You’re Still That Girl, Just Refined By Motherhood

The moment I woke up on Mother’s Day 2026, May 10, I thought to myself: “It’s done!” Mother’s Day–at least for Smart Parenting–had finally been completed, and we pulled off our second-ever Mother’s Day Fair, a project we had been working on for over three months. And as the ever-quoted Carrie Bradshaw would say, “And just like that, it was over”. Months of hard work and weeks of nerves were finally done and dusted. But getting to that point was anything but quick.

When we were ideating for Mother’s Day Fair 2026, one thing was instantly clear to me even before 2025 had ended: I wanted to go hard on nostalgia. The late '90s and early 2000s vibe was non-negotiable because I wanted moms to remember what it felt like to be themselves. We see this often in Smart Parenting Village: moms feeling ‘lost’ after becoming a mother. Motherhood is encompassing, and rebuilding our identities as mothers can take years. A little reminder of the girl you once were, hopefully, helps you weed through the questions and doubts you now face as a young mother. You can still be her and keep parts of her, just made better by motherhood.

(Side note that if you were at the Smart Parenting Mother's Day Fair 2026 and loved the music, we made the playlist public for you to enjoy!)

Our cover mom and special guest at the fair is a woman who knows how to build, tear down, rebuild, unlearn, and keep on trying. Iza Calzado’s journey to motherhood wasn't a straight path; today, she’s comfortable admitting she grew up in an unstable environment, which made her fearful of becoming a mom herself. But seeing her revel in motherhood, such as when she politely asked if the shoot could accommodate Deia’s nap during our preprod meeting—practically standard operating procedure for us at Smart Parenting—or excusing herself to personally put Deia down for a nap and panicking on cam during the video interview when her daughter woke up, reminded me that motherhood looks different for everyone. And your journey into it and within is only for you to define.

One of my favorite quotes from her interview is Iza’s current outlook, which I gather many non-parents grapple with as they consider building a family. She said in the cover story interview,

Fear will never be absent in this lifetime, and parenthood teaches us that it can coexist alongside fierce hope. It’s the same lesson I repeat to my kids: I can do hard things.

And isn’t that motherhood in five words? 

We are baptized into the profound responsibility of keeping an infant alive, and once we’ve mastered one skill, another new challenge crops up: keeping them from sticking their hands in sockets or fans, then learning phonics, and soon enough it turns into sorting out friend drama.

But even if every day is an exercise in courage, my hope is that you are also reminded that you don’t have to be immaculate. That same adventurous young woman, whose only problem was how to get hold of the latest CD of your favorite artist or how to ask permission for a whole day hang at the arcade with your friends, unafraid of making mistakes, can still be you as a mom—just take your kids along with you.

Let them see you as you are, momma. Because there’s no perfect parent, but there can be smart ones.