mom next door Meet Maha Nasrallah-Babenko
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I think we get bombarded by advice, to be honest. Everything on social media now is like, don’t do this or do that. As parents, I think my advice would be to listen less to the noise and more to yourself.
BY AMELIA ROESSLER
M aha Nasrallah-Babenko moved to Colorado four and a half years ago, and has been loving it ever since. She found her balance, had a son, and started a business helping parents. Growing up in Lebanon, Maha moved to London after college. Then to Dubai, New York, Southern California, and now in the Boulder area, where she plans to stay. The past 15 years of her career have been focused on sex and relationship therapy. Now, after seeing and understanding the struggles of parents looking for support, she has started a business called Raising Parents, where parents can come togeth- er in a space and connect. “Having a child completely changes you, in so many ways that you would never expect or anticipate,” Maha says. “I always knew I loved babies and I was going to love being a mom. But I never thought I was going to love it that much, I loved it even more than I ever imagined. I want- ed to spend every second with my son, I didn’t want to leave him or miss out on any moment. It was honestly much deep- er and bigger than I ever imagined.”
Maha says she grew up knowing that raising kids took a village, and the village was always there, whether it was parents, siblings, in-laws, cousins, or other family. Here, she said she was surprised at how lonely of an experience it was to raise a child without family and support nearby. “I think one of the things that really, really helped me was that I have two best friends who don’t live in Colorado, they’re in different states, and were having babies a few months, almost a year before me. And I think having those two people to text and call pretty much on a daily basis and just talk about the experience—any- thing we were feeling, whether it was something we were excited about or cele- brating, like, he smiled for the first time, or something I’m just crying for no freak- ing reason,” she says. Fast forward two years, and Maha found herself struggling to sleep. She kept thinking about how important it was for her to have those two people in her life, other than her husband, who were going through the same things and could understand. Maha wanted to offer that to
other moms and dads locally because she knows not everyone has their village anymore. “I think sharing our stories with others who are also experiencing the same things or similar things is such a powerful tool,” explains Maha. Although her business won’t open until the spring, Maha says she wants to build a physical space where parents can bring their kids to keep them entertained while they hang out with other parents. She says it’s hard to meet at a coffee shop where there is no entertainment for a child, making it hard to have a conversation. On top of that, Maha says she wants to have regular meetups, mom groups and dad groups for emotional support, and educa- tional classes. Maha loves motherhood. “It’s all cliches that you’ve heard a million times, but it’s all true that the level of love that you feel in your heart literally explodes and expands in so many ways that you’ve never experienced before. That is one of the best parts of it.”
12 COLORADO PARENT JANUARY 2026
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