A new mom is going viral for sharing the side of postpartum she believes “no one really talks about.”
Kanami Anderson (@kanami.anderson), who gave birth to her daughter after years of infertility and IVF, posted a reel on Instagram about how she felt “betrayed” by other women.
The reel was sparked from a conversation between Anderson and another mom friend who told her she felt the same way after her first child.
“No one had told her how intense it actually would be, how hard childbirth was, how isolating postpartum could feel. And honestly, I felt the exact same way,” Anderson said in her reel.
The 42-year-old, currently based in California after job loss forced her family to leave their home in Mexico, explained that her feelings of betrayal stemmed from a community silence two months postpartum.
“The general vibe was, ‘You’ve got this!’ and that’s when I completely crumbled,” Anderson told Newsweek. “I don’t think people meant to be dismissive—I just think they didn’t realize how much I was struggling. I wasn’t openly falling apart, but I gave plenty of hints.”
Anderson and her husband were living in southern Mexico at the time—far from family. When initial visits ended and the support from others tapered off, she found herself unraveling.
“While some women have a strong village—family, friends, a partner with flexibility—many of us don’t,” she said. “And we’re becoming more isolated as a society. People move far from family, community is fractured, and everything is increasingly digital. That means more and more women will be entering motherhood completely alone.”
In her reel, Anderson explained that other mothers were encouraging others to enjoy the newborn phase which, she said, felt like “a slap in the face.”
Instead, she’d rather other women be brutally honest about the physical, emotional and mental toll of motherhood.
A sleep-deprived Anderson felt completely “depleted” within the first few months, but with the help of her mother-in-law back in the U.S., they managed to sleep train her baby and move her into her own room.
“I finally started sleeping—and that changed everything,” Anderson told Newsweek. “As I began to rest, I felt more like myself. I could think more clearly, ask for help, and gradually began to trust myself as a mother.
“That shift in confidence took months—but it was so important. For the first time, I didn’t feel like I was failing at everything.”
Anderson’s reel has racked up over 380,000 views and over 22,000 likes. An overwhelming number of users thanked her for breaking the silence around postpartum struggles.
“Same. Motherhood is glorified so much that we women are not allowed even to speak about our pains post childbirth,” one user wrote.
“I feel this to my bones. I had four back to back pregnancies and wow the last two hit me like a truck. I lost myself and went into survival mode,” another added.
Anderson told Newsweek that women have reached out and said they felt validated after watching her reel. But the new mom said she also received some backlash.
“I’ve had people comment things like, ‘How could you not have known motherhood would be hard?’ or ‘Stop whining,'” she said.
Anderson told Newsweek that’s exactly the problem, and that kind of response is why so many mothers choose to stay silent.
“So while those comments were frustrating, they were also incredibly valuable,” she explained. “They reminded me exactly why I’m doing this—and how much healing still needs to happen, not just individually, but collectively.”
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