Maha Nasrallah-Babenko moved to Colorado four and a half years ago, and has been loving it ever since. She found her balance, had a son, and started a business helping parents.
Growing up in Lebanon, Maha moved to London after college. Then to Dubai, New York, Southern California, and now in the Boulder area, where she plans to stay. The past 15 years of her career have been focused on sex and relationship therapy. Now, after seeing and understanding the struggles of parents looking for support, she has started a business called Raising Parents, where parents can come together in a space and connect.
“Having a child completely changes you, in so many ways that you would never expect or anticipate,” Maha says. “I always knew I loved babies and I was going to love being a mom. But I never thought I was going to love it that much, I loved it even more than I ever imagined. I wanted to spend every second with my son, I didn’t want to leave him or miss out on any moment. It was honestly much deeper and bigger than I ever imagined.”
Maha says she grew up knowing that raising kids took a village, and the village was always there, whether it was parents, siblings, in-laws, cousins, or other family. Here, she said she was surprised at how lonely of an experience it was to raise a child without family and support nearby.
“I think one of the things that really, really helped me was that I have two best friends who don’t live in Colorado, they’re in different states, and were having babies a few months, almost a year before me. And I think having those two people to text and call pretty much on a daily basis and just talk about the experience—anything we were feeling, whether it was something we were excited about or celebrating, like, he smiled for the first time, or something I’m just crying for no freaking reason,” she says.
Fast forward two years, and Maha found herself struggling to sleep. She kept thinking about how important it was for her to have those two people in her life, other than her husband, who were going through the same things and could understand. Maha wanted to offer that to other moms and dads locally because she knows not everyone has their village anymore.
“I think sharing our stories with others who are also experiencing the same things or similar things is such a powerful tool,” explains Maha.
Although her business won’t open until the spring, Maha says she wants to build a physical space where parents can bring their kids to keep them entertained while they hang out with other parents. She says it’s hard to meet at a coffee shop where there is no entertainment for a child, making it hard to have a conversation. On top of that, Maha says she wants to have regular meetups, mom groups and dad groups for emotional support, and educational classes.
Maha loves motherhood. “It’s all cliches that you’ve heard a million times, but it’s all true that the level of love that you feel in your heart literally explodes and expands in so many ways that you’ve never experienced before. That is one of the best parts of it.”
On the flip side, Maha says her life was completely different. She wasn’t doing things she used to love doing for herself because she didn’t have the time or energy, didn’t want to leave her son, and didn’t want to spend extra money on those kinds of things.
“I just felt so many different emotions and ups and downs, just the hormonal shifts alone. You go through much change. Even if you’re not depressed clinically, you have the baby blues at least, and you’re crying a lot of the time for no apparent reason,” Maha says.
She finds joy in seeing how her son mirrors her and her husband, seeing him learn things, seeing him enjoy something. “The joys are endless, you can’t list them all.”
Maha says it’s the little moments that make the world melt away. For example, she talks about her son being at a point in life where he always wants his mama. “It’s annoying sometimes that he only wants me to do things, but at the same time, I know one day he’s not going to want me to do anything for him, and so I’m just going to cherish this right now, because he wants me. I’m going to be sad in the future when he doesn’t.”
She had said it out loud, and her son heard her and asked what she was sad about. Maha told him, and he said, “I will be sad, too.”
One of the biggest challenges Maha finds is continuing to work on just being calm and being able to hold the space and support her son while holding some boundaries sometimes. She says it’s not about giving in, but just being there for him while he’s having a hard time without losing her own cool.
As a family, they love eating, moving, and connecting with people. “My husband and I are both active in different ways. We met at the gym at the time, but we love to do things that involve movement, whether it’s some form of exercise or hiking, or baseball for my son.”
For parents, Maha says it’s important to learn from the noise of all the advice given, but try not to get overwhelmed by it. She adds that a big part of parenting is trusting your gut, as a mom especially. “It’s a strong intuition.”
