Someone sent me this link to a talk by John Cleese about creativity, which I watched, at first, because I figured there’d be a few good jokes.  But I realized, watching, that although he’s supposedly talking about creativity in general, the whole piece is a fabulous essay, indirectly, about the importance of creativity in parenting and birth.  And your career.  And your marriage.  And life.  Creativity is they key to happiness in all of these things, and it isn’t a talent but a mode of operating.  Anyone can get at it.

I couldn’t agree more.

Many of you who have taken my classes/workshops/groups have heard me talk about how important it is for mothers to maintain a playful sense of curiosity, humor, and faith that although pregnancy, childbirth and parenthood are very serious, they are not meant to be solemn. Curiosity, a willingness to experiment and be silly and get stuff wrong (because a wrong choice might be a stepping stone to something brilliant), a sense of humor … these are some of the ingredients of the creative mode, and Cleese’s speech is all about how to get at that mode more easily.

Scary things happen when you embark on parenthood.  The stakes can feel really high.  Scary things make us anxious, and anxiety can squash out the open, fun, confident feeling that lets us be our most creative selves.  John Cleese says that the “closed mode” (where we’re not able to be creative), is characterized by anxious feelings, impatience, attempts to be organized, focus on small trivial tasks, and, sometimes, manic pursuit of a goal.  In short, it’s where new moms spend a lot of their time. 

One of the problems is that anxiety makes us worry that we don’t know enough.  So we consult experts — too often we don’t consult the kind of experts who guide and support us in being authors of our own lives, but, instead, the kind who confirm our fears that we don’t know anything and solemnly tell us How To Do Everything Their Way.  But if you are a non-generic person with a non-generic child, generic advice — even from famous experts — will not work.  

What will work is a customized, creative, individualized approach.

To do that, you need to get into the creative mode, which he describes as expansive, less purposeful, more inclined to humor, and filled with curiosity for its own sake.  (Doesn’t that sound more fun?) 

Being there will help you figure out how best for you to handle: the challenges of labor, parenting a baby, the transition back to work. Tricky infant feeding and sleep questions.  Tantrums.  Choosing a new midwife or OB or pediatrician.  Unloading the dishwasher and other shared domestic chores.  Finding time to get to the gym and have your nails painted and groove on your partner and sometimes do decadent things. In short, you’ll need to get creative to handle being an adult with a real, complicated life, and kids.  

(Well, actually, you can get by without being creative, but you deserve a life where you’re not just getting by.)  

There are a bunch of key points in the speech, concrete ideas about how to get into the creative mode.  (hint:  you need time, and space, and some people you can talk to, and a sense of lightness — sounds like a new moms’ group to me!).  But you should watch him explain the whole thing, so you can look at him and think of laughing your head off at that Fawlty Towers episode with the rat.

Perhaps my favorite part is towards the end when he says that being creative requires being prepared to tolerate the anxiety of sitting with something we haven’t solved yet.  

How many of us has been there, with an annoying or worrisome problem with our babies/toddlers/work/spouse, insecure because we don’t know how to deal with it, and totally irritable that the problem is Not Fixed And What If It Never Gets Fixed And Just Gets Worse And Worse!!??!  

Being creative, and successful, and happy doesn’t mean never feeling that way.  But Cleese’s ideas about how to cope with that moment, and what comes before and after that are, I think, really inspiring.  I hope you contact me to talk more about how to apply these ideas to childbirth and parenting, one-on-one or in a group.  meredith (at) amotherisborn (dot) com (or click the “Ask” button at left and leave your contact info!)

Sometimes I picture online publishers sitting around a room looking worriedly at a bunch of charts with lines heading down down down — waning readership on their sites! Dismal traffic!  Not enough clicks!  

Then one of them grins and says, “You know what we need to do.”  And they all smirk and don’t even have to talk about what comes next.  It’s time for a Mommy-Bomb.

 All they have to do is print the word “breastfeeding.”  

Or “Formula.”  

Or “Stay-at-home mom.”  Or “Daycare.”  

Or “Epidural.”  Or “Natural Childbirth.”

And then a subtitle that includes the words “Good Enough” or “Mommy Wars.” 

Done.  They all laugh and do five minutes of work looking for someone to be the Sarah Palin (that’s what they call the “feminist” they’ll use to take a nonfeminist position for the article).  

They then open some beers and laugh about how they can get women readers to do their work for them.  They drive up traffic and ad revenue by fomenting insecurity and divisiveness and discord among the readers who can’t help but get sucked in.  

So, it just happened again, with tomorrow’s cover article in Time Magazine (note I am not linking to it), which shows a model-thin woman breastfeeding her preschooler.  This one’s got extra cha-ching because it’s not only a Mommy Bomb, it’s also a SexyBoobs Shot.  The title is, “Are You Mom Enough?”  SexyBoob Lady is giving us a Mona Lisa smile in her tank top and skinny jeans, showing off her gym-toned arms while her three year old suckles.  She can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and squirt that shit with home-grown organic breast milk.  Can you?

The article is apparently, about parenting styles — whether “regular” moms can measure up to Dr. William Sears’ version of Attachment Parenting; whether Attachment Parenting is keeping women down.  

Except it’s not about these things, really.  

A group of real women, gathered together with an experienced facilitator can have an amazing discussion about parenting philosophies, nursing, working vs. staying home — the works.  But online, these topics don’t lead to discussion, they lead to a shitstorm.  They’re not published to inspire discussion and thought.  They’re published to create controversy.  The hope is that you’ll click and click and click, to be scandalized or outraged, not that you’ll think, contribute, learn.

Here are a few things I think we all know, and one I think we often forget.  

1.  There’s no one perfect parenting philosophy that suits every baby and family just like not all babies are the same.

2.  Babies are really needy and there’s actually no way to raise them without getting pretty mutually attached.

3.  New moms, finding their way into their new identity are vulnerable to criticism and guilt, and can become insecure and defensive when they’re lonely with no company but the internet.

And 

4. When you click on an ad-based website, you’re making money for that site.  

I think it’s shitty that publishers run stories that exploit the normal insecurities new mothers experience.  It feels predatory to me.  Please don’t add to it by reading the story or participating.  

Instead, I suggest you take a look at two really thoughtful pieces *about* the story:  Katherine Stone’s piece on Strollerderby collects comments by over a dozen bloggers (including me!) about how to support real life women, not generic philosophies of Motherhood.  

Rebecca Odes’ piece, also on Strollerderby, takes a look at the feminist issues in the photography of the cover picture.  These pieces are worth your traffic; take a look.

There’s a kind of general cultural vibe that says that as long as your baby is healthy and your hair isn’t on fire, you shouldn’t complain.  But we all have days/weeks where ‘lousy’ is a euphemism, and especially for new moms whose lives have just turned upside down anyway, it can be hard to take. 

So, I really like this post from Meagan Francis’ lovely blog, which lists five things moms can do when they’re in a funk. Her suggestions:

1. Go for a walk
2. Take a bath
3. Clean something
4. Consume some non-computer media
5. Engage in a mentally stimulating activity.

It helps a lot to have a list there at those moments when you’re so funky you can’t even think straight.  I suggest you make one for yourself.

I have a list like this stored as a memo in my phone.  Then, if I’m walking around and positive that Everything Is Shit, I can click on a button and get visited by a saner version of myself who is saying, Darling, everything is not shit.  But don’t sit here stewing in your own juices.  Go for a freaking walk.

There are some things on my list that aren’t on Meagan’s.  They include:

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The other day, the moms in my Chelsea New MOMs series were talking about evening routines, and one mom mentioned that she likes to get into the tub with her baby.  It’s kind of a brilliant way to do some multi-tasking — you get your baby clean, you get yourself clean and you get to relax in the tub at the end of what was undoubtedly a long day.  

And apparently there’s even more to it:  a new study has found that soaking in a hot bath is helpful when you feel lonely or isolated:

Warm physical experiences were found to significantly reduce the distress of social exclusion, said the study published in the psychology journal Emotion.

“Findings suggest that physical and social warmth are to some extent substitutable in daily life,” the study concluded.

“The lonelier we get, the more we substitute the missing social warmth with physical warmth.”

Isolation can be a problem throughout the course of parenting, but especially strong for new mothers in those early weeks.  The best investment you can make in your own sanity is to reach out to others by making real, deep, personal connections with likeminded folks.  That’s what mothers’ groups and parenting classes are for.  Ideally, the moms you meet at a new moms’ group become lifelong friends who share each others’ lives through the ups and downs.  

But I know it takes a while for those relationships to deepen, so in the meantime, how about a nice bath and a cup of tea?  Warming yourself helps, and when you’re helped, you’ll be able to do more, get out, and begin to feel even better.   

Note — if you’re taking a bath with your baby for the first time, do it with someone else at home.  The tricky part is getting used to transferring a wet baby out of the tub while you’re still in it.  It’s easiest, at first, to hand the baby off to your partner, and then get out by yourself.

Full article here.

MOMs (Meeting Other Mothers) 

This is a place where you can be real: messy, and unshowered some days, energetic and fresh-from-the-gym other times, deeply inspired one week and filled with doubt the next.  MOMs is a place to sort it out and to find like-minded women in the same life-moment. Some of the people you meet here will be friends for life.   

Scroll down for schedule and registration 

Topics include

• dealing with crying and fussy behavior
• establishing routines
• getting your body back
• co-parenting with your partner
• “myths” of motherhood
• sex and intimacy and parenting
• feeding, and sleep issues
• dealing with parents and in-laws
• coping with normal new mom anxiety and doubt

UPCOMING DATES:  

• CHELSEA 6/1 - 7/6, register here 
• TRIBECA 6/27 - 8/1, link to come

• ONGOING MOMS — if you have completed a group with me previously, contact me directly at meredith (at) amotherisborn (dot) com to join an ongoing moms’ group.

TRIBECA:  2-4 at 46 Warren St (downstairs classroom). $180

CHELSEA: 12-2  at 247 W 26 Street  $180 

<Joining a group is best, but for moms who can’t, I do private parenting consults on these issues as well>

ONGOING MOMs Series.  Moms who have completed the initial six week MOMs series are invited to join an ongoing weekly or monthly group.  This is an opportunity to gather as a group with new friends and an experienced facilitator, and explore some of the topics that come up beyond the haze of the early newborn stuff.  Topics combine concrete factual information about infant development, breastfeeding, sleep, and routines with a broader discussion of motherhood.  Our focus is on the way that being a mother — not just having a baby — shapes your day and your life.  Contact me for more information.

 Look at all these happy moms and babies!

In this 2-hour workshop, we cover all the essentials of going back to work after a first child, including:

• Finding and maintaining excellent childcare
• Breastfeeding and pumping issues
• Sleep issues for working moms
• Finding “me-time”
• Negotiating boundaries at work
• Getting “everything else” done
• Co-parenting with your partner when you’re both employed
• Your relationship with your baby

Contact me for dates and to register.

Participants are invited to join a private listserv of working mothers sharing resources and continuing to support each other.

The Working Moms’ Discussion Group helps new moms prepare for and manage work/motherhood concerns. Members are a diverse group of moms who come together to share information, problem-solve, vent and find a place for their dual identities. Please contact me to find out locations, times and availability.

A couple of months ago, I blogged about “What Not To Say To A New Mother” and I’ve gotten interesting responses since then, overwhelmingly consistent in theme.  New moms, it seems, feel criticized easily, and (surprise) hate the feeling. 

They can feel a sting even when they know that they’re not being criticized (e.g., “wow, your baby is big/small/hairy/bald/loud/quiet”) (mom mentally inserts the word “too” after “is”), or that the person criticizing them is ignorant (“is your one-month-old sleeping through the night?”), or a dumbass (“you shouldn’t be carrying your 3 month old around because he’ll never learn to walk”) or creepy (“you should cover your child’s legs because otherwise someone will come over and bite them like a chicken drumstick”).

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