092: Maternal desire: The missing element of mental health for mothers

Welcome to Two Truths, a bestselling newsletter & media brand exploring the many truths of motherhood from journalists & maternal health advocates Cassie Shortsleeve & Kelsey Haywood Lucas of Motherspeak. Two Truths is rooted in the healing & affirming principle that two (or more) things can be true. It’s a “best parenting Substack” per Motherly and The Skimm says you should subscribe; also seen in Vox, The Bump, Popsugar & more.

Over the years, I’ve interviewed many brilliant maternal mental health providers. Some are knee-deep in data, some speak with clinical precision, others carry the softness of lived experience. While most name the aches of motherhood, Toronto-based psychologist Tanya Cotler, Ph.D., listens to them—and she invites you to listen to them, too.

In a recent conversation with Cotler, she used a phrase I haven’t been able to shake: maternal desire.

It sounds abstract until you hear her explain it: Symptoms like anxiety and depression, she says, often arise from “the tension between what you want and the squashing of that.” To feel well, a mother must be allowed to want. To want deeply. Boldly. And without apology.

When discussing perinatal mental health conditions such as postpartum anxiety and depression—the leading complications of birth in the U.S.—most providers focus on a triad of proven and effective treatments: therapy, medication, and social support. Cotler suggests desire as a fourth.

Desire can feel like a slippery slope: selfish, frivolous, or simply out of reach—something meant for someone else, or another time. But Cotler argues it may be the missing piece in not just maternal, but familial, mental health.

In this week’s edition of Two Truths, with Cotler’s help, we dive deep into desire: what it is, why it matters, how to find it beneath the noise—and why reclaiming it may be the most powerful thing you do.

—Cassie