Motherhood, named without perfection.
The Good Enough Mother treats motherhood as both intimate experience and social structure. Sophie speaks with practitioners, researchers, and writers about ambivalence, postpartum distress, infant mental health, body change, grief, and the pressure to perform “good” mothering.
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The Good Enough Mother is an expansive, emotionally precise show about motherhood as lived experience and cultural condition. It starts from mothers, not from idealized ideas about them. Sophie’s conversations often ask why ordinary maternal feelings become framed as personal failure when they are shaped by unsupported systems, inherited expectations, and the daily pressure to keep giving. The tone is calm and thoughtful. The subject matter is often heavy. Episodes make room for love and difficulty at the same time, especially in discussions of maternal ambivalence, postpartum distress, perimenopause, grief, attachment, and the changing self of early motherhood. Dr Margo Lowy’s episode frames ambivalence as a missing language for the loving moments and bitter truths of mothering. Dr Cristina Cavezza’s conversation links hunger, emotional regulation, unmet needs, and perimenopause to the work of caring for oneself while caring for children. Jessica Tomich Sorci brings internal family systems into maternal mental health, questioning how quickly struggling mothers can be pathologized when their reactions may also be protective responses to unsupported conditions. The show also turns toward infancy and attachment, with Dr Greer Kirshenbaum discussing nurturing practices, baby brain development, and intergenerational wellness. It does not stay only in theory. Sophie’s solo episodes sit with grief, Mother’s Day complexity, the death of her mum, and the difficulty of speaking authentically while still creating meaning from pain. The result is a show for mothers and mother-care professionals who want more than reassurance. It offers vocabulary for contradictions. It respects tenderness without demanding cheerfulness. It treats maternal identity as layered, relational, bodily, and political. Episodes can feel like a reflective supervision room as much as a parenting podcast. The through-line is clear: mothers are not problems to be fixed; they are people living inside conditions that deserve serious attention.
Made for: For mothers, parents-to-be, and professionals who support mothers and babies. It especially suits listeners drawn to reflective, feminist, therapy-informed conversations rather than quick parenting tactics.
What sets it apart: The show centers the mother’s inner life and social context before offering advice. It combines motherhood studies, clinical perspectives, personal grief, and cultural critique in a way that makes difficult maternal feelings discussable.
The role of being a Mother offers us the potential for incredible expansion, growth, and power, while also being one of – if not THE – most challenging, undervalued, and taken for granted roles in the world. Motherhood Studies Sociologist, researcher, and single Mother, Dr Sophie Brock hosts The Good Enough Mother (TGEM) podcast with an aim to change how Motherhood is culturally defined and individually experienced. TGEM draws its name from a theorist and pediatrician Winnicott, who highlighted the ways ‘good enough’ parenting is actually what is best for our children – not perfectionism. The podcast centres the Mother as the starting point for conversations with experts and change-makers wh…
Mother's Day cards meet Sophie Brock's fish tank, and you start questioning the water.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear-eyed conversation on maternal ambivalence and the relief that naming it can offer.
The episode gives shape to maternal ambivalence: the difficult feelings that can sit beside love in motherhood. Dr. Margot Lowy, a psychotherapist specializing in mothering and author of Maternal Ambivalence, The Loving Moments and Bitter Truths of Motherhood, explains why this…
A tender return in which a mother's lessons carry forward through grief, memory, and meaning.
After a long pause, The Good Enough Mother returns with an episode shaped by sudden loss and the difficult work of speaking from inside it. The host explains that her world changed in September 2025, then reads from "Lessons From Our Mother: Reflections From Professor Jacqueline…
A grounded conversation on perimenopause, emotional eating, and the needs that shape mothering.
This episode sits at the meeting point of perimenopause, emotional eating, and mothering, with a motherhood studies sociologist and a clinical psychologist unpacking why food can become a source of comfort.
A measured conversation about maternal reactivity, unsupported motherhood, and language that can help mothers keep hold of self-trust.
The Good Enough Mother looks at maternal mental health through a more textured lens, treating intense reactions not only as symptoms, but as possible signs of a system trying to cope with unsupported motherhood.
Public lives, private fatherhood lessons.
Less perfection, more workable home routines.
Christian leadership for a pressured culture.
Dr.
Sophie Brock returns to The Good Enough Mother after her mother died in September 2025, and she says the loss has changed how she thinks about authenticity, grief, and public work.
Sophie Brock speaks with Dr Christina Cavezza, a clinical psychologist in Melbourne, about perimenopause, body shame, and eating habits in mothers.
Sophie Brock speaks with Jessica Tomich Sorci, a level three certified IFS therapist, perinatal mental health professional, and creator of “Mum Parts,” about how Internal Family Systems can be applied to motherhood.
The host reflects on the complexities of Mother's Day, including performative motherhood, cultural expectations, and the emotional experiences of mothers and those missing their mothers.
Andrea O'Reilly says that after becoming pregnant in 1984 she realized motherhood had been absent from her 20 women's studies courses, and that her 2016 study found under 3% of intro courses and journals addressed it.
Julie Borninkhof reports that suicidal thoughts among PANDA helpline callers rose from roughly 8–12% to about 20% during COVID.
Sophie, a motherhood studies sociologist, uses a fish tank to distinguish mothers, mothering, and motherhood.
A neuroscientist and doula discusses how nurturing care in pregnancy, birth, and infancy shapes lifelong mental health.
Emily Adler Mosqueda discusses her journey from one to two children, exploring postpartum depression, anxiety, and the challenges of motherhood.
A perinatal psychologist discusses understanding the attachment relationship, self-regulation, and co-regulation in early motherhood.
Sophie interviews Jessie Harrold about identity shifts in motherhood, exploring themes of liminality, self-discovery, and the co-creation of self through mothering.
A conversation with child activist Zoe Haack about recognizing the innate wisdom of childhood and prioritizing trust, freedom, and autonomy for children within societal structures.