The Hidden History of Motherhood Nobody Taught You (And Why That Was Deliberate)
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The Hidden History of Motherhood Nobody Taught You (And Why That Was Deliberate)

  • Writer: Dr. Mindy Pelz
    Dr. Mindy Pelz
  • 15 hours ago
  • 3 min read

EP338 with Elinor Cleghorn



You were told there was a natural instinct for it. That you'd just know. That if you loved your children enough, the rest would follow.


And when it didn't feel natural, when it felt overwhelming, when you felt reactive, when you read every book and still felt like you were failing, you assumed the problem was you.


It wasn't.


That's the through line of this conversation with Elinor Cleghorn, feminist historian and author of A Woman's Work: Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering, and it's one of the most freeing, most necessary conversations I've had on this podcast.


Elinor opens her book with a quote by poet and feminist writer Adrienne Rich: "We know more about the air we breathe, the seas we travel, than we do about the nature and meaning of motherhood." Written in 1976. And somehow, still entirely true. The most fundamental work humans do, sustaining life, raising the next generation,  has been taken for granted for so long it barely made it into the history books. Because history was written about wars and empires. Not about the women who made the world go on.


Once you start denying women’s humanity in their mothering role, you take away their agency, their ability to speak, their ability to be in their bodies and live for themselves.

-Elinor Cleghorn


Here's what you'll learn in this episode:


  • Why the idea of "natural maternal instinct" is a patriarchal construction — and what it was designed to do

  • How centuries of messaging around the "perfect mother" has produced the guilt and shame so many women carry today

  • Why 45% of women between 25 and 45 are choosing not to have children — and what role cultural pressure plays in that

  • What different countries' approaches to childcare and maternal support reveal about women's choices

  • The biological truth about how the egg connects you to your grandmother — and every woman in your maternal line

  • How fatherhood fits into the healing of masculinity — and what egalitarian parenting actually looks like in practice

  • The grief and identity shift of empty nesting — and why it's not talked about nearly enough

  • What Dr. Mindy and her husband did at the dinner table after the kids left that she now recommends to everyone

  • Why your kids not calling every day might be the greatest compliment your parenting ever received


This is the conversation that mothering has needed for a very long time. And Elinor Cleghorn is exactly the person to have it.


Listen or watch the full episode above — and get A Woman's Work wherever books are sold.



Resources Mentioned




Meet the Guest

Elinor Cleghorn


Dr Elinor Cleghorn is a feminist cultural historian based in Sussex, UK. Her first book, ‘Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis in a Man-Made World’ published in 2021, and has since been translated across the world. Elinor’s new book, ‘A Woman’s Work: Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering’ published in the US and UK in March 2026. 



More on Elinor Cleghorn



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