer, I got to pour over clips and audio of these mothers. I took notes, shared my thoughts with my own community, and quietly learned at the feet of these masters. As someone who wasn't a mother yet, it felt like I was getting an education unlike any other. I had no way of knowing it yet, but I was about to spend the next several years building a career around a club I wasn't yet a member of. Early on, I remember feeling completely out of my league, unsure what kind of content I could or should create, and how I could find a voice that would actually speak to the women I adored and respected.

An Education From the Outside

About a year later, I landed a new job in a field I'd worked in during college: podcast and TV producer for a show called Family Rules, which focused on everyday families doing spectacular things, with experts weighing in on topics relevant to each episode. Once again, I was writing and producing for an audience I didn't belong to, but felt privileged to witness.

My career path took a few detours after that, but I kept finding my way back to motherhood. I'd befriended women in the midst of every kind of motherhood journey: infertility, divorce, blended families, loss, single working life, stay-at-home exhaustion, rebuilding identities from scratch. And despite that wide range of experience, one thread ran through every mother's story: the drive to build a beautiful life for her kids and find joy no matter the circumstance.

Coming Back to The MomForce

Then, last year — five years after that parking-lot graduation — an opportunity of a lifetime dropped into my lap: the chance to come back to Chatbooks full-time, on the content and communities team, working once again on The MomForce Podcast. Except this time, we got to reinvent how we talked to, about, and with mothers.

In this new iteration, our podcast intro reads:

"Womanhood is basically just reinventing yourself over and over again. So it felt fitting that The MomForce Podcast would evolve a little too. This season, we're trying something new. Weekly conversations with the women on our team who are all navigating different seasons of life. Just honest conversations. The kind you have with friends around the kitchen table. So come on, hang out with us."

Vanessa, Julie, and the Women Who Mothered Me

That shift opened up a whole new angle of motherhood I'd never considered: womanhood. Now I get to cohost alongside Vanessa and our coworker Julie Taylor. Julie is the VP of Marketing at Chatbooks. I've had the chance to work with her in many capacities, and she is not only the best mother to her own children, but she's mothered me in so many ways in my early career and as a friend. She is an expert as far as I'm concerned.

Both of these women have wrapped me in their arms and pulled me under the brilliant title of "mother," even though I still feel completely inadequate to join those ranks. But I've learned that motherhood and womanhood run parallel. Both are the chance to reinvent yourself over and over. Both are the freedom to walk alongside other women on similar journeys. Both are the honest conversations that remind you: you were never meant to do this alone.

Still Waiting for My Turn

I consider it something like divine intervention that I've kept landing in this space: writing, creating, and researching for an audience of mothers. It fills my bucket every time. I still look forward to the day I get to be called "mom" myself. And I know that when that day comes, I'll still have no idea what I'm doing, but I'll also have legions of women to turn to as my foremothers, my trailblazers, and my partners in womanhood.

That girl in the parking lot, sticker in hand, had no idea any of this was coming. She just kept saying yes to what was in front of her. Turns out that was enough.