On Writing a Picture Book that Makes Moms Cry

Author/editor Tracy C. Gold reflects on her mother’s selfless mothering. Did you remember to honor your mom on Sunday? If not, send her this link.

When I became a mother, it instantly changed the way I thought about my mother. The immense, overwhelming love I felt for my baby? That’s the way my mother felt about me.

What I didn’t know was how desperately I would need that love.

My early journey as a mother was rough. After surviving extreme morning sickness while pregnant, I thought everything would be better after I gave birth. But about two months post-partum, I started vomiting again. This time, it was paired with extreme upper abdominal pain.

Late at night, writhing on my bathroom floor, I called my mother. She came to take care of my daughter, Ava, while my husband helped me to the ER.

I spent a week in the hospital while doctors tried to figure out and then confirm what was going on. My mom knew what was happening far before they did—because the same thing had happened to her. I had gall stones and needed my gall bladder removed. She’d had the same pains and surgery when pregnant with my brother.

Everyone told me surgery would fix everything.

It didn’t.

Just a couple days post-op, the pain returned. Again, I called my mother and we rushed to the ER.

TV shows and movies had led me to believe that when you go to the ER, screaming in pain, someone will help you right away. Even HBO’s acclaimed The Pitt, touted as realistic, gives immediate help to those who are screaming. But this was not my experience. My mother and my husband rotated time in the ER waiting room with me. Time stretched out in surrealistic agony.

Turns out a suture had failed, and I had a bile leak. I had a C-section, so I can’t compare this to the pain of delivery, but I would take broken bones over that pain any day.

The doctors did an endoscopy to repair the suture. But the pain never stopped. Turns out the endoscopy had irritated my pancreas. I had pancreatitis.

There was nothing I could do but keep pressing the button for more pain meds until the pain resolved. This took about a week.

But that wasn’t the end.

Over the next few months, I would occasionally get stabbing, seizing pains in my abdomen. I was terrified. The pain was different, but could this mean the pancreatitis was back? Pancreatitis could be fatal. I had a baby who needed me.

Home with my baby while my husband was at his office far away, I’d call my mother. She’d come get me and we’d head to the ER. She wasn’t the only one we’d call. My father, brother, and sister-in-law all took care of Ava while my husband and mother took turns in the hospital with me.

After a few ER trips, we figured out that my body was irritated by the stents that had repaired the failed suture. Muscle relaxers helped manage this, but I lived in fear and pain for months.

Finally, finally, it was time to remove the stents. The spasming stopped.

Yet I still needed to call my mother. I was weakened by everything I’d been through. I couldn’t get my baby to stop crying. I couldn’t get my baby to start sleeping. I hadn’t slept for days and I needed a nap and a shower. She always answered the call.

This time in my life was terrible. This time in my life was full of love. This time in my life was inspiring.

So I started writing picture books, and Call Your Mother was born. Familius agreed to publish it and brought on illustrator Vivian Mineker.

It’s about a child who “calls” her mother from babyhood through adolescence—at first with her voice, and then with a phone. When the child becomes a mother herself, she’s overwhelmed. She asks “Mom, how did you do it?”

Mom, now a grandma, says “I did just the same as you, I would call my mother too.” Great grandma “watches” from a picture on the wall (thanks to Vivian Mineker’s amazing illustrations).

And—cue the tears.

So many tears. Tears from me, while writing the book. Definitely tears from the publishing team, my agent, and family members when we first saw Mineker’s touching illustrations. Tears from early reviewers, who poured their hearts out on Goodreads about their relationships with their mothers. When friends told me they’d bought the book, I started warning them that it would probably make them cry.

What really hit me, though, was what happened when I started reading the book aloud at public storytime. Call Your Mother was my fourth published picture book. I’ve led a few storytimes in my day.

Never before had mothers in the audience started crying.

Sometimes, they were emotional because of how much they loved their mothers, and how they anticipated becoming grandmothers. Thinking of your toddler becoming a parent one day can really bring on the waterworks.

Other times, they were grieving mothers they had lost. The mothers who never became grandmothers.

Most complex were those who had difficult relationships with their mothers. I never quite knew what to say as mothers of small children told me they didn’t talk to their own mothers anymore. The book would make them cry, yes, but was the book for them? Maybe, maybe not. Many would tell me of the amazing mother figures they had in their lives. The aunts, the grandmas, the best friends.

Their stories made me careful about how I presented the book to children. Not all children have a healthy relationship—or any relationship—with their mothers. Now, before reading, I ask my audience to imagine a grownup they really love. Who is like a mother to them?

The experience of living this book, writing it, and sharing it with the public has been unlike anything I ever expected. My next book, Call Your Father, comes out from Familius in 2026. What will I learn about fatherhood, about parenthood, from publishing that one?

I imagine the lessons will be similar. That we need to be grateful for those we love. That we rely on those who came before to help us through the hard days of parenthood. I am lucky—I come from a long string of parents who deeply loved their children. My child benefits from not only my love, but the love passed down from her ancestors.

For those who aren’t so lucky, I feel a deep urge to be part of the village. To step in with childcare, a home cooked meal, or simply a listening ear at those times when a lost mother or father would have done so.

I think about how I can wrap those around me in that immense, overwhelming love: love so strong, it makes you cry.