The Flickering
Hello second trimester creative currents - Considering impending motherhood and my creativity
The last weeks of my second trimester have brought a welcome return of my desire to create. I’ve been writing again thanks to
and her November Essay Camp, some of which I am shaping into shareable pieces. I’ve decided on the design for a patchwork play quilt for the baby and I’ve finally started the hard copy of my pregnancy journal, transferring all I’ve recorded from phone screen to paper pages, photos of my side-on growth printed and ready to be stuck down in ascending order.I’m sure it’s just a last hurrah before I bid my creativity a warm hibernation during the all consuming postnatal period but, I am secretly harbouring visions of breastfeeding and typing one handed into my iPhone notes at 3am. I imagine the cascade of urgent words through one very flexible thumb (and the relief I can do that because I got a Pro and not a Pro Max). I wonder if the fact that I will be so utterly ‘opened’ following birth that just like milk, tears and oxytocin, flow state will just pour from me?
Who knows? I’ll report back from that space when I get there. All I know is that many of my friends rediscovered and reprioritised their creativity once motherhood arrived. I’ve seen it develop in varying ways — from not returning to the corporate world and starting creative businesses, to channeling it into the interior design of their homes.
The call to create following childbirth can be grand and obviously artistic, or more subtle, a daily occurrence passing unacknowledged. Psychologist Shelley H Carson explores the terms ‘Little “c” and Big “C” creativity in relation to motherhood:
Mothering is intensely creative work, even if it doesn’t register on the “Big C” creative scale. Each day mothers complete hundreds of creative acts.
Much of the creative work that mothers complete may be called acts of everyday creativity, or “little c” creativity.
Unsurprisingly for something related to women and child-bearing, there is very little neuroscientific research into what effect pregnancy and motherhood have upon a mother’s creativity. In her excellent article for The Atlantic ‘How Motherhood Affects Creativity’, Erika Hayasaki highlights researchers observing mother rats, who have given us some clues towards answering this question. We are quite neurochemically similar to our rodent friends and they display markedly different creative traits when mothers, than before having offspring.
She will experience less memory decline in old age, and have quicker navigation skills than non-mothers, outsmarting them in mazes. She is more efficient, making fewer errors. She finds new and unusual ways to get tasks done—problem-solving approaches she had not considered before giving birth.
I’m becoming increasingly intrigued by possibly experiencing an influx of inspiration, coupled with increased focus and efficiency — which is at odds with the cultural narrative that motherhood drains women, that they can’t possibly expend energy away from their babies.
captures the argument against this perfectly in her blog ‘Motherhood and Creativity’. If I could quote the entire piece I would, so definitely give it a read if you find yourself pondering the same supposed creativity conundrum. This paragraph stood out to me:Motherhood has brought out the best in me as a creative because even though I have less time and energy, I have more hunger. Hunger to see the world through their eyes, to portray it as they see it and to make it better for them. I don't just create for myself anymore, I create for them.
I’m also sensing a shift in how I access my creativity. Historically, I create when life is difficult, when I am working through hardship. The Bardo began as my outlet from the pain of infertility, and my previous Instagram poetry account was the result of a breakup. I know that something must transform for me in relation to this — a move towards not needing intensity to tap into creative energy, as I get used to life being easier with contentment no longer a stranger.
I’ve been thinking about the contradiction I see unfolding up ahead, between the instinctive need to lose myself within motherhood, without actually losing myself. For me, it seems that my creative currents will be the best barometer for this, that the flickering will always be asking me to remember how to sustain the charge.
I love all the quotes and reflections that you included about motherhood and creativity!! 🙌🏻 so honored to be included in this as well ❤️ thank you for linking my blog post! I wrote it years ago after my youngest was born and I was honestly in the throws of PPD with a toddler and newborn at home but it was still a time where my creativity was thriving and it was honestly like a lifeline. Still processing how to be a mother and creative all these years later so coming back to these words was a gift thank you ❤️❤️