Getting Sticky With Amanda Chantal Bacon

Photos by Robin Harper, Words by AnaMaria Glavan

“Wellness” is a word that’s evolved drastically over the past 15 years. It’s also a tricky one to talk about, largely because it’s become synonymous with extremes: rigid routines designed to optimize every second of life, often at the expense of actually living it. Few people understand that tension better than Amanda Chantal Bacon, the founder of Moon Juice and mother to a fourteen-year-old son and six-year-old daughter.

At 28, Amanda gave birth to her son (“a teen mom,” as she says, by New York and LA standards); in her mid-30s, she welcomed her daughter, this time with her partner, Greg, by her side. Our conversation circled around those two chapters—birthing while still shedding girlhood, and then again with a steadier sense of self. She’s experienced both ends of the spectrum: motherhood alone, and motherhood within partnership.

Below, Amanda reflects on the duality of those experiences, what to not say to single mothers, and her relationship with wellness itself: “I’m not on some quest to live forever.”

The wedding dress daydream (or lack thereof) 

I had always envisioned the experience of motherhood: what it would feel like, who my children might be, that kind of space within myself. I never imagined a husband or a partner. Some people grow up picturing the dress or the ceremony, but that just wasn’t me. My imagination went straight to motherhood. 

Only after having my son and stepping into that role did I start to imagine a family, a partner, that whole dynamic. Maybe if I could go back, I’d have that little girl imagine a fuller family picture. But I didn’t and that’s okay. 

Being a young, single mother was beautiful—hard sometimes, really easy in others. Having my second child with a partner, one I love and feel meant to be with, has been great, too. It’s different and comes with its own challenges, but both experiences have been wonderful and valuable. 

I’ve heard friends say, I’ve prioritized my career, I haven’t found the right person, but I’m financially stable and ready to have a child. And I encourage that. You don’t have to settle for a partner you’re not fully aligned with in order to become a mother. You can have a baby on your own, that can be its own beautiful experience, and you might meet your partner two, three, five, 10, even 15 years later. 

Two, and potentially three, wildly different experiences 

I had my son when I was 28. That might not be considered biologically “young,” but socially in LA and New York, I felt like a teen mother.

My perspectives have been so varied as a result: what it feels like to have a kid in my late 20s, what it feels like to have a kid in my mid 30s, and now, what it might feel like to have one in my 40s. I’m 42 and still fertile, still open to what could happen in life. I certainly didn’t expect that. It really does feel like living multiple lives at once.

Being pregnant, building out a store, having a baby, and then being postpartum in this juice shop I had just opened was an experience. I was still hemorrhaging, my hair was falling out, I had an infant attached to me, and my boobs were basically always out in the shop. People’s memories of 2011 are basically me with a baby stuck to me.

Building a business alone while having my first baby was terrifying. Honestly, it haunts me, and I hope I never have to do anything like that again. It was frightening and I don’t know how I did it.

From girlhood to everything, all at once 

I had a vision of who I was going to be while pregnant. The reality was just so far off base. I imagined I’d pop the baby out, put the baby in a carrier, and go about my business. Or maybe I thought the baby would just nap while I worked? I don’t even know. But I had this formed idea of how it would all go, logistically.

What I didn’t understand was what actually happens to your nervous system as a mother—how you’re constantly attuning to this screaming, uncomfortable little alien. It was a lot. I had no idea that babies often just don’t sleep. I was completely sleep-deprived. And in my 20s, I went from girlhood to everything, all at once. I went from very little responsibility to all of it overnight. It’s hard to pull those experiences apart.

Having that same sleepless experience in my mid 30s was a different story. My grit and tenacity were still there, but my body felt it more. I had more support, more resources, and a partner I loved, but I was more exhausted. I pushed myself to a breaking point, somewhere between postpartum depression and anxiety before I could accept help with food or sleep or care, honestly. Whatever reserves I had in my 20s were just gone. 

Being pregnant, postpartum, and having all those hormonal shifts—losing hair, going through telogen effluvium—absolutely informed my work at Moon Juice. Every biological experience I’ve had has made its way into the business somehow. My autoimmune condition did, too. Pregnancy, birth, postpartum, those things stay with you for years. I think that’s when a lot of women really get into their bodies in a new way and develop a deeper self-awareness.

On what to not say to single mothers 

Rule number one: there’s this thing people say, often without realizing how dismissive it is. Women will say, Oh, I’m a single mom this weekend, when their partner’s away for a few days or traveling for work. And I just want to say—don’t say that around women who are actually single mothers. 

There’s the scheduling and the practical stuff, sure, but the biggest part is emotional. It’s an interior experience you’re managing alone. It’s not something you share with your kids, and I didn’t have many single-mother friends at the time, so it wasn’t something I shared with anyone. The hardest part was the quiet. There’s no one there at the end of the day, no one to process the highs and lows with, no one to witness the tiny milestones that come with raising a child. 

So when someone would say they were a single mom because their husband was gone for a few days, I’d silently think, you have no idea. You have no idea about the real loneliness or the heartache of it. 

Now, one of the most meaningful parts of having a partner is that I can look over and see the joy and love in his eyes for our daughter. It’s such a special, grounding thing, and the absence of it when I was single is really hard to describe. It’s hard to describe. 

The way my friends and community showed up for me was incredible. I had a few good friends—moms at school or women who lived across the street—who were so generous. They were preemptive about making sure I didn’t feel guilty about accepting help. And if you have a single-mom friend, especially one with a son, and your husband loves kids—have him spend time with her son. 

“It’s still a great mystery to me” 

My son had just turned five when my husband had come into our lives. We’d been friends for five years before anything romantic happened. I was working, raising a child, running a business, and I didn’t have time or interest in dating. I’ve always been intuitive, and I figured, I’d know within ten seconds if I had encountered “the one.” But life has many surprises. I throw that out there in case another single mom is reading this because you really never know.

Coming together with my husband, who was first my friend, happened suddenly. It was like Cupid hit me with a bow. It’s still a great mystery to me. I’m incredibly lucky because it was such an easy transition. My son was really excited and there was no resistance. He and my husband had great chemistry from the start. My son’s a teenager now, and we have a really loving relationship, but I’m not a “bro,” even though he calls me bro. I’m doing all the nurturing, the nagging, the feeding, the caretaking, the pimple cream and the mouth tape runs, but I’m not bro-ing out with him. My husband, on the other hand, is his bro. They’re genuine friends.

Primal instincts and “icks”

Something I hadn’t anticipated in the postpartum period with my daughter was how, suddenly, my son felt so big. 

In both of my postpartum experiences, looking back now, I can see how hypervigilant I became. I couldn’t nap. That primal instinct to protect the baby was so strong, and having that energy while parenting a seven- or eight-year-old boy was complicated.

That hypervigilant part of me, in a way, rejected my son for a period of time. It was so unfamiliar. I hated it. I felt guilty, confused, heartbroken. My daughter’s arrival made it clear that our family dynamic had shifted, and there was something quietly devastating about that. It did go away but those early weeks were so disorienting. 

It was like this primal “ick.” Here was my child, my favorite person on earth, the one who had slept in my bed every night, whose smell and hugs and kisses were my whole world. And suddenly, I was thrown into this other state where I didn’t want him near me. That’s terrifying. I hadn’t heard anyone talk about that before. I felt so ashamed, so alone in it, like it was some dark flaw in me.

And it wasn’t just my son. I felt it toward my husband, too. This was my first time having a baby with a partner, and that was a whole new experience. It brought challenges I didn’t see coming. I thought that having a baby together would double or triple the love, but instead, it shook things.

It shook my husband, especially. Becoming a primary parent for the first time does something to your ego, your identity. It changes you. I’d already gone through that transformation with my first child, so I knew what it was, but I was watching it happen to my husband for the first time. I thought because my son was around and because we had been parenting together, we would experience the same change, but we were suddenly on different trips for some of the early days. 

Teen Mom versus Professional Mother 

Having a teenager and a six-year-old is pretty great. I feel like the age gap—almost eight years—has allowed me to give both of them so much of myself. My son had my undivided attention for nearly eight years. And when my daughter was born, he was naturally starting to individuate, to want more independence. I could let him go off, socialize, become more self-sufficient, while putting that nurturing energy into a baby again. He’s also such a good big brother. 

Mothering in my 20s as a single mom versus mothering in my 30s with a partner has been completely different. My son likes to remind me of that. He’ll bring up memories of us eating vegan ice cream out of the carton on the floor for dinner, staying up late, playing, and then rolling out of bed and heading to preschool. He thought that was the best time ever. 

Now, his feedback is that I’m too much of a “boring professional mom.” We sit down and eat dinner at the same time every day, and it’s definitely not vegan ice cream. My daughter has a much more structured routine. A lot of that comes from my husband, who’s a very organized, structured parent. I love having that kind of organization and I see how much it helps. Still, my son insists he got the fun version of me.

There’s that—“teen mom” versus “professional mother”—but also the interior experience has changed. With my son, I was still learning how to be non-reactive. I was practicing self-regulation, figuring out how to stay grounded in moments of chaos. With my daughter, I already had that. I didn’t need to build it. I’d done that work through my first experience. My nervous system was like, we are never doing that shit again.

Notes for next time: No more pitted olives before bed 

There were just certain things I knew instinctively this time around. Like, I nursed my son until he was two, and he had that little wandering hand babies have which is sweet at first, but when you nurse for two years, that becomes a toddler constantly tweaking your nipples. So with my daughter, the moment I felt that little hand go up, I swatted it away. Absolutely not. No nipple tweakers. Lesson learned.

Now, I get to watch my husband as a first-time parent. The way he would soothe our daughter was a little over the top to me but I recognized it because I’d done the same with my son. He’d bounce her, shush her, run to meet every single demand. At one point, he was literally pitting green olives for her every night because she’d decided that’s what she wanted before going to sleep. It became a whole ritual where he’d sing to her, bounce her, deliver the olives to her crib. 

I did flag it, but he wasn’t ready to hear it. Eventually, though, I saw him get overwhelmed, kind of freaking out, and I told him, You just need more boundaries with her. I think if we ever had another baby, he’d come in with those rock-solid boundaries. If the baby ever asked for olives in the crib? Absolutely not.

“I’m not on some quest to live forever” 

There's a wellness industry that was not there when I first became a parent. Over the past 15 years, I’ve watched it become this huge, loud, fast-moving thing. What I keep coming back to is my own unique experience.

There's so much contradicting data out there. There are so many opinions out there. There are so many tech bros screaming at you on the internet every day telling you you're doing everything wrong and everything's poison and nothing works or crazy things work.

I’ve learned to trust myself. To recognize that what works for me now might not work next week because my body and environment are always changing. I haven’t found one doctor, news source, scientist, or company that has absolute truth. So I read, I listen, and I take what resonates. It’s okay to agree with 80% of something—or 20%—and still find value in it.

For me, wellness has become about cherry-picking what works and being okay with that. Honestly, wellness feels a lot like parenting in that sense. Everybody's got a lot of opinions and there's a lot of conflicting data and there's a lot of different ways to go about it. And as a mother, you kind of have to hear a bunch of things and then decide what works for you, what works for your family.

Moon Juice launched at a time when everything was very editorial. Stories were filtered through magazine writers and editors. I might have talked to someone for two hours, and then a few soundbites would make it into print, shaped into the narrative they wanted to tell. That’s so different from how people get to know someone now, through podcasts, Instagram Stories, interviews in their own words.

A lot of what’s out there about me from that time was sensationalized. There’s this idea that I’m living some wild, extreme lifestyle, when really, the things I was talking about back then just sounded extreme for the time. Some of those things were, for example, not eating as much sugar and grains and subbing out like a piece of bread with a steamed collard leaf.

Fast-forward to now, and there’s an entire place like Erewhon doing all of that and it’s totally normal. There’s still this lingering perception that I’m doing something wild. Editors used to always ask, What’s the craziest thing you’re into right now? And I’d have to say there was nothing new. I’m doing the same things I was doing 15 years ago: acupuncture, infrared sauna, kinesiology, eating a low-inflammatory diet. It’s all the same. It just doesn’t shock people anymore.

I’m not on some quest to live forever. I’m not on a quest to look young forever. I’m not looking for the immortality serum. I mean, if somebody finds it, I’ll buy it, but that is not my life’s mission. I want to feel good, sleep well, and not be anxious or depressed. I want balanced hormones and nice skin and hair. I’m not a Brian Johnson. I'm just your normal wellness girly these days.