When the Nashville-based singer and songwriter Emily Rose found out she was pregnant several months before releasing her second EP, Wings, in 2021, what should have been a more celebratory feeling brought detachment from nearly everything she knew before, particularly music. After becoming a mother, Rose believed that motherhood would be the end of her music career.
“You’re afraid people are just gonna write you off because you’re becoming a mom,” says Rose, “and maybe I wrote myself off a little bit, in the back of my head.”
Once she gave birth to her son in 2021, Rose wasn’t sure how to navigate her “new life” and started talking to other mothers online, going through the same motions, which validated her own feelings. “Talking with other moms, it was a total safe space,” says Rose, who began writing songs based on what she and other women who gave birth were going through for her debut album, Welcome to Motherhood.
“Every writing session for that album was just like a mini therapy,” adds Rose, executing each track with co-writers Tori Tullier, Melissa Fuller, Kate Malone, Madeline Stone, Sam Lorber, and respected longtime Nashville songwriter Debbie Hupp (Kenny Rogers, Conway Twitty).
The songs quickly resonated with fans, who shared their stories and struggles through postpartum depression, guilt, societal pressures, self-care, and more, became the opposite of her fear and the impetus for the album.
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Chronicling Rose’s journey into parenting, Welcome to Motherhood runs through all the self-doubts and challenges from “Back to Work” and “Mouths to Feed,” which she says took off within the breastfeeding community, to addressing feelings of depletion, “Empty Cup,” guilt (“Guilty”), and the more communal “Village.” Rose also recognizes her mother’s own struggle in the sentimental “My Mother” and her own new perspective on life and work—The meaning of life is more than a career and a song.
The anthemic “Don’t Talk About It” rallies mothers, particularly new ones, maneuvering through unspoken labors and the stigma around what they’re feeling.
“You feel crazy and that maybe you’re not cut out to be a mom, or not strong enough,” says Rose. “When I started vocalizing all of this, that’s when I was able to start healing and go a little easier on myself. Posting these songs and seeing all these other moms comment their vulnerable thoughts … it’s not only helping me. When we don’t talk about things, that’s when it becomes a stigma.”
Written by Rose, “Don’t Talk About It” is an honest run through the thoughts often passing through women’s minds after childbirth: You might hate your husband / Think no one’s on your side / But you trying being nice / When you’re that sleep deprived / All the hormones / Will make you think you’re mad / You won’t recognize your body / You’ll be happy then be sad / For no damn reason.
“These songs are still going to touch me, in 20, 30 years,” says Rose. In partnership with Postpartum Care USA, Rose used the track to help raise awareness of some of the common aftereffects of giving birth. The Centers for Disease Control found that one in eight women in the U.S. experience symptoms of postpartum depression, following the birth of their child.
“I like hearing about all of the ways that they look after moms,” she says of the organization. “We forget about the mom sometimes. I want everyone to hear my album, and know that there are resources like them [Postpartum Care USA] out there, because we would all just have a nicer time.”
Since releasing her debut EP The Heart in 2020, songs have become less of a personal affair for Rose. “I’m not just thinking about myself anymore,” she says. “My thoughts aren’t as selfish. I’m observing other people, and I’m more curious about how other people are going about their lives and navigating things.”
Now, the songs of Welcome to Motherhood still resonate with Rose, revealing that she’s pregnant with her second child and is looking forward to connecting to the songs that helped her through the first time.
“The feelings I had the first time I was pregnant were that my career is over, but this time I’m so excited to live this album so authentically,” says Rose, who hopes to release a deluxe edition of Welcome to Motherhood with some additional songs. “I’m already listening to the songs and thinking about it all over again, but there’s more confidence this time, that everything’s going to be okay. And I’m not afraid to take the time to have this baby and be with this baby, and that music will still be there for me when I’m ready for it.”
Rose continues, “I feel like people are really starting to have these conversations, and the more women are open and vulnerable about these things, the better. I don’t know that anyone has leaned into it as hard as I did, but it just felt so right to me and where I was at in the time. It just felt like I would have zero regrets about putting this album out, and I’ll always have it for myself.”
Photos: Courtesy of Emily Rose
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