An insatiable need for sex and love. Periods of overeating or starving. A pattern of unstable and painful relationships. You may have been free to explore the neighborhood without responsible and reasonable boundaries and limits. A parent who explains that this is where you can ride your bike and this is what time I am expecting you to return home, is shepherding a child responsibly. A neglectful parent may not have the capacity to help a child, so she is left to provide guidance and supervision for herself. You may have had to figure out how to do homework or what to do in an emergency or how to cook for yourself, creating a sense of ambiguity and a feeling of abandonment. What can I do? Even a fridge that draws electricity from a coal-powered grid uses less energy each day than a single cell phone, said Dawn King, who researches food waste and policy at Brown University. “Is it worth using greenhouse gas emissions to plug in a refrigerator so people can eat food that otherwise would have gotten wasted? Hell yes it is.” Think about a half-eaten burger. That’s a no-go,” said Oehninger. “But this is very rare. Most people bring good leftovers.” Like Zauderer’s pizza.

Trauma counselor Kelly McDaniel has seen these traits over and over in clients who feel trapped in cycles of harmful behaviors-and are unable to stop. The fridges also embody a straightforward solution to climate change. Each year, tens of billions of pounds of food, more than a thirdof what’s produced in the U.S., get tossed into trash bins. Most of those scraps end up in landfills, where they decompose and release methane, a powerful heat-trapping gas. The sheer quantity of the country’s combined waste makes it a major source of climate pollution: Food waste accounts for as much as 10 percentof global greenhouse gas emissions. And more food is being thrown out than ever. That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated. In my work as a certified elementary teacher and now an LMHC trauma attachment therapist. I specialize in Trauma, Grief, Loss, Motherless Daughters, Parentless Parents, and Sudden Instant Loss.

Success!

One concern that researchers have with projects that repurpose food is that they require additional resources, like transportation and electricity. “Rescuing [food] still comes at a cost,” said Kathryn Bender, a professor and food waste researcher at the University of Delaware. I am also a co-facilitator for early Mother Loss Retreats with Hope Edelman. Hope wrote the book, “Motherless Daughters” and is a New York Times Best Selling Author. Her book and retreats have changed many lives, including mine. I am confident that her guidance, friendship, and leadership aided my work as a trauma therapist. Working with women who had an early Mother loss, I see firsthand how the term, Mother Hunger®, affected many women with an early loss, especially if their mothers couldn’t give them what they needed before they died. That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Your mom may have remained consistently disconnected, or too preoccupied to read a book to help you fall asleep at night or failed to comfort you, especially when you were hurting. She may have ignored your feelings and wanted you to be there for her instead, as in caring for her pain and soothing her worn nerves. A caregiver who was not at all interested in you as a unique person, with gifts, talents, and treasures. Your mom may have had an addiction or mental or physical illness that superseded her ability to care for you. You may have had a sibling who was chronically ill that required more time and energy from your mom with nothing left to give to the rest of the family.If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger. Donate WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO? This story was originally published by Grist andis reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Mother Hunger destigmatizes the shame that comes with being under-mothered and misdiagnosed, and offers a healing path. It just blossomed into way more than I ever could have expected,” said Zauderer, who now works full-time at Grassroots Grocery, a food-distribution nonprofit he co-founded in New York.