What Doesn’t Kill You

Confessions of a Former MAHA Mom

I was MAHA before it was a thing.

Long before it had a hashtag or a merch line, I was already there: raw milk, elderberry syrup, essential oils lined up like little glass soldiers on my kitchen counter. I bought the supplements. Read the blogs. Followed the influencers who promised that if I just made the right choices, I could outsmart fate.

I wasn’t trying to be better than anyone (other than the current version of myself). I was trying to outrun the bad things.

Because the world is full of them, isn’t it? The food system is broken. Healthcare is expensive and unpredictable. Nobody in charge seems all that interested in fixing any of it. And somewhere in that mess, wellness culture steps in and offers you a deal: If you work hard enough, you can save yourself. You can save your kids.

I bought in. Completely.

And when I got pregnant, I planned my perfect birth. At home, surrounded by midwives. A birth tub in my living room. Calming music. Affirmations taped to the walls. Everything carefully arranged for the best possible start.

And for a while, it worked.

Until it didn’t.

My daughter came out silent.
Her color was wrong.
Suddenly the house filled with people I hadn’t planned for. We were rushed to the hospital. Everything changed.

That was my introduction to motherhood.

And to the first real crack in everything I had built.

Why Wellness Culture Hooks Us

Because here’s the thing: I get why people fall into the MAHA mindset. I really do. Because at least it feels like doing something.

When the systems are broken—when the food is junk, the healthcare system is a maze, and nobody in charge seems to care—wellness culture slides in and offers you a lifeboat. A checklist. A sense of control:
✅Eat this, not that.
✅Buy this, not that.
✅Avoid toxins. Avoid chemicals. Avoid gluten, dairy, seed oils, vaccines, Tylenol, tap water, fluoride. Avoid anything and everything that might hurt your child.

It feels active. Proactive. Like you’re taking charge instead of sitting around waiting for the next bad thing to happen. In a world full of lies and slow, silent harm, at least this feels busy. At least you’re fighting.

I know that because I lived it.

Once you start believing you can biohack your way out of every risk, there’s always one more (expensive) thing to try. One more thing to worry about. One more thing you’re not doing yet…but you’re close! Oh, so close! Just one more monthly subscription!

After Matilda was born, I was doing my best to hold everything together. Trying to be a good mom, manage seizures, therapies, doctor visits—and still half-clinging to the belief that maybe, somehow, I could still control the narrative.

But wellness culture doesn’t leave you much room for grace.
When something goes wrong, it doesn’t offer comfort.
It offers theories and quick fixes.

And sometimes, it offers complete absurdity.

The Hair Oil Salesman

I remember going to a mom’s group, hoping to find my people. Matilda was still a baby. She had almost no hair back then — something I hadn’t even noticed, because after seizures and hospital stays, baby baldness was the least of my concerns.

One mom, who didn’t know anything about Matilda’s health, pulled me aside and tried to sell me some kind of miracle hair growth oil. She was serious. Like this was the thing I needed to fix.

I laughed — actually laughed — right in her face.
Lady, you think I care about HAIR GROWTH?

Because that’s the game: create problems where there aren’t any, sell solutions nobody asked for, and pretend it’s empowerment.

And it’s not just hair oil. That same blame-and-sell pattern runs everywhere.

Shifting Blame: The Systemic Scam

That’s what wellness culture does best: it shifts blame from systems to individuals. If your kid gets sick, it must be something you did. No hair? It’s because you aren’t using my product. If you struggle with weight or chronic illness, it's your fault for eating the wrong foods, not the result of decades of policy, corporate greed, and a food system designed for profit, not health.

It’s the same playbook oil companies used when they made pollution a matter of personal responsibility — convincing you that the planet was dying because you forgot your reusable grocery bag, not because they were dumping millions of gallons of waste into rivers.

And so when people saw my daughter’s walker, or heard about her seizures, they started asking.

“Do you think it was the vitamin K shot?”
“Was she vaccinated?”
“Maybe it was something you ate while pregnant?”

No. I don’t think that, Karen.
But I think I understand why people go there. Because it’s easier to believe we can control everything than to admit how much is out of our hands.

The Grift of MAHA Populism

And that’s exactly why this larger MAHA movement has such a grip. Especially on moms.

Because for a moment, on the surface, it looks like somebody finally cares. Like someone’s finally going to bat for you and your kids. After years of feeling ignored by both parties, brushed off by public health, priced out of clean food, it’s no wonder people reach for the only people offering them something that feels like action.

Even when that “action” looks like raw milk shooters inside the actual White House.

Yes. That happened. RFK Jr. and a wellness influencer called Carnivore MD stood inside the White House recently, chugging unpasteurized milk mixed with glyphosate-free honey. This was part of the official MAHA commission rollout, flanked by jars of artisanal beef tallow and non-toxic mouthwash. The CDC calls raw milk a health risk; these jerks call it freedom.

And to be clear: this stuff is EXPENSIVE. None of this is accessible. None of this is real policy or even a real possibility for most households. But it looks like somebody is finally taking action, doesn’t it? Standing up against “Big Food,” “Big Pharma,” “Big Fill-in-the-Blank.”

Except they’re not. They’re not lowering grocery prices. They’re not expanding healthcare. They’re not building grocery stores back into rural communities. They’re selling you an expensive illusion of control while the actual system keeps failing you.

Wellness populism for people who can afford $54 beef tallow is still just privatized wellness. It’s a $300/month vitamin subscription for the same people who already had a Whole Foods nearby and an infinite grocery budget.

Most moms I know aren’t standing in their kitchens making raw milk shooters. They’re packing school lunches out of a Dollar General, praying the car holds up for one more month, and hoping their kids can get in to see the one local pediatrician who hasn’t retired yet.

What Real Health Looks Like

You want to talk about real health? Fix the system. Feed people real food. Make healthcare affordable. Build communities where parents aren’t left to figure it out alone.

The truth is: the healthcare system saved my life. It saved my daughter’s life. The reason her seizures are managed isn’t because I perfectly pureed organic baby food; it’s because brilliant doctors prescribed the exact right combination of medications. The same hospitals I once side-eyed for pushing formula and epidurals were the ones who caught her when she stopped breathing.

And vaccines? I used to question them. Now I marvel at them. I sobbed in a hospital parking lot after my first COVID shot, overwhelmed by the miracle of modern medicine.

I still believe food matters. Fiercely. But not in the way wellness culture packages it. Not as some personal virtue project that rewards privilege and punishes anyone who can’t keep up.

Because what doesn’t kill you might not make you stronger.
But it can make you clearer.

And if there’s one thing I see clearly now, it’s this: none of us need detox juice.
We need a system that actually feeds and cares for people — all people.
Not just the ones who can afford to biohack their way to “health.”
Not just the ones who fit the curated version of clean living that’s sold mostly to white, wealthy moms.

We don’t need coffee enemas.
We need a system that works — not for the influencers, but for everyone else.