- Motherhood just blew my mind.

I went from being one person to being more than one person.

It was the most marvelous thing that had ever happened to me, and also the most confusing.

It so rocked my world that I needed to dive into it deeper.

I needed to figure out what is this thing called mother?

(upbeat electronic music) (bubble pops) When I was growing up, June Cleaver was on TV, "Leave it to Beaver."

We had these images of the 50s housewife that really dominated.

- You know, they say a woman's place is in the home, and I suppose as long as she's in the home, she might as well be in the kitchen.

- oh.

- [Martha] Motherhood was prescribed by society, by social mores, by acceptable and unacceptable behavior, and that ideal of the white suburban housewife was not representative of most people's lives.

It was a more diverse, more complex job than what was presented.

My mother was a 50s homemaker, really a person of her time in certain ways, a little subservient to the powers that be and my father, and doing the homemaking thing, but she found ways to express her own fierce individuality, really into environmentalism.

Throughout the sixties and seventies, a bit of a woods woman.

She canoed over a thousand miles of public rivers in the United States, and she was a fire tower watch for seven summers for the National Park Service.

That was a great role model for me to be able to strike out and be my own person.

(upbeat rock instrumentals) I was so fortunate with the rise of women's empowerment, - [Activists] Powerful, join us now!

- [Martha] I was on the heels of the second wave of feminism.

- In an landmark ruling, the Supreme Court today legalized abortions.

The decision to end the pregnancy during the first three months, belongs to the woman and her doctor, not the government.

- Women were feeling their power.

I knew I could go to work.

I was the first woman in my family, on both sides, to graduate college.

I was the first woman not to get married right away, and move to New York City, and find a life on my own.

(upbeat electronic music) When I moved to New York, I went to make music ♪ Downtown, no one cares ♪ ♪ In and out of love affairs ♪ - I started a punk rock band, called "Peter and the Girlfriends," I was Peter, the guys were the girls.

That was revolutionary at the time.

I was a total free spirit.

I thought, "Yeah, maybe I'll have one kid when I'm 40," but really, it wasn't on my radar so much.

But, something changed, and every cell in my body wanted to have a child.

A mother is one who divides, and is paradoxically increased.

I use the m/other because we are constantly in relationship.

Whether that relationship is a positive one, whether it's a complex one, we're still in relationship.

We're always navigating that other person, and that's its fundamental defining factor.

(gentle music) I had four amazing pregnancies and births.

I was able to give birth with a midwife on my own terms.

I was really fortunate.

Not that I didn't have difficulties, I did, but in general, I felt like it was the most powerful thing I'd ever done in my life, each time.

The fourth pregnancy, some weird signs showed up.

I was in some pain.

10 days after my daughter was born, I was, I'd failed to thrive.

I was really sick.

I couldn't get outta bed.

I was diagnosed with lupus that attacked my kidneys, and my internal organs, and I was, I was on my way out.

The hardest thing that ever happened to me was when my husband took my 10 day old daughter through the elevator doors of the hospital, and I had to stay for a month.

That broke me.

I lost my former life and became someone new out of that experience.

After I got sick, the struggles with the kids became exponentially much more difficult.

I was literally bedridden with four small kids around me.

I wasn't able to participate in a lot of their lives, which was heartbreaking, and difficult, and challenging, and they had needs.

They still got sick.

They still brought home head lice.

They still had sports to go to, and it was my job to do the best I could every day, and sometimes my best wasn't very good.

I was started on chemotherapy.

That prepared me for the next seven year journey, which resulted in a kidney transplant seven years later.

That journey informed what you see now, and who I am now, because I had to have a lot more compassion for all the mothers, and all the things that mothers go through.

I had to reinvent myself to thrive.

I wanted to really take this motherhood thing into my art.

I went back to making music after I was sick.

I started a band called Housewives on Prozac.

♪ She's a rock and roll diva ♪ - This morning we've got Housewives on Prozac with us.

- [Reporter] Housewives on Prozac.

- Six women singing about a mom's life, through songs like "The Housewives Lament."

- We weren't subscribing to the expected mother role, so we were mom rockers.

Out of mom rock, came the Mama Palooza Festival.

- Mama Paloozas supports, empowers, and advertises and amplifies all these great women who are in the arts and business.

- That festival was in 25 cities, four countries, over the span of 10 years.

Hi, welcome.

Come on in.

Come into the Museum of Motherhood, welcome!

I realized that mothers, myself, other mothers, needed more of a place of connection and reference.

We have car museums, marble museums, and mustard museums.

Why don't we have any museums of motherhood, except this?

We are the first and only museum of motherhood in the world.

We need to make visible this labor, and these lives, and the art, science, and history around this incredible deep subject.

The museum has been through multiple incarnations.

Our first exhibit was in Seneca Falls, New York, which is the home of the suffragette movement, and now we've moved to The Factory here in St. Pete.

The great thing about the audiences who come to the museum now, are they span the gamut.

We have families, we have women, we have men, we have mothers, those who need healing.

We have so many feelings about our mothers.

"They did it wrong."

"They did it badly."

"I hate my mother."

"I love my mother."

How can we even give value to something that our whole infrastructure doesn't even really give value to?

Is it true you're only working if you're being paid for it?

How much do our mothers make for their care work?

There's no economic equivalent, and this artist is asking the question, "Should there be an economic equivalent?"

- In our culture, we have no affordable childcare.

We have no federally mandated, paid parental leave.

We have no social security for those who are staying home and care working, whether that's for the generation before, or for their children.

This is a real issue.

Why don't we care about that?

Somebody's doing that work, and in America, it's a very isolated position.

You are expected to do it on your own time, and your own dime.

That seems like an untenable burden to me.

Feminism and motherhood, where they go hand in hand, is this idea that basic human rights of expression, of access to reproductive health, to of access to healthcare, of access to food, to housing, to wellbeing, to not radical racism, all of these things are significant and important for our women, mothers, and families, and so how we create policies around that are all part of this mother feminist movement.

It's up to all of us to care about each other.

It's up to all of us to care about the woman behind the job, or the human behind the job, and it's up to all of us to care about those kids too.

I hear from people all the time who say, "where do I fit in?

I'm not a mother, either by choice or not choice."

And, I wanna say, "You're human, and you came from someone.

You came from a mother.

We're interested in your journey here."

The ways that you thought, "Oh, I never wanna have a kid," or the ways that you thought "I wanted to and I couldn't," or the ways that you did it, and then you regretted it.

I'm privileged to witness so many deep stories from people when they walk through this space.

Sometimes people cry.

They say, "I feel seen," and that's what we're about.

We're about starting great conversations, and creating thought provoking exhibits and sharing information and education.

- [Activists] Our bodies!

- There's new fallout across the nation after the Supreme Court's ruling on abortion.

- Where do privacy and personal freedom begin, and where do they end?

- [Reporter] Never before has the court granted and then taken away a widely recognized constitutional right.

(gentle piano) - What I say to mothers who are at the absolute end of their rope, is, "Hang on, Baby, because no day lasts forever.

No week lasts forever.

If you're really struggling, I mean, there are mental health resources available.

There is scholarship available, there are communities that are available.

You can call us.

We're here for you."

(upbeat piano) What I hope my children will say about me, I think the best superpower anybody can have is to just be loving.

So, if I've given my children love, which I think I have, then I've done the best job in the world, because it's all love.

That's what it is, it's all love.

So, I hope they feel loved.

(gentle inspirational music) - [Spokesperson] Support for Greater St. Petersburg is provided by Curtis Anderson.