Mom Space

I am a mom. But I occupy a funny space in the world of moms. My wife, Lauren, gave birth to our son in June 2011, mere hours after same-sex marriage was approved by our state legislature here in New York, legitimizing our Canadian marriage just in time for the two of us to become three. For all of her pregnancy, I was there. For doctor’s appointments, doula hiring, birthing classes, and of course the birth itself, I never left her side. For some of these things, my compatriots were dads. At the special buffet room in the hospital for new parents, I joined dads filling up plates to bring to the new mothers. At the birthing classes, I tried swaddling the baby doll at the same time as all the dads. In many of these situations, it didn’t feel odd at all. I was the parent-not-giving-birth, along with many others. So what if I was the only woman in that little group?

When we came home from the hospital, though, it felt different. The world of parenting media is clearly demarcated. There are “mommy blogs” and “dad blogs.” Parenting magazines may aim to reach all parents, but their content is clearly aimed toward mothers, ignoring the prospect that a father might want to spend time reading about being a parent. At the beginning of our son’s life, most of the decisions we were making on a regular basis circled around breastfeeding, and I often felt helpless as my wife and son struggled to find their groove, but also strangely empathetic in a distinctly feminine way.

There was some commiserating I could do with other dads, but the general tone of their observations had a certain masculinity with which I couldn’t keep up.  I didn’t have to go back to work immediately like many dads I know. After Lauren’s parental leave was over, I took mine (grateful to my employer for being flexible about when I took my leave, and for treating me like the equal parent I am). I spent close to three months as the primary caregiver during the day, often tooling around the mall or local parks wearing Hank in a carrier, proud as a peacock, but also feeling like I was masquerading as a mom. Being a mom felt simultaneously deeply natural and deeply odd. What was I to do with all I had heard from moms talking about the transcendence of giving birth? What was I to do with all of talk about the bonding that breastfeeding brings? Dads presumably can’t fully understand these things either, but I have never felt like dad, not for one second.

At times it felt like a performance of sorts, as though I were performing motherhood rather than inhabiting it. I do not feel this way at all about parenthood, I have felt like a parent from the second I knew the baby was coming. I prepared for it intellectually and emotionally, and I have embraced the responsibility, joy, and challenges as fully as anyone. Yet, as Mother’s Day approached, I felt a strange sensation. Lauren and I approach parenting as an equal enterprise, from being up together in the middle of the night, to coming up with elaborate schedules to share housework as best we can. Nonetheless, her role as the mom who was pregnant, gave birth, and nurses our son is so preternaturally maternal, on a day like Mother’s Day, it’s hard to know how best to carve out space for who I am as a parent.

After spending a lovely Mother’s Day having brunch, going to a park, and playing in the sunshine, I realized: she is Mommy, and I am Mama. As our son nears his first birthday, I am doing my best to reject the constraints of nomenclature and simply be Mama, and all that means. Mama is usually the first one to hear when Hank wakes up, and Mama feeds Hank dinner, and Mama and Hank watch baseball together. It is in these moments that terminology is wholly irrelevant, and family just is.

K's maternity

[gallery link="file"] One photographer captures another's pregnancy through the lens of their friendship.

Home.

If you want people to look at you like you’re mad, tell them you’re moving to Indonesia. Always, always, their eyes widen a bit and their first words in response are usually painted in some deep blue shade of why. There’s no escaping the inevitable yet ever-so-polite mention of tsunamis – sometimes with the t, even – and active volcanoes and earthquakes and vaguely specific bombings and, most enjoyably, a link to a YouTube gem of a chubby boy under three smoking like a fiend, accompanied by a pointed look at my six year old and raised eyebrows. As if I haven’t already warned Esmé against the dangers of performing shirtless around anything on fire. On camera. For free.

I really do always know what to say, though. I’ve had years of practice. First, before we moved to Oman, and then a few years later when we left for Jordan. With a slight wave of my hands and murmurs of nothing to fear but fear itself…and maybe also Dengue…we all usually swim away from the conversation safely to higher ground. Usually.

Because every once in a while, someone sweetly tries to drown me.

“Won’t you miss home?”

Home. That one word and I start to flail.

Shirtless summers catching frogs and singing Simon & Garfunkel  into the box fan, thinking that making love in the afternoon sounded lovely at the age of five and differently just as at the age of now. Whiling away entire afternoons with a pack of Juicy Fruit gum and a stack of library books, never far from the hose. Or my mom. Holding tight to my best friend named Grandpa until the night my dad picked him up like he wasn’t 6’2” and the strongest man in the world anymore, carrying him outside to meet the ambulance and haplessly slow paramedics in the driveway.

Gasping, I search for shore, but all I see is the piece of red velvet hanging from my attic door the year Santa ripped his pants, which was only a few years before all of my older sisters and brothers moved out and moved on, diluting my Christmas magic with every in-law they added.

I call for help, but all I hear is the telephone. My dad’s cancer is back, and it stays until he is gone. The next thing I know, my sister calls with the same news of her own. It’ll be okay, she promised. And she promised again and again and again with the births of my first and second and third girls. And two weeks after that, there would be no more calls. She stayed as long as she possibly could.

I guess she was right. It is okay. And so am I. Some days, flooded. Most days, afloat.

Home. I can’t for the life of me picture it. It still looks like my mom and smells like Oscar de la Renta and vanilla ice cream and chlorine and lilacs and cow manure. It’s in my daughters’ chandelier smiles, unbreakable wills, and their every move. Every. Single. One. It’s when he walks in the door, and I only know this because it disappears every time he leaves. It’s in the first haircut I gave my girls after my sister’s death, biting the insides of my cheeks bloody and drowning in tears. Is it even? I wondered. Not remotely.

It’s in the eyes of someone who has lost her world, someone who’s found it, and someone who’s trying her damnedest to get it all back. It’s in Sunday meatloaf and fish fries on Fridays and fireworks on the Fourth and the agony of annual exams that leave you feeling like you’ve just dodged a bullet. And also like you’ve taken one.

It’s in the babies who made it and the ones who didn’t and the ones who live on in your dreams every night. It’s in the love that brought you to life and the love that nearly killed you and the dandelion that’s destroyed with one wish that everything gets better.  At some point, you’ll settle for better.

It’s in the beginnings and endings and the to be continueds. It’s in the coming and going, but mostly in the leaving for good.

I get misty every time I read the phrase home is where the heart is. It’s almost impossible not to feel a little lost when your heart’s been broken by life.

Will I miss home? Oh…I already do.

Photos found, in order, here and here and here.

Welcome!

It was a dark and stormy night—no really, it was.  Our boutique creative agency YOU + ME* was in need of a retreat/vision quest/mini sabbatical/whatever you want to call it and we decided the perfect location was Salt Lake City in January.  We weren’t there to seek inspiration at Sundance or on the slopes (though that would have been a solid plan following the storm that blew through town).  Instead, we flew three quarters of the way across the country to attend the Altitude Summit, lovingly referred to as Alt, a design and social media conference that attracts creative powerhouses from all over the country. If you think boondoggle when you hear conference, it might not be obvious why we expected to forge a bold new path for our business from the lobby of the Grand America Hotel.  But forge we did.  It was time to step away from the glare of our computer screens and into the warm glow of shiny notebooks and neon pencils.   We wanted to liberate our brains from practical matters like business taxes and invoicing systems and let our minds wander toward our biggest dreams and grandest plans.  Most importantly, we needed to meaningfully connect—with old pals, new friends, and each other.

Over the course of our four-day trip, we had a blast (um, as you can see), extended our wheelhouse with a few new tricks, and figured out the next step on our never-ending quest to create a business that reflects our values and leads to fulfilling personal and professional lives. We stayed up late into the night discussing the fact that our internet circles are closing, rather than widening, comparing our experiences of the world, and chatting about our desire to connect women to each other in ways that extend beyond what our houses and weddings look like, what we cook for our families, and how we conceive of and present our outer selves. We downed coffee after coffee contemplating the fact that the online world has been one in which women have been framed as tearing each other down rather than building each other up. We lamented the dearth of online content for women that acknowledges that we are more than our outfits, our homes, and our consumption habits.

From that, the Equals Project was born.

And it looks like others have been thinking along the same lines. From the growing "Things I'm Afraid to Tell You" movement among bloggers, to the focus on meaningful gatherings in Kinfolk magazine, to people sharing incredibly thoughtful stories online with the sole intention of helping other people achieve happiness, it's clear that the internet is evolving from a place where we store and showcase our (often-unattainable) goals into a place where we can be real, multi-dimensional people. As we slow down and think about what we are really consuming on the internet, it seems as if we as a society are aching for meaning and process, rather than destinations and results. We hope you will find here a collection of stories, discussions, and art from women across the country (and across the world) that compels you to think, contribute your own stories and thoughts, and most of all, to act.

We are more than what we can cook, we are more than what we can create, more than our makeup, our jewelry, our aesthetic tastes. We are people with complex ideas, and conflicting thoughts, who read, travel, discuss, do, and make. We are people who are influenced and inspired by the women who came before us, and we aspire to create something greater than the sum of our parts.

After many months of work, tellingly accompanied by more grins than swear words, it’s finally time for us to make the Equals Project a reality.  We still have to pinch ourselves a little bit when we think of the talent, the stories, and the passion found among this amazing group of contributors and collaborators.  And we only get more excited when we think of how the Equals Project will be interpreted in print early next year.  We've also taken to jumping up and cheering on an hourly basis when we think about kicking off Equals Does, our philanthropic call to action--money is not the only tool for making a difference in the world.  In a short while, we’ll be announcing our first project representing Equals Does and featuring a series of inspiring projects that share a similar spirit. If you’re interested in supporting the Equals Project, you’re in luck:

• Follow us on facebook and twitter for regular updates
• Share The Equals Project with your friends, family, and every nice person you meet
• Contribute your writing, photography, or video (see submission guidelines)
• Send us a story of how you’ve used your skills, talents, or sheer gumption as a force for good in the world

Let's continue this conversation and get to know each other better, shall we?

Warmly,

Elisabeth & Miya