Making Mothers Visible: An Interview with Maggie Gordon-Walker

Maggie Gordon-Walker

As one of our Class of 2025 Inductees, Maggie Gordon-Walker is being recognised for her pioneering work in maternal mental health. Through her charity Mothers Uncovered, Maggie has created a safe, honest space for new mothers to share their experiences and find community.

We spoke to her about what inspired the project, how it has evolved, and what being inducted into Charity Hall of Fame means to her.

Can you tell us a little about what led you to start Mothers Uncovered back in 2008?

"What was the spark or moment that made you feel something needed to change?

I set up Mothers Uncovered because I felt so isolated after my first birth. I lived in London and had no friends or family around me who had babies. All the attention in pregnancy had shifted from me to my baby. I felt invisible, lonely and like I was failing, but not failing enough to be flagged up as post-natally depressed. What would that mean anyway? Would my baby, that I loved so very much, be taken away from me?

I eventually found a group some distance from my house and realised there were others who wanted to talk openly and honestly about the joys and challenges they were facing. To talk about themselves, their dreams and hopes. Themselves as women, as well as mothers.

I moved to Brighton and set up our charity Livestock with my late partner. The first groups ran in 2008. It was only supposed to be that year, but others heard about it and wanted to attend, so it continued."

What was your own experience of early motherhood like? Did that shape the kind of space you wanted to create?

"When I gave birth to my first child in 2004, I was staggered as to how extraordinarily lonely I felt.  I remember the sensation of being marooned in a big tunnel straight after his birth, cocooned from reality by the effects of the epidural. The midwife said, ‘Let’s get Mum up to the ward’ and I genuinely thought, ‘my Mum’s not here, is she?’ I couldn’t get my head round the fact that I was ‘Mum’. In the fog of the first few weeks, I kept thinking how hard everything was – I was conscious of being at odds with myself, although I’d give the impression that everything was fine. At any activities I found the focus was always on the babies and all the conversation related to that. Eventually I found a group where real conversations happened, started to feel a bit more myself again, knowing there was a place where I could be open and honest and it grew from there."

Mothers Uncovered has supported thousands of women over the years. What are you most proud of when you look back at the journey so far?

"The fact that we’ve kept going! And also that we’ve helped so many women. Quite often a woman will tell us that we’ve ‘saved her life’, which is humbling. We are very glad that we are there to do that, but it’s also quite a responsibility, especially when our funding is so precarious.

I’m proud of the variety of projects we’ve done, including supporting young mothers, parents of SEND children and parents of teenagers.

I’m also proud of our book ‘The Secret Life of Mothers’. The book has over 50 women’s stories in it, all past participants, compiled from their written contributions and interviews and there is a foreword by Caroline Lucas, a long-term supporter of the project. I also present a podcast of the same name."

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What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in getting the project off the ground and keeping it going?

"Because of the precariousness of funding, we periodically have to pause our activities while we search for money. We submit around 50 bids a year. This really hurts, as we know too many women are suffering in silence. It seems almost every week there is a news item about a crisis in maternity care: unsafe hospital wards, shortage of midwives, over 11,500 new mothers unable to access mental health care. They are forced to deal alone with anxiety, loneliness and postnatal depression, and in more serious cases postpartum psychosis that can emerge after the birth. We operate on a shoestring, but we can’t exist on thin air. It’s not only the mothers we work with that suffer if we can’t operate, but the team of facilitators, who are all past participants and value the opportunity to do meaningful, life-enhancing work that fits in with their childcaring responsibilities."

You’ve done so much to shift the conversation around maternal mental health and matrescence. What keeps you inspired to keep going?

"I started advocating for maternal mental health about ten years ago, because I met so many mothers broken by the experience. Then six years ago I had the classic lightbulb moment, when I heard matrescence, which is not well known outside medical circles. It was coined by American anthropologist Dana Raphael in 1973. Raphael likened matrescence to adolescence, sharing with it change in body image, hormonal fluctuations and a new identity emerging. I see the same lightbulb moment in every mother I explain it to. And motherhood is a lifetime of learning, loving, great highs and great lows. The intense period following the birth of a first child is not matched later, but there are many stages to the journey, such as when children go to school, become teenagers, leave home. At each stage of your child’s life, you feel the same intensity of love and anxiety, even if you get better at handling it. What keeps me going is knowing we’re making a difference."

What does being inducted into the Charity Hall of Fame mean to you personally? How does it feel to have your work recognised in this way?

"It’s great to be acknowledged, to know that others also realise the importance of what I’m doing, not just for mothers, but for society as a whole. After all, everyone on the planet has a mother, your upbringing affects you and it behoves us all to treat the subject seriously. It can be a lonely place sometimes to keep going, especially when the ‘whataboutery brigade’ dismiss mothers as moaning and ungrateful and get in touch to tell me that! So it’s fabulous to have some recognition – thank you!"

And finally, what would you say to someone who’s just becoming a parent and might be feeling overwhelmed, uncertain, or alone right now?

"Remember firstly – you’re not alone. All the other mothers you see around who look like they’re coping brilliantly are probably feeling the same as you. Try not to believe the posts on social media and find an in person group to support you, BEFORE you give birth, as after the birth you’ll be too frazzled to think straight. We list some on our dedicated website www.matrescence.uk and the Hearts & Minds Partnership has ai interactive map detailing support groups."

Nominate your changemakers!

Do you know someone who's creating lasting change in their community? Nominations for the Charity Hall of Fame are open all year round — tell us who inspires you: www.charityhall.org