The fruit had a crunch to it, not soggy like the fruit served with some of our meals. And the supply was endless: heaps of grapes the size of marbles, strawberries that were swollen and very sweet, overflowing chunks of watermelon. The lights were dim and jazz music played over the speaker. Everything felt soothing. 

For the incarcerated women at New Jersey’s only women’s correctional facility, Edna Mahan, Mother’s Day is high on the list of the hardest days we face. But Mother’s Day 2025 was a day of celebration with the annual Mother’s Day Jazz event. 

Lasting for one hour, Mother’s Day Jazz allowed attendees an opportunity to be treated like women, mothers and daughters, incarcerated or not. The inclusive event was created by the head of chaplaincy, Joy Lynch, and co-sponsored by the social services department. 

2025 was the celebration’s fourth year. Preparations began early. Toward the second week of April, eye-catching invitational flyers were posted on bulletin boards throughout the housing units. The prerequisites for attendance did not include motherhood. Any woman could come if she was one year charge-free (no institutional infractions) and had no “keep separate” status, meaning she can’t be near someone else at the facility because they’re likely to fight.

The event was held in the gymnasium of the North Hall housing unit. It looked like a fancy banquet hall, the kind that would exist somewhere far outside these barbed-wired gates. The room and folding tables were covered in purples, yellows and whites. Places were set with golden plates and eating utensils. 

Since the event was held in the morning, the women enjoyed a breakfast together after the refreshments. I remember experiencing my first taste of quiche. I couldn’t get enough of it. 

Festivities included educational games centered on Mother’s Day. For example: Mother’s Day was first celebrated in the United States in…? The colors purple and yellow are significant on Mother’s Day because…? 

Who knew? Me, it turns out. I won a $2 gift card for a nail service at our facility’s beauty school for the most correct answers. (Mother’s Day was first celebrated in 1908, yellow represents joy and purple represents respect). 

It was a fun, relaxing hour out of what could have been a very painful Sunday. As I looked around at the smiling, lighthearted faces, I realized that our roles as mothers, sisters and daughters did not stop when we became incarcerated. 

Others felt this, too. I spoke briefly with Latonia Bellamy, a first-time mother of a 2-year-old. The 2025 event was her second year of attendance. She was thankful for being recognized as a mother despite being incarcerated, recalling “I was a mother figure long before I became a mother. I have younger siblings and have had to care for them while growing up.” 

Today, Bellamy is an active mother. She receives regular visits with her daughter and has dozens of 30-second videos of her child stored on her JPay tablet. She is emblematic of many incarcerated women who are away from their children and families. 

Recognizing the diversity of what incarcerated motherhood can look like was also central to the event. Take Carline Inginac, for example. She is not a biological mother yet, but her presence as a mother figure to the younger ladies housed inside Hillcrest, a substance recovery housing unit, is wonderful. 

When asked about the event, Inginac said: “To allow so many of us as mothers and sisters to come together and celebrate each other, as well as to be celebrated, has been blissful. Being incarcerated 13 years has brought many ups and downs for me, but events like this I hold in my spirit.”

Sadly, this year brought changes to our prison, including a new administration that hasn’t made an effort to maintain the tradition of inclusive Mother’s Day celebrations. As April drew to a close, there were no flyers announcing a 2026 Jazz event. The facility also did not allow the purchase of Mother’s Day cards to send home to women in our families, or to distribute to each other in recognition of the various roles women like Inginac play to the younger incarcerated people housed here. 

The social services department did have a separate celebration for incarcerated women who participate in a Title XX mother-child visitation program. There was happiness for those women who could celebrate with their children. But it raised the question among the rest of the women: What about us?

Mother is a verb — it is the act of nurturing, loving and caring for our children as well as those throughout our communities. We deserve to have a proper Mother’s Day celebration, one that acknowledges the diversity of what motherhood can mean.

That said, the absence of an institutional celebration didn’t dim our desire to acknowledge and uplift one another around the holiday. A week after Mother’s Day 2026, women throughout the compounds were still wishing those they had not seen a Happy Mother’s Day. I’m sure that tradition, at least, will carry on.