Having a book published has meant a lot of radio and podcast interviews in my life lately. And most of them I conduct in a HIGHLY PROFESSIONAL MANNER in my pajamas from my daughters’ bedroom, sitting on their bunk bed.
If the interview is just audio than no one’s the wiser about the baby spit up stain on my shoulder or my bunk bed home recording studio. But video interviews give me away. “Are you sitting in a…bunk bed?” they ask. “Ah, yes. Indeed I am.” Indeed, I am, reader.
Recently I had PLANNED for the baby to be napping before I started a skype interview for a podcast—one I was more nervous about than usual. But of course, she wasn’t napping because planning for babies to do anything at a specific time is complete nonsense.
I was a FOOL to think I had the sorcery to control her napping schedule. (When will I learn?)
So I held her and rocked her to sleep during the interview. Kind of forgetting she was still in my arms because holding babies has been the name of my game for the past decade. It was kind of a comical situation, rocking my baby to sleep while recording on an IKEA bunk bed.
I get emails a lot from young women who are scared to have kids. They have brilliant talents and passions to pursue and they are terrified that entering motherhood will mean that they will be trapped and all those dreams will die.
I’m not going to sugar coat it. Motherhood isn’t easy. Life changes dramatically once a baby enters the scene. But rather than diminishing a woman’s creative spark, I think motherhood enhances it.
Sure, there will be sleep deprivation and other challenges to deal with. But there isn’t any way to quantify what happens when a woman’s heart expands and she experiences the creative work of pregnancy, building a new human person within her own body.
And her brain actually changes (I’m not making this up) to equip her for what’s ahead. She becomes more capable of doing several things at the same time–a skill she will use when calling the pediatrician while making snacks and holding a baby while reminding the toddler to pee and gesturing wildly to the 7yo to clean up her shoes. Or maybe writing an article while being climbed on by a 3yo and answering math homework questions. Or sewing Halloween costumes while teaching times tables to the 2nd grader while comforting a melting down 2yo. Or rocking a baby to sleep on an IKEA bunk bed while recording a podcast. You get the idea.
She has inner resources to draw from that didn’t exist before.
Today I consider myself a writer. For years I felt unqualified for the title. An imposter! But someone published my book. And now it’s going to second printing. I still feel weird about it, but I think I can finally claim the title of writer.
But growing up, I never wrote outside of school assignments. I wasn’t the girl with a notebook always kept in a coat pocket, jotting down ideas for her novel. I didn’t write anything that I wouldn’t be graded on until after my son was born.
When he was a few months old I wrote a little reflection about being pregnant during Advent and waiting for my son as I waited for the Messiah. Words just flowed. It was like birthing my child opened up the creative floodgates. And I haven’t been able to stop writing since.
Now with four kids, my life is different than it would be if I weren’t a mother. But I don’t think that without my kids I would be more successfully creating.
I may only be snatching up writing time after my kids are tucked in bed and asleep. I may be recording that podcast from a children’s bunk bed while rocking a baby. But the alternative isn’t that I would be so much more productive writing in a silent well-decorated loft and recording in a professional studio. You see, I might not be writing at all. Because it was motherhood that transformed me into a maker.
I love that the experience of motherhood has changed me–into a person who makes babies, and hot chocolate, and words on a page. Into someone who creates.
Yes, it’s good to step back and be impressed by the creativity and resourcefulness that motherhood frequently forces out of you. 🙂
I completely agree… and until converting to Catholicism I don’t think I understood this or even recognized it as an option. Like so many women, I put life on hold and completely focused on my first born, to the detriment of…well, a lot.
After my conversion I began reading Catholic mom blogs in an attempt to “catch up” in my Catholic parenting. What I discovered was less about liturgical living and more of a perspective shift on parenting in general. I saw families living out their lives with the kids along side. The focus was the family, not the kids. Parents pursued passions, children got involved in their own messy and delightful way, sometimes slowing things down, but always adding to the joy.
I still occasionally struggle to include my own interests and needs in our family life, often justifying decisions because it is right “for the kids,” but it is getting easier and frankly, my kids are better for it. I’m so thankful for the many models of different thriving Catholic families and mamas.
Yes! I discovered the same thing when I converted. I had been a very conservative Protestant mama, and I dropped EVERYTHING for my kids for many years. Catholicism helped me broaden my own view of my role in the world and opened up ideas and avenues to use my other gifts too, not to the detriment of my family, but together with them. 🙂
Coming from the conservative Protestant side of things, I often wonder what the conversation is among Catholics about work and women’s roles. I see now that perhaps it is less fraught than our own. There has been some (limited) push to help Protestant women see beyond 1950’s gender roles (yet while still celebrating biblical femininity), but there’s still a long way to go…
I had a similar experience! I wrote about it in this essay recently:
Having Children Was the Best Thing I Did for My Career
http://redtri.com/having-children-was-the-best-thing-i-did-for-my-career/
Such a good article Phoebe! Thanks for sharing!
You are absolutely right and you describe it so well. And there is more to come. I am an older homeschooling mom of eight. Our five oldest have already flown the nest, our youngest is fourteen. All our kids are creative and I suddenly realized one day that the creative dreams I have never been able to pursue are now being lived by our children. Some might say: “How awful, she gave up all her dreams for her children.” But that is not how I feel. I feel proud and elated. After all, our children were created by my husband and me. I guess they could be considered vessels of our creativity. There is a wonderful novel about this: A Lantern In Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich.
Yes, times one thousand! I didn’t start writing and decide to blog until after my daughter, and I probably never would have. So glad for this blessing.
When I was a child the US Army ran ads that ended with the jingle, “Be all that you can be, in the army.” We have two generations of women (and men, but especially women) now who have been told their whole lives “Be all that you can be, Professionally”.
Entirely missing is the even greater good given to us in sacrificial love, and Our Giving of It. All true hope and change is born in this most basic action. In saying yes to marriage, we sacrifice the pursuit of personal happiness for the Joy born of lifelong trials and sacrifices made solely one for the other. And how rich a Joy it is! In opening ourselves to life and birth, we sacrifice our coupledom, and often a career, for the unknown Joys ahead as we “Be all that we can be, as a Family”. There are no guarantees in life, but there is always open to us the choice to open our hand to God and receive what He places there. Sometimes it is the lily, others times the nail, but both unite us with ultimate Joy.
This illusion that our gifts and talents can only be put to use in a rewarding, well-paid, culturally acknowledged and acceptable career is so dangerous. It truly robs us: often of our youth and, for women, fertility. We are all so focused on accumulating degrees or professional accolades that We Refuse to pursue our vocation to marriage and family life, wrong-headedly failing to see that life does not end with family, but for many of us, begins with it.
I couldn’t agree with this more! I am the type of person who does much better when I’m forced to be resourceful and use my time well, and motherhood definitely has done that for me! Before kids, I had so much less of a drive to pursue my dreams and I wasted so much time DOING NOTHING. Now any free time I have I use so much more wisely. I write about it here: http://pollyannie.com/yolo-you-only-live-online/ I am finally living my best life.
And I am also going through the transition of referring to myself as a “blogger” and “artist”, because I actually DESIGN and I actually BLOG. Now that I do those things, it’s safe to say I can claim those titles! You can’t say I’m not good at it, but you can’t say I don’t do it! Amen? Amen!
I write much less than I use to but it is much better and more worthwhile writing.
I also wonder if my husband and I, who are both writers putting our family first in our respective ways, will not end up being the real artists, but one (or more) of our children, who already have an impressive amount of poetry and the Bible memorized.
I love this! My kids have only made my passion for writing stronger. ❤️