Hey St. Louis! Listen to Your Mother!

When Listen to Your Mother began on Mother’s Day 2010, the live series of readings by local writers about the “beauty, the beast, and the barely rested of motherhood” took place in only one city – creator Ann Imig’s hometown of Madison, Wisconsin.

The response to that first production was overwhelming, and in the few short years that followed, Listen to Your Mother grew quickly, “giving Mother’s Day a microphone” in cities across the country, from Austin to Chicago to New York to Los Angeles.     

And this year, Listen to Your Mother is finally, FINALLY coming to St. Louis.

St. Louis has been selected as one of 24 cities nationwide that will host a live production of Listen to Your Mother this spring in celebration of Mother’s Day 2013. The show, which is part of “a national series of original live-readings shared on local stages and via social media,” will feature several local writers reading their personal stories about motherhood, and will take place on Saturday, May 11, 2013 at the St. Luke’s Institute for Health Education in Chesterfield.

For Suzanne Tucker, one of the four local women co-producing and directing the St. Louis production, bringing Listen to Your Mother to the stage represents an amazing opportunity to start a genuine conversation about what being a mom REALLY entails.   

“I think events like this go a long way in ‘normalizing’ our individual experiences of motherhood and the inherent challenges therein,” she said by email. “There is much said of the joys of motherhood in our culture and this will definitely be celebrated at the show, but there are plenty of hilarious and sometimes exhausting, hair-pulling moments as well in between that don’t always take center stage.”

 “But they will on May 11th!” she added.

Tucker (along with Co-Producers Ellie Grossman, Laura Edwards Ray, and Naomi Francis), is beyond excited to provide this opportunity for our local community.  

“By simply sharing our stories, we are getting a conversation started,” she stated. “We are building bridges; helping mothers everywhere (or anyone born of a mother for that matter!!!) to feel just a little bit less alone in their experiences.”

And the best part about Listen to Your Mother coming to St. Louis? We’re all invited to participate! If you’re a local St. Louis mom – or father, daughter, son, anyone with something to say about the joys or challenges of motherhood – you’re invited to audition to be in the show.

You don’t need to be a professional writer or blogger or speaker; you just need to be willing to share the story about motherhood that only you can tell.

Written submissions should be emailed to LTYMSTL@gmail.com by February 15, and selected submissions will be invited for a live audition on stage. Not sure what to write about? Just check out past videos on the Listen to Your Mother You Tube channel for inspiration, and don’t forget to visit the Listen to Your Mother-St. Louis blog for complete details.     

It’s time to step out of the shadows and bring the truth about motherhood into the limelight.  Allison Slater Tate was right -- “too much of a mama’s life goes undocumented and unseen.” Her article, The Mom Stays in the Picture, went viral last fall because it touched a nerve with mothers everywhere, reminding us that our stories need and deserve to be seen.

And now, perhaps even more importantly, Listen to Your Mother is reminding us that our voices deserve to be heard.

Come on, St. Louis moms – there’s a microphone waiting for you. What do YOU have to say?

By Alyssa Chirco, SmartMama blogger for SmartParenting

Alyssa Chirco is a St. Louis freelance writer, mother and margarita lover, not necessarily in that order. In addition to writing for St. Louis Kids, she is Contributing Editor for Parenting Squad, writes regularly about parenting and family for Lifetime Television's The Balancing Act, and firmly believes there are few problems in life that cannot be solved with a good margarita.