Family Stewardship: The Service You Didn't Know You Needed
Family Stewards help birth families and multigenerational legacy.
Family Stewardship: The Service You Didn’t Know You Needed
When I set out to be a doula, it was because ⅓ of pregnant people in my community didn’t have access to a doctor. I couldn’t imagine someone going through that much physical and emotional transformation without a guide. And while I knew I wasn’t a doctor, I knew I wanted to learn how to tend to this sacred transition in a meaningful way.
I trained with the Nesting Doula Collective—an incredibly earnest, grassroots group held together by a tireless community of BIPOC doulas. They fund their work by selling t-shirts, collecting pop bottles, and offering their time. Many volunteer at births without pay.
When I met them, I realized the problem was so much bigger than I had understood. Not only were birthers unsupported—birthworkers were too.
And when you zoom out even further, the cracks deepen.
The word doula itself comes from a Greek term meaning “female slave.” It’s no surprise that this essential vocation has never been granted the respect, abundance, or professional standing it deserves. It never spelled respect.
And even within the system we have, we are solving for only half the equation.
Doulas are trained to support birthers. But birthers are only one person in the family being born.
Where is the support for non-birthing parents?
For young children whose roles shift the moment a new sibling arrives?
For parents becoming grandparents?
For dads who are rarely checked on during pregnancy unless there are fertility challenges?
And for queer or multi-parent families - that are helping the world to see there are many ways to live.
The Western model treats birth as a medical event measured by dilation charts and staffing schedules. Babies are considered “due” within hospital time limits, and c-sections—one of the most common major surgeries in North America—continue to rise. With little ongoing care.
Gone are the days when birth happened in the safety of the village—surrounded by sisters, aunties, grandmothers, and children.
Gone are the days when birth was understood as ceremony: a sacred transformation for everyone connected to that child.
Gone are the days when becoming parents was recognized as a rite of passage—one we all take, whether we birth children or not.
And yet, not all is lost.
My Indigenous teachings remind me that remembering is an act of reclamation.
More and more people are longing to return to birth as ceremony—not just the ceremony of one baby entering the world, but of an entire family stepping into its legacy.
Which brings us here:
That’s why we need Family Stewards.
Family Stewards are community members, parents, birthworkers, and grandparents trained to hold birth as a ceremony and becoming parents as a rite of passage. They tend to the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of getting pregnant, being pregnant, birthing, and becoming parents.
Family Stewards are not there to save anyone or fix anything. They don’t bring advice disguised as expertise.
They guide with their questions.
They hold space for what is already present.
They witness what unfolds so that each family’s beginning is storied in ceremony—not trauma.
Family Stewardship is the service you didn’t know you needed
—because it’s the one we’ve been missing for 150 years.
And now, we’re bringing it back.
