Are you a new mom or expecting a baby soon? Are you experiencing a sense of pressure to have everything all figured out? Would having a place to be with other moms help you feel safe to talk about all the feelings, excitement and anxiety? Do you want to resist falling into today's particular culture of curated mommy perfection?
GEMs is a free group for Jackson Hole and Teton Valley moms of infants aged six weeks, babies, and toddlers up to three years. GEMs will begin meeting weekly January 2026. (Sign up below to be notified of start date, time, and location.)
GEMs, an acronym for "Good Enough Moms", is based on pediatrician and psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott's foundational work on attachment and infant and child development. Winnicott essentially observed that a "perfect" mom doesn't actually raise a psychologically healthy child; a good enough mom does. Good enough doesn't mean mediocrity, nor does it indicate ignoring an infant and child's specific needs. What, then, is" good enough?"
Our parenting involves some known and unknown parts of our own childhood, things we appreciated and want to share, and things that hurt us deeply that we desperately do not want to repeat. It's a tall order to attempt to do perfectly for our children what was done and not done for us.
Good enough boils down to awareness of what drives our desire to be perfect, recognizing and naming that perfect fantasy mom little us wanted and, perhaps, needed; good enough is the ability to attune to the infant and adjust to her physical and psychological needs as she grows; it's our ability to make repair within ourselves and with the child and accepting when we miss the mark.
GEMs will meet weekly for an hour for moms and their babies. Along with education and referrals to local resources when needed, moms will be supported by local therapist Rae Suerig in exploring and making connections between their own childhood experiences and their mothering of their babies.
With plenty of room for authentically sharing the pleasures, frustrations, fears, and intensity of being a mom, GEMs will help Jackson Hole women feel and believe they are good enough.
"I would rather be the child of a mother who has all the inner conflicts of the human being than be mothered by someone for whom all is easy and smooth, who knows all the answers, and is a stranger to doubt."
D.W. Winnicott
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