Mother’s Day and More at St. Pete’s Museum of Motherhood

Featured image: MoM allies, from left, Mary Havlock and Sierra Clark with founder and Executive Director Martha Joy Rose and ally. Photos courtesy of the MoM.

Barbara Lynch believes St. Petersburg got a rare gift when Martha Joy Rose brought the Museum of Motherhood from New York to The Factory St. Pete.

“I feel like St. Petersburg was blessed with this,” Lynch said, “because, you know, she could have gone anywhere.”

For Mother’s Day, that blessing offers more than a place to celebrate moms. The Museum of Motherhood invites visitors to think about motherhood as art, labor, history, science, identity, and community care.

MoM describes itself as a museum for the science, arts, and history of women and mothers. It offers free and open interactive exhibitions designed to inspire and educate visitors while creating space for community conversations.

Rose, MoM’s founder and executive director, founded the Museum of Motherhood in 2003 and brought it to St. Petersburg in 2019. Rose holds a master’s in Mother Studies, and her work as an artist, activist, scholar – and former lead singer of Housewives on Prozac – has long centered women, mothers, caregiving, and public conversation.

More Than One Definition of Mother

Lynch, a writer, artist, and St. Pete local, joined MoM after first volunteering with the museum. Her path to the board began through Ladies Rock St. Pete, where she learned to creatively express women’s vision and voices.

That experience led her to MoM, where she found another space devoted to women’s stories. Lynch now supports the museum’s budgeting and operational needs. However, her connection to MoM is also personal. She is not a mother, but she said the museum gave her a way to reflect on her own mother and the broader meaning of nurturing.

Lynch defines a mother first through her own origin.

“It is who birthed me,” Lynch said. “My mother is my creator.”

Still, Lynch said motherhood at MoM includes far more than a person who gives birth. She said mothers can include stepmothers, adoptive mothers, and others who provide care.

“It’s really the nurturing effect,” said Lynch, “and it’s really the compassion.” 

That broader definition is central to MoM’s work. As a result, visitors do not have to be mothers to see themselves in the museum’s mission. They may come as daughters, sons, partners, fathers, caregivers, artists, scholars, or community members.

Interactive Exhibits Invite Visitors In

MoM is not designed as a quiet museum where visitors simply look at objects from a distance. Instead, the museum uses interactive exhibits to pull people into conversations about bodies, birth, care, and memory.

One of MoM’s most distinct features is the Escape Womb, an escape-room-style exhibit that turns reproductive education into a hands-on experience. “You solve the puzzles about birth, gestation, and conception to get out,” Lynch said.

For Sierra Clark, MoM’s community leadership and empowerment facilitator, the Escape Womb is one of her favorite exhibits because it gives visitors a chance to learn about their bodies.

“It allows you the opportunity to learn you,” Clark said.

Clark, born and raised in St. Petersburg, is a professional healthcare worker, author, group leader, and community facilitator. Her work centers social justice, children, spiritual awakening, and human potential. At MoM, she helps lead tours and programming that connect visitors to the museum’s deeper themes.

Clark said the Escape Womb also opens a wider conversation about body awareness and consent. “We’re taught to use our body before we even know our body,” Clark said.

That kind of learning matters, she says, because many people grow up without clear, safe, or honest conversations about their own bodies. “The body is the thing that we experience all the time, but nobody really talks to us about it,” Clark said.

Inside the Escape Womb, Clark said one piece often draws attention because it looks like a breast. At the museum, however, staff call it a food chair. For Clark, that difference changes the way visitors think about the body.

“We’re changing a narrative on what the purpose of breast is in the first place,” said Clark, “which is to feed.”

A Place to Write, Remember, and Reconsider

Not every MoM exhibit is about science or reproduction. Some are about memory, grief, gratitude, or complicated relationships.

Lynch said one of the museum’s early features that drew her in was an invitation to connect with one’s mother. In a previous version of the museum, visitors could pick up a phone and leave a message for their mother. Some callers had lost their mothers. Others had trouble communicating with them.

Visitors can still leave written reflections about their mothers, adding to a display that changes with each person’s experience.

“Everyone writes about their mom, and it’s just really neat to see what people write,” Lynch said. “Some of the really loving things and then some not, but everyone honors their mom in their own way.”

That complexity is part of the museum’s purpose. It does not present motherhood as only sentimental or simple. Instead, it leaves room for appreciation, pain, misunderstanding, healing, and growth.

That makes the museum especially relevant around Mother’s Day, a holiday that can bring joy for some people and grief, longing, or complicated memories for others.

Learning Through Conversation

Clark said MoM works best as an exchange, with each visitor bringing their own experience into the room.

“I find that we get to educate each other,” Clark said. That exchange, she said, is why MoM must be seen in person. “The Museum of Motherhood is a space you have to encounter,” she said. “You must experience it.”

For Clark, the museum works because each visitor brings a different story.

“I learn from every person that comes through the door,” she said. “No conversation is the same. No place it takes you is the same.”

Still, Clark said one common thread runs through the museum: “We all have a story and we all have a perspective.” And that approach allows MoM to move beyond a single narrative of motherhood. The museum can hold stories of mothers and children, women and men, family systems, reproductive experiences, caregiving, loss, healing, and identity.

Honoring Women’s Bodies and Voices

The museum’s focus on women’s bodies has become more urgent in a shifting political and cultural climate. Lynch said MoM continues to facilitate conversations some parts of society avoid, including reproductive health, young motherhood, body education, and difficult social issues.

“We need to have these conversations,” Lynch said. “We can’t just walk away from them like they’re not real conversations to have.”

Clark said that need became clear during a middle school visit to the museum.

“Field trips are a little challenging because the schools aren’t really having these conversations, and so they’re a little standoffish when they come in.” During that visit, Clark said some teachers appeared uncomfortable with parts of the subject matter. However, the students responded differently.

“Some of the things the teachers were not comfortable with them seeing, surprisingly,” she said. “Yet still, the young men were the most interested and wanted to be more inquisitive.”

For Clark, that response showed why body education and conversations about respect need to begin earlier. MoM’s work includes examining parenting, pregnancy, birth, menses, conception, and matrescence. At the same time, the museum elevates the artistic work of m/others, procreators, dreamers, people who are childfree by choice, people experiencing fertility issues, and people who have suffered loss.

Lynch said that broader mission makes MoM both a museum and a community space. She pointed to lactation classes, child-focused programming, fitness and wellness offerings, and other efforts to bring people into the space.

“That’s one of the things that I think makes this really special beyond the museum,” said Lynch.

Mamapalooza and Mother’s Day

MoM’s Mother’s Day season also includes Mamapalooza, one of Rose’s signature projects and a long-running celebration of mothers, families, and women’s voices.

Lynch said Mamapalooza celebrates moms ahead of Mother’s Day and includes ways for visitors to pamper mothers, engage with community partners, and hear live music.

“It’s all about celebrating women’s voices,” Lynch said.

MoM’s programming also includes community baby showers, maternal health conversations, lactation support, playgroups, art events, academic conferences, and wellness workshops. Those programs show how the museum’s mission extends beyond exhibits. It also acts as a gathering place for education, support, art, and public conversation.

Beyond Mother’s Day

For Lynch, MoM gives people a place to pause and think differently about mothers. She said visitors often leave with a deeper appreciation for their own mothers or the mothers in their lives. Clark also hopes visitors leave with a broader perspective, not only about motherhood but about themselves, their families, and the world.

“My hope is when people come here,” said Clark, “that they give themselves an opportunity to see even what they’ve known all their life in a different way

That, she said, is the museum’s invitation: “I hope people will come here and put on a different pair of shoes when they leave. So they can continue to change the world and notify it that we are one big human family.”

Learn more at mommuseum.org