I’ve been lucky to have Ruthie Ackerman as a writing partner and friend for years, learning from her expertise and grounded by her encouragement. She’s reminded me that writing isn’t always about answers – it’s often about staying with the harder questions.
Her new book, The Mother Code, does just that.
At the heart of The Mother Code is an intentional revision. Drawing on lived experience, research and thoughtful reflection, Ruthie’s voice is generous, offering a model for anyone reconsidering the narratives they were told to follow. In our conversation, Ruthie reflects on the beliefs she had to unlearn to write this book, why the idea of being “too late” is just another story we’ve been told to believe, and what she hopes younger readers will carry with them after turning the final page.
Laura: What’s one believe about motherhood you held for years that you had to completely unlearn while writing this book?
Ruthie: This is the perfect question because it ties into SO many strands of my book. There were two big beliefs about motherhood that I had to unravel. First, that motherhood was a binary – either I had to fit the trad wife/Brady Bunch image of motherhood OR become a childless cat lady. Part of the quest at the heart of my story was my search for alternative visions of motherhood. I read about Toni Morrison, Barbara Ehrenreich, Adrienne Rich, and especially about black and brown communities that have always been forced to reimagine motherhood outside of the white supremacist version forced down our throats. Second, I had to understand that the family mythologies I’d grown up with may not have been the whole truth. The journey of this book is realizing that I had based my own personal decision on whether to become a mom on half truths and conjecture passed down from my family of origin. Once I understood that my family narrative wasn’t written in stone, I started to approach my life with a bigger sense of curiosity and openness.
Laura: Your story invites women to rethink the timelines we’re handed. What do you say to someone who feels like they’re “too late” for the life they want?
Ruthie: There is no such thing as too late until we’re dead. Women are always being told we got off track, we missed the boat, it’s too late, we’re not enough. But if every single one of us goes after the same milestones on the same timeline, that’s how we get robots, not humans. What makes life rewarding isn’t being a clone of everyone else (despite what capitalism tells us!). What makes life rewarding is becoming more and more ourselves.
Laura: If a young person read your book today, what do you hope it helps them believe about their future?
Ruthie: This is the book I wish I had when I was in my 20s and 30s. At that time I looked around me and thought I was all alone. It seemed to me that everyone else figured something out. They had gotten the memo that I had somehow missed. If I could have read a book that said, life is a winding path and there is no one way to have a good future, I would have felt comforted and not been suffocated by fear that something was wrong with me.