Motherhood is full of coping mechanisms nobody talks about out loud — the 3pm cortado that saves the day, the laundry folding that passes for meditation, the bag of Haribo consumed in secret while Bridgerton plays. Melissa Goldstein and Natalia Rachlin built an entire media brand, Mother Tongue Magazine, around the idea that those honest, unglamorous, real moments of motherhood deserve a platform. We sat down with the two London-based editors and founders to talk about creativity, regulation, cannabis, and what it actually means to take care of yourself when you're also taking care of everyone else.

Tell us about yourselves and about Mother Tongue and its mission!

We are Melissa Goldstein and Natalia Rachlin—two women who met in London while working as editors at Nowness in the early 2010s, and reconnected years later to start Mother Tongue, a micro media brand dedicated to interrogating motherhood through a cultural lens, in print, online and through live events. We launched Mother Tongue in 2021 and at the time, we really set out to rebrand how contemporary motherhood was portrayed in the media (both visually and in terms of language). We strive to be a platform for nuanced, diverse perspectives and storytell in a way that doesn’t feel expected or airbrushed or intimidating. Our hope is always to question the narratives we've been fed about what it means to be a woman and a mother in today's sociopolitical landscape. 

How do you define “taking care of yourself” as a mother right now?

NR: Making time. Between work and life, there's never just a block of it just magically there, waiting to be leisurely filled, so it has to be intentionally created: for exercise, for sleep, for making myself a great lunch with whatever odd bits are in the fridge, for reading, for staring at the wall, for calling a friend, for consuming a bag of Haribo alone (while watching Bridgerton). It’s a learned skill, I’m still not always great at it, but I’m trying! 

MG: I think my answer is similar to Natalia's, but it really can be boiled down to creating some kind of quiet in my mind that's not interrupted by work logistics or incessant queries of "mama?" or questions I need to answer immediately. Sometimes this looks like a walk, sometimes it's dinner out with girlfriends, and other times it's a chilled glass of wine on the couch with Real Housewives of Potomac.

What are the tools—internal or external—that help you stay regulated during overwhelming moments? That aid in your creativity, or helped you find it within motherhood?

NR: Running. Folding laundry (I know this sounds absurd but, I find it a kind of meditation to do a simple, manual task when I need to work something through in my mind). Buying myself flowers (they bring me joy and calm always). I read something recently about “worry postponement” – it basically means you schedule yourself some worry time, a dedicated chunk where you problem solve or work through anxieties and then you give yourself the ability to say: okay, I will figure this out, but not right this second, and that has really resonated with me. 

MG: When I'm feeling very overwhelmed by my to-do list, I need a kind of "manual reset." This usually manifests as a 3pm trip to my local coffee shop, where I order a cortado, sit down with my computer, eavesdrop on high school kids unpacking their interpersonal dramas and tackle what needs tackling. Natalia always knows the caffeine has hit by the sudden uptick in texts and emails she receives from me—proof of productivity! 

What’s something about motherhood that feels more nuanced or complex than people admit?

Everything? All of it? 

How has motherhood changed the way you relate to your creativity?

NR: I cherish it more deeply because it feels like one of the things that is truly mine, and mine alone. A part of me that no one really knows or has access to, except me. And that feels necessary and exciting and energizing to try and hold onto that. 

MG: That old adage about constraint fostering creativity is something I find to be so true—limitations and the need to multitask can of course be overwhelming and stunting, but I do find that the more things I have on my calendar, the greater my creativity can be when I return to an opportunity for it. 

What does “being present” actually look like in your day-to-day life?

NR: I take my two biggest kids to school every morning on the tube (we live in London), and we have these kind of epic 30-minute chats about everything and nothing, and then I drop them off and it feels like we have had this really sweet opportunity to quite literally move through the world together, before the day kicks off. I work from home, so I’m also more or less always accessible: I think this gives me the luxury of being physically present a lot, but not feeling obliged to be actively playing or participating all the time. I’m here if they need me, but we can coexist with a little bit of space, too. 

MG: It usually starts by putting down my phone. 

Where do you see the biggest gap between how motherhood is portrayed and how it actually feels? How does that tie into your work at Mother Tongue?

This has changed a lot in the last 5-10 years: We have a lot more honest conversations about the realities of motherhood, and of course there has always been women writing about their experience in forthright ways (Rachel Cusk, Adrienne Rich, Sarah Ruddick, Jacqueline Rose, to name but just a few…) but now it's a more mainstream discussion, which is great. At MT, we just hope to keep the flame alive for this generation of women … to keep the discourse thriving... to continue to offer a platform for honest storytelling that speaks to mothers as women first. So much of content aimed at mothers still ends up making you feel bad about yourself; either through the visuals, or the preachiness or the “I have it all figured out”-ness: we have always come from a place of wanting to ask questions rather than provide answers—being curious and receptive and open. 

What do you think people misunderstand about mothers who use cannabis as part of their routine?

A lot of people seem to just see cannabis as a kind of escapism, rather than as a way of tuning in, to yourself and the world around you. There can be room for both?  

What were you taught about cannabis growing up, and how has that perspective evolved?

NR: I went to a progressive, quite weed-happy high school, so it was pretty normalized growing up, and thereby never really felt taboo? That's pretty much still my relationship to it, except now of course the branding around it has really evolved, and there are so many options, many of them quite chic (MG included!)---not a word I would have applied to the cannabis of my youth, ahem. 

MG: I grew up in LA and my early impressions of cannabis resembled that scene in Clueless where Alicia Silverstone points out "the stoners" on the lawn. It definitely felt like a cultural hallmark of being a surfer or skater or Phish groupie, and came with a reputation of being less ambitious. Of course my perspective has evolved since then—cannabis, for me and most of the people I know, defies stereotype now—it says less about the identity of the person who uses it, and more about the plant's widespread and multifaceted benefits.  

What does a more honest conversation about motherhood and coping actually look like to you?

Share your experience, don't judge, let everyone forge their own path. All we know is what works for ourselves, don't pretend otherwise. We are all just trying the best we know how. We are all looking for pathways to a calmer life in this insane world. 

What kind of creative or personal freedom do you hope mothers feel more permission to claim?

To be really honest about what works for them—what they actually need and want versus what our society tells them about the way they should live their lives and the goals they should have.