Suggestions
Sarah Lewen
Consultant, Advisor at Freelance
Highlights
I secured my ticket to the 2024 Behavioral Health Tech Conference, have you? Last year's event SOLD OUT! Click here to register: https://lnkd.in/eHvCZ3kY
Join me and behavioral healthcare executives at the largest conference committed to expanding access to mental health, substance use, and IDD care through technology, health equity, and innovation. #BHT2024 #behavioralhealth
In the past five years, I’ve become unofficial “Auntie Sar” to 13 of my best girlfriends’ children. Eight weeks ago, I became official Aunt Rara to my delicious nephew— a new level of magical and special. Today, I was reflecting on the gifts of this profoundly special “bonus time” — getting a front row seat to motherhood, before my own time arrives.
I’ve gotten to do so much: change diapers, give bottles, sing bedtime lullabies, play with hundreds of magna-tiles, planes, trains, garbage trucks, fire trucks, read Chika Chika Boom Boom so many times it’s in my bloodstream. Now, we play Legos, ride scooters, paint-glow-in-the dark-rocks. We talk about the craziest things: “Why do grownups say that, Rara?” And honestly, I’m mostly dumbfounded and wondering the same. The toddlers who used to hold my pinky finger are now reading Mr. Underpants chapter books. And to my great surprise, the 5-year-old boys still want to snuggle.
I’ve heard reviews of every approach or method targeting millenial parents: which psychologists, pediatricians, influencers resonate; which products, services, and experiences parents truly trust.
I’ve also gotten a front row seat to the real, hard parts: trouble conceiving, a disaster with a night nurse, not latching during breastfeeding, mastitis, postpartum depression. Premature births. Scary complications. ER visits. Hip dysplasia. And even bigger, more existential: grappling between doubling down on professional dreams and the deep desire to prioritize presence for their young children. Worst of all, I’ve witnessed the scorching, traumatic, devastating experience of miscarriage, multiple times. A loss and a grief that feels too big to comprehend.
When we hold each other through these experiences, we all have the chance to learn from each other. I lovingly joke, often, “my future babies thank you.” But it really is true: we learn from each others’ experiences. And motherhood is only one use case for finding support in group.
Cheers to my resilient, magnificent, wise, brilliant, dynamic women: you are lawyers and tech product leaders and founders and TV writers, and you are raising kind, respectful, curious, loving babies. It is a gift to witness you.
And, cheers to all of the not-quite-yet-mothers, the ones who cannot wait for their time. It’s coming— I trust in all of us :)
And to my Mom, who has taught me everything I know about loving and being loved 💗
#mentalhealth #healthcare #digitalhealth

