For decades, women and mothers have been hiding. We cover up our breasts as we feed our babies because since forever, our breasts have been sexualised. How dare you get those tarty things out to offer nourishment to that hungry, tired love of your life. Put them away.

We hide the blood that drops between our legs because we've been told it's disgusting. And what's more repulsive, more unattractive, more intolerable, they tell us, is the mood swings that it brings. A woman on her period, they say, is crazy.

And often, we hide the depths of our feelings as we navigate the throes of early motherhood, because we're meant to be grateful. We're meant to be giving. We're meant to be naturally good at it.

That doesn't leave much room for comfort in motherhood, in fact it creates a feeling entirely opposite to warmth. And that is loneliness.

And it was when Keshia Hutchens and Ariel Bryant were walking the streets of Melbourne with their third babies that they wondered - interrogated, even - why there wasn't a safe space for mothers to go. To think and feel and learn and question and laugh and cry.

And so, they created From Day One; a space that is pulling mothers from outside of their own four walls and bringing them their village.

From how the two co-founders have made work, work over the years, to the magic that they're witnessing between the mothers who are making up the village that is From Day One, this is a special conversation about loneliness and the antidote to it.

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Shop the Ready or Not Go To Guides now, for $29 each or $69 for the trio and 10% off with code READY10:

• Breastfeeding and Returning to Work
• Childcare 101
• Postpartum and Return to Work Planning

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Thanks for listening to Witching Hour! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review. You can also find us on Instagram at readyornot.pod

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurong people of the Kulin Nation. The land on which we're lucky enough to raise our sons and daughters always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

We Pay The Rent and you can too here.