Just let yourself land, Louise Haimowitz told her morning class.
In a room of 23 new mothers and their babies, all younger than 9 months, landing is no easy task, but the collective stress in the room eased at Haimowitz’s words.
Each mom closed her eyes and focused on breathing exercises, and the silence was broken only by the rise and ebb of babies cooing and crying.
Then came a round of “You Are My Sunshine.”
“In our culture, moms are expected to hit the ground running after giving birth, but you need to lean,” Haimowitz said. “That’s really the goal of the Parenting Place. It’s a place where women can get support and realize that they are not alone in the stresses they feel as mothers.”
Founded by a group of Boulder County parents in 1984 after a child was killed by his mother’s boyfriend, the Boulder Parenting Place provides support and play groups, parenting workshops and emergency assistance for struggling families. The agency has applied for funding through Post-News Season to Share.
The support groups are the most utilized resource, Haimowitz said. There are groups for parents with infants and toddlers, for bilingual and foreign-language families, and for fathers.
“It was so good to hear that with what I was going through, I wasn’t the only one,” said Betsy Sheffield, who attended the support group after the birth of her daughter Elizabeth. “I was crying for no reason. You know motherhood is going to be challenging, but you don’t realize what that means until you’ve had a baby.”
Sheffield said she used motherhood to reconnect with friends who had children.
Other women, like Erica Besen, said reaching out to friends or other moms for support was difficult. Like many women, she felt isolated without benefit of family close by.
“It’s like asking someone to go on a date,” said Besen, who attends the group with her 7-month-old daughter, Audrey.
But Besen did ask, and now she and Lindsay Hannah, another mom from the group, trade off babysitting, and Hannah’s 9-month-old son, Charlie, is one of Audrey’s favorite playmates.
The Parenting Place would eventually like to move into its own building because space is running out in the office that the organization rents from the United Baptist Church, Haimowitz said.
Her group was standing-room only by the time it was over.
Cassie Hewlings: 303-954-1638 or chewlings@denverpost.com
Parenting Place
Address: 1235 Pine St., Boulder
In operation since: 1984
Number served last year: 570 families
Staff: Six
Yearly Budget: $412,970
Percentage of funds directly to clients/services: 85 percent
Post-News Season To Share, a fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, gave $1.79 million to 62 agencies last year serving children, the hungry, homeless and those in need of medical care. Donations are matched at 50 cents for each dollar; 100 percent goes directly to the agencies. To make a donation, see the coupon in today’s paper, call 1-888-683- 4483 or visit seasontoshare.com.
