[Genetrix #1] Welcome to Genetrix!

Welcome to Genetrix! It's the first issue.

How did we get here? I'd been collecting articles and books about motherhood and art for months when Electric Literature published Grace Elliott's "Why Do I Have to Choose Between Being a Writer and a Mother?" in which she writes:

I am having such trouble finding narratives of women who are mothers and artists, or mothers and musicians, or mothers and writers — stories in which women are both, without their struggle to be more than a mother overwhelming them... [I am] looking for a narrative in which creative women do not have to choose between abandoning their work or their children. I hope to find a story of women who live as men do: loving and ambitious, child-raisers and artists.

As a mother and a writer, this spoke to me on a soul level. Reading this immediately followed my participation in Kim Werker's Daily Making Jumpstart Live, two weeks of attempting to make something daily. In the course of that process, two weeks during which sometimes my two year old son didn't nap, I found my relationship with creativity and making changing. At first, I had ambitions of crocheting rows and rows a day, preparing elaborate meals, maybe taking up woodworking. In the middle, I started to count mixing some chai concentrate with almond milk as my making for the day. But by the end, I was, in fact, chugging along with crochet, knocking out a giant doily shawl over the course of a week. Some days I could be a mother and a creative person, and other days I couldn't.

Elliott's writing and this experience confirmed for me that I needed to seek out the stories of other creative mothers. And my natural inclination is to share the stories I find. Hence, this newsletter.

What are we doing here? Like motherhood itself, creating and curating this newsletter will be a process of trial and error. In this issue, I'll be sharing links to several blog posts and articles that inspired me and can serve as a launching point into our journey at the intersection of creativity and motherhood. In future issues, I'm hoping to include reviews of relevant books and media, and conversational interviews with actual creative mothers. But please hit reply and tell me what you would like to see in this space. I'm especially interested in ideas for how we can build a community of people interested in stories of creative mothers.

Who am I? I'm Kimberly Hirsh, and I'm a mother, performer, writer, and crafter. Most of my creativity these days is used to produce academic writing as part of my doctoral work toward a PhD in information and library science.   If you want to get to know me better, you can check out my website.

I'm a white, American, raised Christian but currently agnostic and a little witchy, chronically ill but without other disabilities, vaguely straight, monogamously heterosexually partnered, legally married, postgraduate educated, middle class cis woman. I'm a full-time graduate student with a part-time assistantship.

My son was conceived after three years of PCOS-driven anovulatory infertility via intercourse with no medical assistance other than metformin, born of my body, delivered vaginally, and while the labor, birth, and aftermath definitely came with some trauma, it was relatively uncomplicated.

I'm blessed/lucky/privileged to have my parents, my partner's parents, and our siblings all living close by and able to help with our son. He and I spend five mornings a week at a coworking space/Montessori School, but I am his primary caregiver. We live in a suburban neighborhood in a medium-sized city with many organizations and activities designed to support young children and their families.

A note on inclusion... All those characteristics and experiences mentioned above obviously affect my lens on creativity and motherhood. I'm going to deliberately seek out perspectives different than my own, but I'm also going to mess up. Please feel free to let me know when I do and to share stories and perspectives I miss. Just hit reply to get in touch.

Who counts as a creative mother? For our purposes, a mother is anyone who identifies as a mother. As for a definition of creativity, well, I'm thinking here of writers, artists, performers, designers, architects, crafters... But that definition is a floor, not a ceiling.

And now, books on books on books... During my son's first few weeks, I spent most of his naps reading about matrescence and identity crises. What did I even care about anymore, besides keeping him alive? Writing? Performing? I'd spent the past three years developing an identity as an improv comedian. Where had that identity gone? Would I ever get it back? Did I even want it back? What about all the other creative identities I'd had before? I'd been a writer, singer, actor, dancer, cross-stitcher, crocheter... Were those people still inside me? At some point in all of my browsing, I ran across Austin Kleon's recommendations for books on art and motherhood. I'm still on the first book on his list, but the fact that he could make a list gave me some hope that I could figure this out.

Motherhood is... Having a moment? That feels weird to say. But it is. Hillary Frank writes about the special misogyny reserved for mothers, pointing out that when she started the podcast The Longest Shortest Time, motherhood was considered a niche topic, while in the past few years, a new literary canon of motherhood has emerged. My take on this is that if people are mothers writing about motherhood, they must be mothers AND writers, and getting both done.

Here are several pieces illuminating this canon, including pieces that critique the new canon of motherhood for its whiteness, suggest books by people of color to be included in the canon, and ask questions about how queer people fit into this canon:

Why all the books about motherhood? (The Paris Review)
In a raft of new books, motherhood from (almost) every angle (The New York Times)
The stranger guest: The literature of pregnancy and new motherhood (LA Review of Books)
Why are we only talking about 'mom books' by white women? (The Cut)
We need to talk about whiteness in motherhood memoirs. (Electric Literature)
As a queer woman, I can't afford to be ambivalent about motherhood (Buzzfeed)
Art or Babies? (Slate)

I'll admit, I haven't finished reading all of these articles, much less any of the books mentioned in them. But I thought they might be a good place for us to start thinking about what it means to be a creative mother. I'm putting together a Goodreads shelf with all the books mentioned in these articles, and I'll keep adding to it as I learn about new works.

Get to know these creative mothers:
Sharon Van Etten, a musician and mother who says that parenting has fueled her creativity by giving her new material for her songs (but also admits that things aren't easy and sometimes you have to let some stuff fall by the wayside)

Chriselle Lim, a fashion stylist, lifestyle and beauty blogger, influencer, and mother, who offers a ton of advice for mothers and brings you into her life through her YouTube channel.

Currently reading: 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write by Sarah Ruhl. I bet you don't have time for a real book club, but if you want to read along and talk about it, let me know or tag your social media post #genetrixletter.

Until next month!
Kimberly

P. S. You probably know some other people who could use stories of creative mothers. Forward this to them, won't you?