Your story doesn’t have to be perfect. It does have to be real.
Motherhood is funny, exhausting, joyful, lonely, infuriating, surprising, heartbreaking, messy—and sometimes all of those things before breakfast.
At ModernMom, we want to tell more of those stories.
We’re looking for moms at every stage of life who are willing to write honestly about their experiences. New moms. Seasoned moms. Stepmoms. Single moms. Moms of teenagers. Moms whose children have grown. Moms navigating careers, relationships, divorce, dating, caregiving, changing bodies, empty nests, reinvention—and everything that happens in between.
You don’t need a huge social following or a professional writing career.
But you do need something to say—and you need to be able to say it well.
What We’re Looking For
If you become a contributor, we want your original, personal stories with a point of view.
Give us the story you tell your best friend after everyone else has gone home. Tell us what surprised you, what went wrong, what you wish someone had told you, what made you laugh, what changed you—or what you’re still figuring out.
We’re especially interested in stories about:
- The realities of pregnancy, postpartum and raising children
- Marriage, relationships, separation, divorce and dating
- Blended families and co-parenting
- Raising teenagers and young adults
- Friendship and loneliness
- Work, ambition and career changes
- Money and the financial realities of family life
- Aging parents and the sandwich generation
- Body image, menopause and getting older
- Identity beyond motherhood
- Being part of the sandwich generation
- Empty nesting and life after the intensive parenting years
- Family traditions, failures, victories and moments you’ll never forget
- The things moms think about but don’t always say out loud
Funny is welcome. Serious is welcome. Complicated is welcome.
Perfect is not required. Honesty is.
Yes, You Need to Be Able to Write
We love a gritty story. We don’t want a sloppy one.
Submissions should have a clear voice, logical structure and a strong command of grammar, spelling and punctuation. Your piece doesn’t need to arrive publication-perfect—we edit—but it should feel like a thoughtful, finished piece of writing rather than a first draft.
Strong ModernMom stories usually have:
- A compelling opening
- A clear story or central idea
- Specific details rather than general observations
- A distinctive, natural voice
- Something for the reader to take away
- Clean, readable writing
Write like yourself. Just write like the version of yourself who rereads before hitting Send.
Your Story Must Be Written by You
ModernMom does not accept AI-generated or AI-written submissions.
We’re looking for your experiences, your perspective and your voice—not something generated by ChatGPT or another artificial intelligence tool.
Basic tools that help with spelling, punctuation or proofreading are fine. But the story itself should be conceived and written by you.
Motherhood is deeply personal. That’s what makes these stories worth reading. We want the imperfect turns of phrase, the specific details and the perspective that can only come from someone who actually lived it.
If we determine that a submission has been substantially generated by AI, we may decline it.
What We Don’t Want
We’re generally not looking for generic parenting advice that could have been written by anyone.
We also aren’t looking for thinly disguised advertisements, promotional content, previously published articles, AI-generated content or pieces created primarily to generate backlinks.
And while we welcome difficult, controversial and deeply personal subjects, submissions should tell your story. Please be thoughtful about the privacy of children, former partners, family members and other people who appear in your piece.
Submission Guidelines
Please submit an original article that has not previously been published elsewhere.
Length: Aim for 800–1,200 words. We may consider shorter or longer pieces when the story warrants it, but please keep submissions under 1,500 words.
Along with your submission, include:
- Your name
- A short author bio
- Your proposed headline
- Your article
- Links to your website or social profiles, if applicable
- A photo of yourself if you would like one included with your contributor bio
By submitting, you confirm that the article is your own original work and has not been substantially written or generated using artificial intelligence.
If your story is selected, the ModernMom editorial team may edit it for clarity, grammar, length, style, SEO and formatting. If substantial changes are required, we’ll work to preserve the voice and meaning of your original piece.
Submission does not guarantee publication.
Compensation
ModernMom contributor articles are currently unpaid.
From time to time, we may also have paid sponsored-content opportunities available for contributors whose voice, experience or audience is a good fit for a particular campaign. These opportunities are separate from regular editorial submissions and will be discussed directly with the contributor in advance.
Sponsored content will always be clearly identified as such.
You Don’t Have to Have Motherhood Figured Out
In fact, we’re not sure anyone does.
ModernMom is interested in what happens after the easy answers run out—the mistakes, contradictions, unexpected turns and second chapters.
If you have a story another mom might recognize herself in, laugh at, cry over, argue with or simply feel less alone after reading, we want to hear it.
