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The Mom Room

Mary Catherine Starr on Art, Activism, and The Mental Load of Motherhood

The Mom Room

Renee Reina & Podcast Nation

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, Parenting

4.8 • 602 Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ep511. Renee sits down with illustrator and writer Mary Catherine Starr, the creative force behind @momlife_comics, to talk about how the chaos of early motherhood—and a global pandemic—sparked a viral career that resonated with millions. From her first comic to landing a book deal, Mary Catherine shares how she uses humor, art, and personal storytelling to make sense of the emotional labor, invisible work, and double standards baked into motherhood.

They also dig into the behind-the-scenes reality of being a creative mom online: the pressure to do it all, the fear of burnout, and dealing with the backlash that sometimes comes from posting content. This episode is for anyone who’s ever felt like the default parent, wondered how it all fell on their shoulders, or found comfort in seeing their experience reflected back with honesty and heart.


Find Mary Catherine’s comics at:

https://www.instagram.com/momlife_comics/












RENEE REINA  

Instagram: @themomroom | @thereneereina  

TikTok: @thereneereina  

Facebook Community - The Mom Room Community 

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Is drinking raw milk safe like RFK Jr. suggests? Can you reduce a glucose spike if you eat your food in, quote, unquote, the right order? I'm registered dietitian Abby Sharp. I host a nutrition myth-busting podcast called Bite Back with Abby Sharp. And those are just some of the questions I tackle with qualified experts on my show.

0:21.4

There is so much food misinformation and disinformation out there, and it can feel impossible

0:27.9

to know what's real and what's BS.

0:30.7

On Biteback, my goal is to help listeners create a pleasurable relationship with food,

0:35.3

their body, and themselves, which in my opinion is the

0:38.6

fundamental secret to good health. Listen to bite back wherever you get your podcasts.

0:44.8

This podcast is brought to you by Podcast Nation. Mary Catherine Star, welcome to the mom room.

1:01.4

And I just discovered that you started following me in quarantine, which I was not expecting

1:06.2

you to say that.

1:07.1

So look at us.

1:08.1

Oh, my gosh, I think it was that little doll house where you had the doll house

1:10.8

you were doing the default parent thing. And it like, the Legos. That's what it was. And I was like, I was totally, I was talking all about the default parent stuff then too. And when I saw that, I was like, she gets it. She's illustrating it in such an amazing way. Like, I was just like, Yes, yes, yes. So that was, I think that's what it did it for me.

1:26.8

That Lego house, first of all, it took like three months to build.

1:30.3

It was huge.

1:30.9

But then my son was so young that he destroyed it.

1:36.1

And then we couldn't build it because it was mixed in with all the other Legos and like nothing made sense.

1:42.2

Because I was like, I need to do a whole series of just like showing the characters in the house.

1:48.6

Oh my God.

1:49.0

It was so perfect.

1:50.2

I'm a little bit inspired to like buy the home alone house again and build it.

1:55.5

I mean, no matter what you probably got your money's worth, like from, you know, how it made its rounds on the internet and like what it did, I think, for just like explaining this concept of people, you know, at least for me, I was like, this is how people just, I feel like so many women at that time especially were like starting to get comfortable with some of this terminology. And you broke it down in a way that was just like so clear. and I think it's hard to do in a video, you know? It's that just a sync way. So that was awesome.

2:20.1

Aw, thank you. So where were you at

...

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