Motherhood

All women should have the right to choose if or when to be mothers, and to have the economic and social support to do so. This choice has been restricted across time and place due to discriminatory legislation against mothers and pregnant people, lackluster social safety nets and anti-abortion/anti-birth control movements.

How One Haitian Mother Rebuilt Her Life After Gang Violence—with Courage, Determination, Enterprise and a Small Loan

PUBLISHED 6/2/2026 by

Over the past 25 years, I have had the privilege of working alongside communities in Haiti, traveling there 35 times through my work with the Raising Haiti Foundation. I have met many people like Mirlanda Sully—women and men whose resilience, dignity and determination challenge the way we understand hardship. Her story is extraordinary, but it is not unique.

After armed gangs overtook her hometown, Sully fled with her husband and young son, leaving behind their home, business and possessions.

Arriving in a remote mountain community with nothing, she rebuilt her life through a women-focused microcredit program that provided small loans, business training and a network of support.

Today, she runs a thriving market business, mentors other women and helps ensure her neighbors can access essential goods closer to home.

Again and again, I have seen that lasting change does not come from outside solutions. It comes from investing in the strength, ingenuity and leadership that already exist within communities.

Sully’s story is a powerful reminder that transformation often begins with something small—a loan, an opportunity, a belief in what women can accomplish when given the tools to succeed.

91% of Voters Support a National Paid Leave Program. How Do We Make It Happen?

PUBLISHED 6/2/2026 by

The United States is one of only seven countries lacking a federal mandate for paid maternal or family leave. Within the country, only 13 states and D.C. have paid family and medical leave programs, acting as a lifeline for families.

Often considered by lawmakers to be a program too expensive to start, it’s the cost of inaction that lawmakers should be concerned with, according to Dawn Huckelbridge, executive producer of a new short film Lifelines and founding director of Paid Leave for All. 

“A lot of people miss their baby’s first smile. … They’re not there to hold their parent’s hand because they can’t get the time off work. … However it is funded in the long run, it is putting money back into the economy. It is saving jobs.”

Your Tax Dollars Are Funding the Trump Administration’s Patriarchal Family Agenda

PUBLISHED 5/28/2026 by

“One in three Americans are under-babied,” declared Trump’s Medicare and Medicaid chief Dr. Mehmet Oz last week, echoing JD Vance’s contempt for “childless cat ladies.”

Guided by evangelical supporters, the Trump administration is eroding longstanding civil rights protections, restricting access to contraception and abortion, and weakening support systems for single mothers and their children. The goal is clear: to pressure women into marriage and motherhood while making the patriarchal family the center of American life.

The administration’s policies closely track the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 agenda, which seeks to incentivize what it calls “natural marriage”—a heterosexual household with a breadwinner father, stay-at-home mother and biologically related children.

Meanwhile, the administration’s new Moms.Gov website directs pregnant women to antiabortion organizations that that have been widely criticized for their misleading information about options and for their collection of patients’ sensitive personal information.

Taxpayer dollars are increasingly being used to advance a vision of society rooted in patriarchal family structures and reproductive coercion.

After Historic SNAP Cuts, America’s Hunger Emergency Is Already Here—and Trump’s Proposed Budget Would Make It Worse

PUBLISHED 5/22/2026 by

Even as communities across the country grapple with the fallout from last year’s devastating SNAP cuts, the White House’s proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget threatens to deepen an already escalating hunger emergency.

The administration is pushing another $6 billion in cuts to SNAP, while also targeting WIC benefits, including proposals that would restrict access to fresh fruits and vegetables for women and children.

Rather than repairing the damage already done to America’s food assistance programs, the budget doubles down on policies that are pushing more families toward crisis.

The consequences are already unfolding nationwide. More than 4 million Americans have lost SNAP benefits over the past year, while states struggle under the unprecedented financial burdens shifted onto them by Republicans’ earlier cuts.

Some states are now considering whether they can continue participating in SNAP at all, raising the possibility that millions more people could lose food assistance simply because of where they live.

At the same time, congressional negotiations over the farm bill have largely failed to address the growing strain on hunger programs or the widening cracks in the nation’s social safety net.

(This essay is part of an ongoing Ms. series examining the real-world impact of President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal year 2027 budget. Across sectors—from healthcare and childcare to immigration enforcement and food assistance—the series explores what the administration’s funding priorities reveal about who government serves, and who it leaves behind.)

Motherhood as Patriotic Duty: The Dangerous Politics Behind Trump’s New Messaging

PUBLISHED 5/21/2026 by

Moms.gov may present itself as a resource for “new and expecting mothers,” but its deeper message is unmistakable: motherhood as patriotic obligation, reproductive autonomy as suspect, and declining birth rates as a national crisis. The site promotes crisis pregnancy centers, fertility treatments and anti-contraception talking points while echoing a long history of pronatalist politics that frames women’s bodies as tools of the state rather than sites of personal choice.

History offers chilling parallels. Governments facing demographic anxiety—from Nazi Germany to the modern U.S. right—have elevated childbirth through propaganda, financial incentives and attacks on reproductive healthcare. Nazi officials restricted access to contraception and abortion information while glorifying motherhood through state medals and nationalist media campaigns; today, conservative lawmakers and influencers similarly cast hormonal birth control and medication abortion as dangerous while promoting “natural” fertility and larger families as social imperatives.

The result is not simply antiabortion policy, but a broader attempt to reshape gender roles and define which families are valued.

Moms.gov fits into a growing body-politics movement that ties reproduction to nationalism, morality and demographic control—using government-backed messaging to pressure women toward motherhood while undermining reproductive freedom.

The Kids of Magnolia Mother’s Trust: John on Competition, Confidence and Why Every Kid Deserves Opportunity

PUBLISHED 5/10/2026 by and

This Mother’s Day weekend, we are honored to present a special three-part Front and Center mini-series—The Kids of Magnolia Mother’s Trust—featuring the children of mothers whose stories readers have come to know over the years. Published Friday, Saturday and Sunday ahead of Mother’s Day, these essays offer a deeply personal look at how children experience their mothers’ sacrifices, struggles and love, and how they understand the world around them because of those experiences.

In the third and final installment of The Kids of Magnolia Mother’s Trust, John reflects on how sports, community programs and his mother’s encouragement helped shape his confidence, motivation and sense of leadership growing up in Jackson, Miss. He writes about participating in Springboard to Opportunities programs since childhood, discovering a love of competition through sports and math, and why he believes young people need more opportunities and support systems in their communities:

“We have seen way too much violence and crime in our neighborhoods in recent years. While I think part of the problem is that kids have too easy access to weapons, I think it is also because there are not enough programs and opportunities for youth to get involved in and stay occupied. I can see how all these years with Springboard and having the extra support to participate in more youth sports helped grow my confidence, motivation and interests and has pushed me to stay active in other activities that are helping me continue to grow toward my best self. I want these same opportunities to be available for every kid in Jackson and my community.”

Following John’s essay, his mother Ebony—whose own story readers first encountered through Front and Center several years ago—responds to her son’s reflections and shares what it means to watch him grow into a young leader committed to his community, despite the adversity he has faced along the way.

The Kids of Magnolia Mother’s Trust: What a Daughter Learned About Leadership Watching Her Mom Hold Everything Together

PUBLISHED 5/9/2026 by and

“I know that sometimes it was a struggle for my mom to support me all the time in my dance classes,” Tamya writes in the second installment of the Ms. miniseries, The Kids of Magnolia Mother’s Trust. “Uniforms, traveling fees, parade fees—these all add up.”

A high school senior in Jackson, Miss., Tamya reflects on how dance became not only her greatest passion, but also the place where she learned leadership, self-confidence and self-advocacy. She writes candidly about the pride of becoming captain of her dance team, the heartbreak of eventually walking away after feeling undermined by a new coach, and the lessons she carried forward anyway about knowing her worth.

Tamya also reflects on how participating in Springboard to Opportunities’ Youth Fellowship deepened her understanding of Black history, leadership and community.

“It’s important to remember that there is so much more to the world than what I just see around me. And since I know my worth, my skills and my leadership, I can’t wait to go explore it.”

Following Tamya’s essay, her mother Tamara shares what it means to hear her daughter speak so confidently about her future after years spent trying to shield her children from financial stress and instability.

“I wanted to put a dream in them and allow them to believe that they can be anything that they want to be and their lives are not going to be determined by where they live or their circumstances,” she writes. “That’s why I am so proud hearing Tamya talk about the leader she already is and all the dreams she has for her life moving forward.”

Imagining a World Where No Mothers Die

PUBLISHED 5/8/2026 by

More than 700 women die each day, on average, from causes linked to pregnancy or childbirth. Almost all of these deaths are preventable. 

To honor the world’s mothers, we asked midwives about their memories of helping women survive the journey to motherhood. And we asked how the world would be different if no woman died in the act of creating life.

The First Mother’s Day Was a Protest

PUBLISHED 5/8/2026 by

Far from mimosa brunches and hallmark greetings, the first Mother’s Day in the United States occurred against the scourge of war. In 1870, abolitionist and suffragist Julie Ward Howe who still had the horrors of the Civil War on her mind and was disturbed by the plight of war abroad called for an international movement of mothers as a way to call for peace and to protest the devastation of war.

History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes. Mother’s Day comes this year as our nation and those across the globe are living with the dire consequences of a war with Iran Congress never authorized. The war has cost American lives as well as the lives of innocent children–including nearly 100 schoolgirls—in Iran. Former U.S. military officials have criticized the Pentagon’s strike and the lack of transparency around it. The president continues to threaten many of our global allies, as the rate of autocracies across the globe rise while democracies decline. All the while, costs continue to rise, making it harder and harder for working people to make ends meet. 

The only way this crisis will become a catalyst for change is if we commit not just to rebuilding our nation, but to reimagining it as a nation that can hold all of us and to demand that our leaders drive bold change to achieve true democracy and true change for the next generation. A nation where it is unacceptable for children to go hungry while others enjoy nation-building wealth. A nation where it is unacceptable to detain children and infants based on their skin color or who their parents are or where they are from. A nation where every person finds the courage to call out the cruelty. 

On this Mother’s Day, may we all be the mothers—and the fighters—our children need. If we don’t, who will? 

The Kids of Magnolia Mother’s Trust: Kentavius on Equity, Community and Watching His Mom Breathe Easier

PUBLISHED 5/8/2026 by and

This Mother’s Day weekend, we are honored to present a special three-part Front and Center mini-series—The Kids of Magnolia Mother’s Trust—featuring the children of mothers whose stories readers have come to know over the years. Published Friday, Saturday and Sunday ahead of Mother’s Day, these essays offer a deeply personal look at how children experience their mothers’ sacrifices, struggles and love, and how they understand the world around them because of those experiences.

In the first installment of The Kids of Magnolia Mother’s Trust, Kentavius reflects on what he has learned about equity, community and advocacy through his experiences growing up in Jackson, Miss., and participating in Springboard’s Youth Advocacy Fellowship. He writes candidly about race, policing, education and the difference it made to watch his mother experience a year with a little less financial stress—and a little more room to simply be present as a parent:

“Equity also looks like the year that my mom was a part of the Magnolia Mother’s Trust. With the additional funds and support that she got during that year, I could tell that she was a lot more relaxed. We had more food in the house. She was able to buy us new clothes and pay my football fees without the extra worry. My mom had the chance to just be a mom without so much stress. She has always worked so hard to take care of me and my brother and be the best mom that she can be. Getting to watch her spend that year still getting to be our mom, but without so much worry about money, was really special. Giving moms like mine the extra resources they deserve to take care of their families is another example of equity.”

Following Kentavius’ essay, his mother Kim—whose own stories readers first encountered through Front and Center several years ago—responds to her son’s reflections and shares what it means to watch him grow into a thoughtful young man committed to justice, compassion and community.