Hey y’all, this month we honour the mothers who do the work every day, 24 hours/365.
As Mother’s Day comes around again, it always brings up a lot of emotions because motherhood is powerful, beautiful, exhausting, stretching, healing, and sometimes all of those things before 9 am.
At EPiC, we spend a lot of time talking about advocacy, education, systems, and showing up for our children, but this month I really want us to pause for a second and acknowledge the people carrying so much of that work every single day. The moms. The grandmothers. The aunties. The bonus moms. The guardians. The caregivers. The women who step in, stand in the gap, and make sure children feel loved, protected, supported, and safe.
Because let’s just call it what it is. Motherhood is advocacy, let me say it louder for the people in the back, motherhood is advocacy. And if you’ve been with us from jump, EPiC itself was born out of motherhood and advocacy.
Empowered Parents in Community started because a mother looked around and saw the disparities happening with her own child and realized something had to change. What started as PAAC, Parents of African American Children, became a space where families came together to speak up, organize, advocate, and push for better outcomes for Black children. That work grew into what we now know as EPiC. At its core, EPiC exists because a mother refused to stay silent.
And that matters because so many of the changes we see in schools and communities start the exact same way. A parent notices something is not right. A mother asks questions. A caregiver decides that “good enough” is not good enough for their child.
That is the basis of advocacy. Advocacy is showing up to school meetings after a long day at work. It is making sure homework gets done while trying to figure out dinner. It is comforting your child after they had a hard day while carrying your own stress quietly. It is researching resources late at night, answering phone calls from schools, juggling schedules, advocating for services, finding childcare, and somehow still making sure everybody else feels okay. Sometimes, or I should say most times, we are doing this while our own cup is empty.
Mothers carry a lot. Sometimes so much that people stop noticing the weight of it because you make it look normal.
One of my team members said something recently that really stuck with me. They said:
“Parents, guardians and caregivers are superheroes, plain and simple. What they carry every single day, the sacrifices they make, the things they pour out without anyone even seeing it, it’s beyond words.
Parenthood hasn’t been my path yet. And I hold that truth humbly. My role isn’t to stand in front of anyone who has given birth or raised a child. It’s to stand beside them. To make their lives a little lighter. To walk into the rooms they can’t always get into and make sure their kids are still represented there.
The work I do isn’t for applause. It’s for the child who comes after. It’s for a legacy that doesn’t need my name on it, just needs to matter. Education, awareness, being a voice where it counts, that’s what gets me up every morning.
Legacy, to me, isn’t a trophy. It’s a child I may never meet living a better life because someone cared enough to do the quiet work. That’s everything.”
And honestly, that is the heart of EPiC right there. It’s in the quiet work. It’s in the unseen work. It’s in the work nobody claps for. It’s in the work rooted in love, community, and making sure our children have what they need to thrive.
So this month, we just want to say thank you.
Thank you to the mothers who keep showing up, even when you are exhausted. Thank you to the mothers learning systems that were never designed with us in mind. Thank you to the mothers advocating for services, opportunities, accommodations, and access. Thank you to the mothers raising children who know they are worthy, brilliant, and deeply loved.
I also want to acknowledge something else. Mother’s Day can be complicated.
For some people, this day brings grief. For some, it brings longing. For some, it is a reminder of mothers we miss, relationships that are strained, or journeys that did not go the way we hoped. So wherever this month finds you, I hope you give yourself grace.
At EPiC, we believe community matters because nobody is meant to carry everything alone. We see the quiet work happening in homes every single day. The rides to therapy appointments. The lunches packed before sunrise. The “you got this” speeches before school. The deep breaths before walking into meetings. The tears that happen privately after trying to hold it together publicly.
That work matters, even if it does not always get acknowledged the way it should, please know this community sees you.
This month, I hope you take a moment for yourself too. Rest when you can. Laugh when you can. Ask for help when you need it. Let people pour back into you for once.
You deserve care too! You…Deserve…Care…Too!!
And to all the mothers, aunties, grandmothers, guardians, and caregivers in our EPiC community, thank you for all the ways you continue to show up for our children and for each other.
As always, Be Excellent. Be Well. Be EPiC.