[sources for this post may be found on the bibliography page located in the sidebar to your right.]

i’ve already lamented that our society’s motherhood prototypes are extremes that are not available (or even desirable) to many of us. apparently, i am not the only one desperately looking for moms who model a different way. sarah blaffer hrdy, an anthropologist trained in sociobiology, was on this search too, only she turned to our primate ancestors and documented her findings in her 1999 book, mother nature.

hrdy’s study of primate mothers revealed that they were concerned with both the hands-on nurture of their children and the exercise of seeking status in their communities. for example, chimpanzee mothers worked hard to secure high-demand commodities like food and shelter. “their ambition helped their children to survive and, as a result, was the ultimate form of mother care” (warner, 151). it is part of our “evolutionary history” to want to care for our children and contribute to our communities in ways that benefit ourselves and others (warner, 151).

the difference is that in primate communities, these two instinctual needs were integrated and supported. there were ways for primates to develop a sense of agency while their children were only an arm’s reach away. the notion that women must choose between child-nurture and status/agency is a product of the culture we’ve created and not a sign of our natural tendencies.

if you’re not into the evolution thing, please don’t go apeshit! at the very least, primate life can inspire us to try to integrate the elements of life that matter instead of choosing between them.

first name: Sarla

age: 58 

current city: Memphis

living situation: Married with one adult child, 24, now living at home.

occupation: Yoga teacher and studio owner

how do you structure your time and space? I spend a lot of time at home alone, at least until recently, when my son came back from New York to do a show at his father’s theatre, Playhouse on the Square. At this point in my life, I feel that my career has replaced my job as a parent. I recently stopped working seven days a week. There is a fine line, for me, between work and play. Since I am a yoga teacher, and I love yoga, it is often fun to practice and teach. It is also just as often a chore. I have recently given up two private clients and one of my public classes so that I could focus more time on being artistic and creative. I practice mediation everyday, as it is the  source of all my intuition and the foundation of my life as a wife, mother, friend and business owner. I cannot imagine life without meditation.  I sit for at least 30 minutes every day. Oddly enough, my meditation space is in my home office, which also serves as my yoga studio. I think that this combination makes my workspace more sacred. 

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? At 58 I am challenged by the fact that I have fewer years ahead of me than behind. I feel wiser and more aware of the fragility of life and the tendency many of us have to work too much and play too little. I have worked full time since I was 16. I find that as I get older I want to work less, but work more because I have more time on my hands. 

It was incredibly challenging for me when my children left home.  Family is very important to me and I treasure every moment that I can spend with my adult children, of whom I’m very proud. (My daughter, Katie Nichols Cook, is a highly successful realtor at Marx and Bensdorf, and my son, Jordan Sinclair Nichols, is an actor and choreographer extraordinaire.) However, I want to do some things that I have been putting off for most of my life. One of these is writing. I have always sensed that I have a novel somewhere in me and I want to give it an opportunity to emerge. My challenge is setting aside the time each day to write.  To that end, I am now doing The Artist’s Way for the fourth time, and I saw this questionnaire as an exercise in creativity. 

-what season(s) preceded this one? Prior to this season, which I would call “the golden years,” I had “the season of malcontent,” a childhood fraught with violence, confusion, anger, addiction, and what seemed would be a never ending battle with depression. In 1990 I stopped drinking for ten years, a time I would call “the season of re-birth.” I left my marriage to be with the man who is my present husband, started teaching yoga, and established my meditation practice. In 2001, I opened Midtown Yoga, which began “the season of manifestation and hard work.” Nine years later, I feel confident as a woman, a mother, a wife, a homemaker and a very good business woman. I also believe that I am now the yoga teacher I also dreamed of being. 

-what season(s) might your future hold? “The season of  self-acceptance and limitlessness.” I want to take dance lessons. I want to write and sing. I want to give myself the gifts that I have so freely given to my children.

favorite family activity: We love to play scrabble and other board games and to watch movies together.  My favorite thing to do with my family is to go to Florida. I have gone every year since I was 18. We all love the beach at Seaside. 

favorite solo activity:I’m presently working on that. I love to read, but spend very little time doing that recreationally. I also love to take long, solitary walks. I like to swim laps and I enjoy crime shows. 

sources of inspiration: Rod Stryker, my yoga teacher, Swami Rama, Meditation, yoga, friendships, sunshine, good books, the ocean, the sky, and the never ending gift of life.

best MakeShift moment: When I was 40 years old and doing The Artist’s Way for the first time, I got a wild hair to travel across country by myself, from Memphis to Seattle. I did it and stayed there for a month with my then yoga teacher, Felicity Green. The entire trip was a makeshift moment. I never planned where I would stay along the way or where I would eat or what I would do. It was the best thing I have ever done in my entire life, besides having my two amazing children. In retrospect, I think that my whole life has been a makeshift moment. I am not a planner. I am spontaneous and have my best ideas on the fly, including seeing Midtown Yoga full blown the day I walked into what was then The Jett College of Beauty.

Sarla is married to the love of her life, Jimmy Lewis. When she is not tending to the tasks associated with owning and directing Midtown Yoga, she may be found working on her memoirs. 

our little bird is into everything now, and he truly seems happiest when he is stair-climbing (if only this were true for the rest of us). the problem is that when the monkey went through this stage, i accidentally put a large hole in the wall when i was trying to install a baby gate.

we live in a different house now, but the situation is still the same: climbing baby, sheet rock on one side, iron rail on the other. we had a very fancy retractable contraption professionally installed at the top of the stairs when we moved into our house but repeating this elaborate scheme seems so silly when this works just as well:

yes, that is one of the monkey’s outgrown shoes that is ever-so-strategically used to keep the ladder from rattling around. 

our whole family, including the 3-year-old, has grown quite accustomed to climbing over this ladder no less than 30 times a day when we want to go up or down the stairs.

since this was the brainchild of my husband, i’m going to put it to you this way. the makeshift baby gate is

a) tragic

b) genius

c) all of the above

i pick c.

what are the makeshift fixtures in your life?

first name: Melissa

age: 34 

current city: Memphis

living situation: loft apartment with husband and daughter (3 years old)

occupation: professional photographer, freelance writer

how do you structure your time and space? Currently we live in a loft, which makes the division of labor a bit tricky. When mom is on the computer, she is also in her daughter’s play space, so it makes working from home challenging. My daughter attends a daycare twice a week for a 6 hour stretches; even with his help, we often find ourselves doing our work after she goes to bed, so I often feel like I never see my husband even if he’s just across the living room! We have ultimately decided to send her to school everyday; she is intensely social, so I don’t feel as guilty about this decision as I once did. I’ve made sure to spend an hour out of her school time for pilates; that’s my church. 

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? trying to stay present as my daughter’s creativity and imagination blossoms; often she wants to play some hybrid role playing game, and I’m trying not to think about client emails I need to return

-what season(s) might your future hold? Spring – renewal for both of us. Also, my husband and I are blessed with fairly flexible schedules (read: no schedule) due to our freelance jobs. But the flip side of this is little structure and chaotic child care. A lot of my day consists of trying to steal time to edit photos while playing dress up with my daughter. I had always envisioned having two kids, but now I can’t imagine willingly inviting more chaos into our lives. We both have siblings we love dearly, and I’m saddened by the thought of my daughter not having a brother or sister, but I get secretly giddy by the thought of how much more we could do as a family of 3: travel easier, afford to travel easier. Our daughter would be that cool kid who gets to bring a friend along for awesome excursions. We wouldn’t have to split further our already fractured attention spans between 2 kids. Even better, more time with the husband, and time to revel in being his girl, not just the mama of his kids. But even the act of writing this makes me feel guilty. Another awesome kid? Why wouldn’t we try to move heaven and earth and our schedules around to have one of those?

favorite family activities: walking by the river, Rock N Romp, going to Miss Cordelia’s for groceries and a cookie 

favorite solo activities: pilates, writing at Republic Coffee, taking pictures of downtown Memphis

sources of inspiration: dinner with friends, a glass of wine while cooking dinner

best MakeShift moment: Typing an entry for a fiction contest one handed while rocking my daughter and my dog throwing up at my feet. I can’t say handled the situation gracefully, but I got the sucker done, rocked the kid to sleep and cleaned up the puke. All in a day’s work.  

the first picture was taken at a book signing for melissa’s first book, Veiled Remarks: A Curious Compendium for the Nuptually Inclined. check out melissa’s blog for her fabulous photography and well-crafted tales: http://www.modernmedusahead.blogspot.

[this one is for katie in sunny california. all quotation sources can be found by clicking on the bibligraphy page in the sidebar.]

early in my parenting career i accidentally wandered onto the battlefield where working moms and stay-at-home moms go to embed their insecurities in the condemnation of each other. funny — i just thought i was taking my kid to the playground. i was hoisting my little monkey into the swing when i had my first encounter. before she ever even learned my name, a fellow mother asked me if i stay at home full time (and strangely, whether or not i know how to knit). i was nobody until was grouped into one of two categories: that of the working mothers who don’t care about their kids, and that of the stay-at-home moms whose brains are mushy and full of cobwebs.

here is but one arrow in the quiver of the stay-at-home mother:

“whose life was ‘worth’ more — the mother’s or the child’s?… if a woman ‘chose’ to work, she was doing so at the ‘expense’ of her child” (warner 2005, 117-118).

the working mother might load her cannon with this:

“studies have never shown that total immersion in motherhood makes mothers happy or does their children any good. on the contrary, studies have shown that  mothers who are able to make a life for themselves tend to be happy and to make their children happy. the self-fulfillment they get from a well-rounded life actually makes them more emotionally available for their children — in part because they’re less needy” (warner 2005, 133).

my old marriage and family textbook explains that happy, satisfied mothers are more able to raise happy, satisfied children. it is not whether one stays at home or works outside of the home that relates to the health of her children. rather, a mother’s feelings about how she spends her days are more directly linked to her children’s well-being (kaplan 1998, 134).

the funny thing about this situation is that, if what my textbook says is true (and i believe it is), then these disparaging playground conversations undermine a mother’s happiness and by proxy, the happiness of her children. the mommy wars themselves are the problem, not the vocational choices we make.

so let’s quit this already! the next time someone hears how you spend your days and concludes that you are either heartless or brainless, just tell her to go to her room! if we’re going to ask our kids to play fair, we’re going to have to start heeding our own advice. let’s at least learn each other’s names before we pick teams.

[to get the mothers of invention ball rolling, i’ll be the guinea pig…]

first name: mary allison

age: 33 

current city: memphis, tn

living situation: i live in a house in the heart of the city with my husband, two little boys (ages 12 months and 3 years), and a dog.

occupation: presbyterian (u.s.a.) minister

how do you structure your time and space? i lead a study group once a week at one church and once a month at another. i also preach once a month. i prepare for all of these things in 15-minute increments while my children are napping and/or writing on the walls. this kind of ministry job is rare because it allows me to do the elements of the vocation that i love and also spend most of my time at home.

i don’t really have a schedule for taking care of household chores but i cook, grocery shop, do laundry, and sew in little snatches of time that emerge here and there. my standards for cleanliness are very low. i trade a messy house for more time to spend working and playing with my kids.

my husband and i get a sitter for one night of every weekend so we can have a dinner to ourselves, and my mom keeps my kids one day each week. the weekly “day off” allows me to lead a study group that morning and have that afternoon to myself. my husband is on kid duty on sunday mornings when i am preaching. my oldest is in school three mornings a week, and occasionally, i’ll hire a college student to care for my kids for a few hours during the week so I can exercise, catch up on writing, and do other career-related things.

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? working part-time and from home really gives me the face time i want to have with my kids. i also like that i can take advantage of unexpected windows of free time to write sermons and prepare for study groups. however, this kind of flexibility comes with a significant pay cut and very little professional recognition. sometimes i long for the kind of positive regard from the community that my husband receives as a traditional full time employee and businessman. when i’m at my worst, i spend a lot of time multi-tasking. i am at my best when i draw good boundaries and emphasize quality over quantity in terms of things that do not involve my children. the satisfaction from this season comes in experiencing the world through the eyes of small children, working with a boss who understands the demands of motherhood, planting sunflower seeds with my sons, et cetera.

-what season(s) preceded this one? before i became a part-time minister and full time mother, i was the full-time minister to students at a small liberal arts college. i loved this job, and i miss it very much.

-what season(s) might your future hold? perhaps, when my children get a little older, i will take more time to write, travel, or finish the license requirements to be a marriage and family therapist. i hope the next seasons surprise me though. i love life’s unpredictable good fortune!

favorite family activity: riding the trolley in downtown memphis. it costs our whole family a total of $2, the kids are contained and full of glee, and there are plenty of opportunities to stop, eat, and observe along the way.

favorite solo activity: yoga, jogging, hiking, quilting

sources of inspiration: people who are authentic, creative, and loving; gee’s bend quilters;  my kiddos

best MakeShift moment: i used to take my newborn with me to visit parishioners who were ill or unable to leave their homes. i quickly learned that his presence was much more healing to folks than my own! i have also sacrificed many rolls of toilet paper for the sake of my children’s entertainment while i am sermon-writing.

find mary allison at www.themsrevolution.com

the first two photographs in this post were taken by carol curry reach.

there are exciting things in store for this blog. my graphic designer is working hard on a custom header, background, and avatar (what the heck is that?). my html literacy is also a HUGE work in progress.  so… please pardon the chaos while i orient myself to the strange world of “tags,” “widgets,” “plugins,” and my new best friend: “wordpress for dummies.” and stay tuned for some aesthetic improvements.

this is a MAKESHIFT revolution after all!

the mothers of invention segments of this blog will feature moms who are using the resources they have (tin foil, computers, education, intuition, empathy, scotch tape, etc.) to do everything from potty training toddlers to excelling in their workplaces. their common thread is the search for balanced lives for themselves and their families, not the lives prescribed by the narrow models of motherhood that currently exist.

this is revolutionary for two reasons:

1)the people highlighted on these pages are not (nor do they aspire to be) martha stewart, sarah palin, hillary clinton, or june cleaver. they are a far cry from the iconic mothers, homemakers, and business women whose lives have become the fabric of many women’s self-expectations. our mothers of invention do not necessarily see themselves as revolutionaries or radicals. they are simply authentic and at peace with a middle-ground sort of life. the real revolution comes when these stories become the cultural norm, and these types of women are recognized for their innovation.

2)the mothers of invention series will display a variety of life-giving models for motherhood in hopes that these models will be used to construct new, more realistic expectations. often, women are our own worst critics as we try to patch the gap between our ideals and our realities by putting one another down. there will be no deconstruction here. this is a space for building each other up.

stay tuned to learn about the real lives of moms who are also, among other things, yoga teachers, counselors, potters, fitness instructors, photographers, and writers. if you want to nominate yourself or a friend for our mothers of invention series, check out the sidebar to the right of this post. there you will find links to our questionnaire and instructions about the nomination process.

it was christmas eve, and my husband was at the grocery store stocking up for the following morning’s family gathering. young couple nate and nicole sat before me in my living room as they perused sample prayers for their upcoming wedding. i, their officiating minister, had envisioned a professional chat, wherein i would outline their choices for the service and the theological significance conveyed by each. i would pay careful attention to the dynamic and energy of the couple’s relationship so that i could craft an honest and fitting wedding homily for their big day.

i think it is safe to assume that nate and nicole afforded their minister many glimpses into their relationship during our time together but, sadly, i did not take note of any of them. instead, i held my fussy 11-month-old in the wake of his failed nap and tried hard to ignore his obvious need for a new diaper. the eternally gracious couple would have accommodated my need to dash to the nursery for a quick pants change, but such a trip would have left my three-year-old under the christmas tree, where he was already beginning to open countless presents, despite my sternest of mommy-stares.

when i was raised in a culture, influenced so heavily by women’s progress and the promise that women could “have it all” (a fulfilling career, a joyous family life, and time for self, others, and matters of the spirit), this christmas eve circus and the superhero existence required for such fullness of life were not what i had pictured. i am a full-time mother and a part-time minister, whose partner is as supportive financially, domestically, and emotionally as he can possibly be. even so, i confess that if this chaotic and often isolating juggling act is the picture of “having it all,” then i no longer want it all.

there is such a vast territory between the ultra-traditional women’s roles of long ago and the ultra-idealistic standards for women’s success that are still prized by our culture and dangled before us like distorted fun house mirrors. who lives in this territory? are there women out there who are blazing a new path to a more balanced existence, who are replacing these old models for motherhood with the creative hum-drum of their daily lives?

it is my hunch that many wonderful, creative women live in this territory, and i am hereby making it my job to highlight as many of them as i can. it is my hope that by putting our stories together, we could go from creating healthier lives for ourselves, to creating a healthier culture of motherhood for the world.

let the MakeShift revolution begin!

the first picture in this post was taken during my brother’s wedding, an experiment in chaos wherein i was the officiant, my eldest was the ring bearer, and my husband was a groomsman. the second picture reveals the mess my children made during the last dinner party i hosted. good thing our guests had a sense of humor!