I recently read Chloe Cooper Jones’ indescribably stunning book, Easy Beauty. It’s about being seen, about being rendered invisible. It’s about ability and disability. It’s about inheritance. It’s about how we embody and search for beauty, and how those experiences define us. It’s a book I’ll be thinking about for a long time, and if I’m doing a bad job of summing up why reading it was such a moving experience, that’s because this is a book that refuses to be neatly contained. I loved it.
In Easy Beauty, Jones writes this about her experience of pregnancy as a disabled person told she would never be able to bear children:
My pregnant body drew a lot of stares. The side-to-side sway of my walk doubled. I was in constant pain and my mobility was significantly decreased. My hips locked up and it was hard to stand or walk. My small torso meant that my child rested more heavily on my lungs, making it difficult for me to breathe. Sometimes people watched me walk with anticipatory horror, certain I’d split apart in a stiff wind. Sometimes people saw me coming and felt sorry for me. Or nervous. And some people showed true shock. Everyone was curious. How had this happened? Is it permitted? What would I birth?
I kept reading the messages on the mommy support group. There was a discussion thread about co-sleeping, which suggested that to reject co-sleeping ensured a child’s sociopathy and to choose co-sleeping meant certain death. I learned a lot about crib brands, mattresses, swaddle cloths, all of which killed children. Formula killed children but breastfeed too long and you’d raise a child incapable of adult love. These women stayed vigilant. They read up on subjects. They were their child’s sword and shield. The world named them mother, protector, and these women drew strength and purpose from this designation. They were encompassed by a category that amplified them. They were their child’s safest place. But I was my child’s danger. I saw this in the eyes of others, the disgust there sometimes; I saw in the way people watched me, in the fear that followed me—I was to be named not quite mother but something else.
What’s striking to me about this passage is how Jones illuminates several familiar tenets of motherhood (external surveillance of maternal bodies, assumed maternal authority, the corporeal changes of pregnancy, searching for assurance in the netherworld of internet expertise), but forces the reader to view them (maybe) from a new perspective. Yes, most mothers experience intrusive stares from strangers, but some mothers read more explicit messages in those stares than other mothers might. Yes, many mothers experience discomfort during pregnancy, but some mothers’ experiences of pregnancy mean constant pain. Yes, many cultures presume a mother to be a “natural” authority on the safety and wellbeing of her own child, but only if that mother has the right skin color, the right body, and lives in the right zip code.
I’ve consumed a lot of “motherhood” media, but I’m continuously reminded that no one maternal narrative will ever be universal, and I’m continuously grateful to read/watch/listen to experiences of mothering that help me relearn, unlearn, and reimagine what mothering can mean. Easy Beauty was one of those books for me.
What about you? What’s the most recent piece of art you came across that illuminated mothering for you? I’d love to know.
I recently read two books of poetry that felt like looking at the act of mothering in a familiar and altogether new way. Tender Hooks, by Beth Ann Fennelly, unearthed things that I recognized physically but had never bothered to articulate to myself. Husbandry, by Matthew Dickman, made me understand that the act of mothering has nothing to do with giving a birth or even being a woman. Something I understood intellectually - people of all genders parent children that they have given birth to or adopted - but it was something more to read it from the perspective of a father who yearns for kids and writes about the intense physical experience of raising kids.
Also, Bluey? Because sometimes parenting is fun and feels good. I like the combination of fun and a lack of preciousness about childhood and parenting. It's hard and fun! So often I just talk about the hard with friends or see people exalting the magical online, but it's both at the same time. A fun, exhausting, magical, neverending death march. Bluey!
This sounds incredible; added to the list. Angela Garbes’ Essential Labor is the book I’ve been buying for all the mums in my life. It feels like the ‘fuck shit up’ book we’ve all been waiting for.
Just got a notification from my library that it was my turn for the copy of Easy Beauty, so this was a timely read.
I have an (almost) one year old and read Nightbitch during the early months, mostly late at night while trying to stay awake breastfeeding. I love how she portrays the push pull between ferocious love for your child and a desire to still be an artist. Also it was very funny!
Motherhood by Sheila Heti! Highly recommend for an exploration of motherhood and womanhood and personhood, and defining your own identity in a culture with a lot of loud opinions about who you ought to be.
The book The Electricity of Every Living Thing which is a memoir of Katherine May realizing she’s on the autism spectrum, while raising a toddler, in complete sensory overload, and trying to accomplish a big project for herself while simultaneously questioning it the entire time. The feeling of trying to perform normalcy while being in a Bad Place postpartum was very resonant.
This is my JAM. I felt like art about motherhood/ mothering/ parenthood is the antidote to the downsides social media/ Instagram motherhood.
I really want to shout out one of my friends, who surprised herself by making her dance MFA thesis about her motherhood experience (and did her MFA while raising a toddler!) You can watch her dance here, called Games Played While Lying Down (I mean!): https://vimeo.com/512536530
She then collected dance pieces and embodied experiences by and about mothers: https://theourchive.com/
Shoutout to another friend who is doing a play that very much intersects with the matrescence experience - for similar reasons, some challenges getting funding/ getting this seen as a “serious” script, go see it if you happen to be around Chicago: https://secure.athenaeumcenter.org/314/333
Madeline Donohue’s visual art got me at a key moment in pandemic isolation at home with a toddler: http://www.madelinedonahue.com/
I will definitely add Easy Beauty to the stack.
I recently read two books of poetry that felt like looking at the act of mothering in a familiar and altogether new way. Tender Hooks, by Beth Ann Fennelly, unearthed things that I recognized physically but had never bothered to articulate to myself. Husbandry, by Matthew Dickman, made me understand that the act of mothering has nothing to do with giving a birth or even being a woman. Something I understood intellectually - people of all genders parent children that they have given birth to or adopted - but it was something more to read it from the perspective of a father who yearns for kids and writes about the intense physical experience of raising kids.
Also, Bluey? Because sometimes parenting is fun and feels good. I like the combination of fun and a lack of preciousness about childhood and parenting. It's hard and fun! So often I just talk about the hard with friends or see people exalting the magical online, but it's both at the same time. A fun, exhausting, magical, neverending death march. Bluey!
This sounds incredible; added to the list. Angela Garbes’ Essential Labor is the book I’ve been buying for all the mums in my life. It feels like the ‘fuck shit up’ book we’ve all been waiting for.
Just got a notification from my library that it was my turn for the copy of Easy Beauty, so this was a timely read.
I have an (almost) one year old and read Nightbitch during the early months, mostly late at night while trying to stay awake breastfeeding. I love how she portrays the push pull between ferocious love for your child and a desire to still be an artist. Also it was very funny!
Motherhood by Sheila Heti! Highly recommend for an exploration of motherhood and womanhood and personhood, and defining your own identity in a culture with a lot of loud opinions about who you ought to be.
+ Anything Rebecca Taussig writes: https://time.com/5926361/pandemic-pain-joy/
The book The Electricity of Every Living Thing which is a memoir of Katherine May realizing she’s on the autism spectrum, while raising a toddler, in complete sensory overload, and trying to accomplish a big project for herself while simultaneously questioning it the entire time. The feeling of trying to perform normalcy while being in a Bad Place postpartum was very resonant.
This is my JAM. I felt like art about motherhood/ mothering/ parenthood is the antidote to the downsides social media/ Instagram motherhood.
I really want to shout out one of my friends, who surprised herself by making her dance MFA thesis about her motherhood experience (and did her MFA while raising a toddler!) You can watch her dance here, called Games Played While Lying Down (I mean!): https://vimeo.com/512536530
She then collected dance pieces and embodied experiences by and about mothers: https://theourchive.com/
Disappointingly few, given how many dancers are women and mothers. :( But motherhood is seen as an obstacle in dance, not a “serious” artistic subject, etc. etc. etc. Watch a dance piece about mothering! It’s very healing! (I interviewed her about embodied cultural habits and her creation of the piece: https://poisedpowerfulparenting.buzzsprout.com/1566542/8447216-dancing-about-motherhood-w-sarah-mauney)
Shoutout to another friend who is doing a play that very much intersects with the matrescence experience - for similar reasons, some challenges getting funding/ getting this seen as a “serious” script, go see it if you happen to be around Chicago: https://secure.athenaeumcenter.org/314/333
Madeline Donohue’s visual art got me at a key moment in pandemic isolation at home with a toddler: http://www.madelinedonahue.com/
I know there’s more…