Dear mamas,
I have some news I've been holding close, and I can't hold it anymore: since I founded Momni, I became a grandmother.
His name is Myles, and I would describe him to you objectively except there is nothing objective left in me where that boy is concerned. And the news keeps coming: my daughter Abby is expecting her first baby this October. My Abby. The same girl whose carpool schedules and ear infections and school plays were the chaos this whole company was born out of — she's about to be somebody's whole world.
Mamas, I was not prepared for what it does to you, watching your own daughter become a mother. You think you know love, and then you watch your baby holding her own future, and something inside you rearranges itself permanently. I have cried in more parking lots these past months than I'm going to admit in print.
And in the middle of all that crying, something clicked.
"In an elephant circle, the eldest mother leads. She's the one who remembers where the water is."
You know how I am about elephants. When the circle forms, it isn't a young mother who steps to the front — it's the matriarch. The eldest mother leads, because she's been through the dry seasons before. She remembers. She steadies everyone else.
Our circles deserve matriarchs too. So Momni 2.0 has something Momni 1.0 never did: Grand-Momnis — a community inside the Circle just for grandmothers.
Grand-Momnis can host, if their arms are aching for a baby to rock and their afternoons are quieter than they'd like. They can mentor as Mama Mentors — because no app on earth can tell a panicking new mama "that's just a growth spurt, honey, feed her and go take a nap" the way a grandmother can. And they can simply circle up around the young mamas near them, the way the matriarchs do — present, steady, remembering where the water is.
I've watched it my whole life: the most underused treasure in any neighborhood is a grandmother with love left over. And the most overwhelmed person in that same neighborhood is a young mama three streets away who has no idea help is that close. Grand-Momnis exists to introduce them — and a steady, remembering matriarch is exactly the kind of Momni a young mama wants to build into her regular rhythm.
So — grandmas. If you're reading this (or if your daughter sent it to you, which, daughters, please do): we want you. Join the waitlist and check "Volunteer," or just mention Grand-Momni when you sign up, and you'll be first to know as the Grand-Momni community opens.
Myles, if you ever read this: your grandma helped build a circle of mothers across the whole map, and the day you arrived, you became the reason it grew a generation deeper. Baby-girl-arriving-in-October: hurry up, sweetheart. Your Grand-Mama's arms are ready.
Keep reading: more letters from Karmel's desk, and if you're a 1.0 mama wondering what's changed, here's why your pin is still on the map.