Motherhood is a responsibility like no other, it’s exhausting, inspiring, and purpose-giving. From my own experience, I felt that motherhood empowered me, despite all the challenges that came with it, or maybe because of its challenges. It nurtured the desire in me to give and to make the world better.
“The best way to get rid of the pain is to feel the pain. And when you feel the pain and go beyond it, you’ll see there’s a very intense love that is wanting to awaken itself.” Deepak Chopra
This saying reminds me of the experience of every Mama when giving birth to her child: There was pain, a meaningful pain, that the mom embraced and then witnessed that burst in love when looking at her baby. A love that for many Mamas, manifested not only in their families but also in the communities around them.
And that’s what this blog post about: Mamas who are making a difference, by helping others through their businesses and organizations.
Emilie Salonen, SuperMamas, Berlin
Can you tell us more about you?
“I am 35 years old, I have two boys, aged 5 and 15 y.o. I am French and live in Berlin for 11 years with my Finnish husband Olli. A full-time Key Account Manager in the SaaS industry and co-founder of SuperMamas in Germany.”
How did you start SuperMamas and why?
“I became a mom in 2015 while being an expat in Berlin. At that time all my friends didn’t have children and were working.”
“My very supportive husband took the first 2 months of parental leave. But starting the 3rd month I was alone 9h per day with my son. It was the loneliest and most exhausting time of my life… I would cry in the morning when my husband left for work, and cry again when he came back.”
Luckily I had met Marijke during the 3rd trimester of pregnancy through an ex-pat community Facebook group. She lived in the same district as me and our babies are only 2 weeks apart. We went through the same phases and doubts at the same time. Having her to talk to saved me from postpartum depression. We became close friends very quickly. We are in touch regularly still today even if we live in different countries now.”
“I co-founded the SuperMamas in Germany with Marijke after I read an online article about a wonderful network that in Switzerland “les SuperMamans”, 9 months after the birth of our babies where moms who live in the same area, whom you don’t know, take the time to cook a meal during the first few months after you have had your baby.”
“It touched and moved me so much to such a deep level. And it was obvious that it should exist in Berlin, where so many ex-pat moms could benefit from it.”
“I wanted to create for the new mums in Berlin what I desperately needed after becoming a mother. A village of more experienced moms who could come over with a meal, empathize and tell her that she was doing a great job.”
“Even though I was 3 months away from going back to work, I knew this is something that I wanted to do.”
“I got in touch with Elisa, founder of the SuperMamas in Switzerland, who showed us the process of the network. It was a lot of manual work back then. Then because we are getting so many requests and Marijke had to go back to Belgium, we grew the team.
After 4 years and we are a team of 15 mums volunteers growing the SuperMamas community in Germany and Belgium. A year ago we launched our own app, thanks to my husband who developed it.”
“Having a baby is challenging enough. Having a baby in a foreign country without knowing the system well and sometimes not speaking the language can become very quickly isolating.”
“SuperMamas creates a “village” around the new moms.
There are countless online communities out there, who help get a quick answer to a specific question and break momentarily the feeling of loneliness. But it is almost impossible to deeply connect and have a deeper conversation online.
During the postpartum period, however, new mums have very little energy to even be active online.
Our volunteer Admins, who organize the so-called “pamperings” for the new mums, take away the burden of coordinating help around them and reach out to a support network that they didn’t have before.
The fact that the HelpingMamas have to get in touch over the phone and then meet the new mums (so-called “BubbleMamas”) brings the mums closer together and fosters deeper connections that give this special feeling of being part of the local community. A feeling of “being home” even.
What do you enjoy the most about it?
Oh so many things!
There are 700 SuperMamas spread across Germany and Belgium that have now been helping more than 400 other mums and their families and donated thousands of meals. Witnessing so much solidarity and love between mothers every day is something that feeds my soul.
Being part of something so beautiful and meaningful is one of the things that makes me happy the most. And helping make it happen is an amazing feeling.
“I love organizing pampering: calling new moms, having a chat with her and listening to her, and then sharing her story with the SuperMamas and gathering support for her. I don’t get to do it that often anymore.”
“A year ago I started to focus my time and energy on setting up the tools that help the admin team organize the pamperings and grow the community. Enabling them and giving them what they need to help all those mums is also very rewarding for me.”
“The time they volunteer to help the new moms and keep the community growing is very precious to my eyes and it is important that they are able to do it with as few complications as possible. The free SuperMamas web app has been developed first and foremost for them. Before one needed to have access to a laptop and two free hands to organize a pampering. Now they can do it from anywhere from their smartphone with one hand. I was able to organize a pampering while breastfeeding my second baby in the dark in a matter of minutes!”
What helped you the most along the journey growing SuperMamas to what it is now?
“The kindness, energy, and awesomeness of the following people in my life:
- My very supportive husband gave and is still giving me time and space to follow my passion for SuperMamas. And of course who has invested hundreds of hours into developing the SuperMamas web app!
- My co-founder Marijke, without whom I wouldn’t have had the courage to start it and with whom I set up and organized the pamperings for the first 2 years.
- All the 14 SuperMamas of the admin team who have since 2018 contributed to expanding the SuperMamas within and outside Berlin, with passion, compassion, and love for others.”
Do you have anything to share with other Mamas?
“I love this proverb: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
“We have trouble asking for help. We are used to doing a lot on our that we think have to do it all by ourselves after the baby arrives because we used to do a lot on our own. But we were never meant to do it on our own. And you would be surprised how willing and happy people are when we ask for help!”
“Asking for help and realizing when it is just too much to carry alone is a strength that can and should be applied in all aspects of life (career, family, etc…)“
Katarina Stoltz, Life Coach & Psychotherapist, Berlin
Can you tell us more about you?
“I’m Swedish and live in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin, with my Polish husband and 9-year old daughter.”
“I’m a life coach and psychotherapist, founder of Katarina Stoltz Coaching & Therapy, I work with ambitious professionals who find themselves in a purposeless hamster wheel and have lost sight of what they really want. I help them stop trying to meet everybody else’s expectations and start prioritizing their own well-being, at home and at work, so they can achieve fulfillment without burning out.”
How did you start a business and why?
“When I was growing up, other children used to tell me their secrets. Later on, I became a news photographer to impress others. But I didn’t like the cynical environment, so today I work as a Coach and Therapist, where I’m a catalyst for people to tell their truth.”
“I was on top of my career, having front page publications in newspapers like International Herald Tribune and The New York Times when I decided that my life needed to radically change.” From the outside my life was glamorous, but I was slowly burning out. I didn’t like the person I was becoming and how I treated people.”
“I took time out to first become and then be a mother for three years which was the most beautiful transition of my life so far. It gave me not only time to enjoy transitioning into motherhood, but also time to peel off the layers of expectations so that I could hear my heart’s longing.”
When my daughter was two years old, I started a six-year-long journey of studying coaching, psychotherapy, and also starting my own business. Since then I have witnessed hundreds of women and men transform their lives.
What do you enjoy the most about it?
“I’m obsessed with stories, I’ve always loved listening to what people go through in their lives and how they became who they are today.”
“It’s such a privilege to be a listening ear to my client’s deepest secrets. And to hold space for them to feel suppressed feelings, release burdens from their past and build confidence and unlock the pools of strength, determination, and resilience they already have.”
What helped you the most in your journey as a mom juggling parenting and career?
“No doubt asking for and getting support!”
“When I let go of the belief I grew up with: ‘The more you are able to do by yourself, the stronger you are’, and got myself a cleaner and babysitter, I was able to focus on my studies and business. From time to time when my husband was traveling for longer periods of time, I hired an au pair, which also helped me tremendously. I know that being part of communities like WHM (Work Happy Mums) and different women’s circles also kept me sane in difficult times.”
Do you have anything to share with other Mamas?
“Don’t try to do it alone! Practice clear and gentle communication and ask your husband to share household duties with you.”
Drop perfection and focus on the things that really matter to you.
Ask yourself how you want to remember this time when you look back one day. Will you remember a clean house and that you ticked off all the things on your to-do list? Or the times when you really thrived at your work and laughed from your belly together with your children?”
Got inspired by these women? Read more stories of moms whose motherhood incited a change in another way here.
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