RURAL MOTHERS MATTER!

Stephanie is fighting to help mums feel less alone

- Maisy Rae, Megan Rowe

Stephanie Trethewey freely admits she sometimes struggles being a mum. Especially living in the country, where the days are long, the work is tough and family is absent.

The mum-of-two knows just how difficult it is to find support amid life on the land after moving to Dunorlan in country Tasmania with husband Sam, 39, and her then six-month-old son Elliot, in 2019 to start a beef cattle farm.

Exhausted and isolated as a new mum, Stephanie launched the Motherland podcast a few months later, desperate to close the gap between rural mums as they search for guidance and support.

"I didn't know who I was I thought I'd made a huge mistake moving here. Sam was working so hard, seven days a week, on the farm. And here I was with a beautiful husband and baby, and I was so unhappy," Stephanie, 33, tells Woman's Day.

"Motherland's been a beautiful way to acknowledge that and to make rural mums, whether they're 90 years old or 20 years old, feel like they matter and that their stories matter."

When the former TV journalist gave birth to her second child, Evie, now two, she says she experienced postnatal depression and a loss of identity, while struggling with the absence of childcare options in rural areas.

It's a story she's heard repeated throughout the Motherland community.