Episode #30 The Rhythm of Life: Singers Share Their Insights on Motherhood & Creativity: Part One
Welcome to Living A Vocal Life: A Podcast For Singers!
Welcome to the Living A Vocal Life Podcast, where I interview singers who have succeeded in creating a life in music. You’ll hear from vocalists of all genres, in different stages of their careers, including singers who’ve been on the Billboard charts and those who are teaching the next generation. What do they have in common? They're all performers with amazing stories to tell and experiences to share.
In our conversations, you’ll learn what inspired them to become a singer, the kinds of challenges they’ve encountered, and how they've overcome them. I'll also share what I've learned on my own journey as a singer and educator — practical tools and insights that will help you to live your best, most authentic vocal life.
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Welcome to this special episode of Living a Vocal Life, all about balancing motherhood and creativity. In this two-part series, you'll hear from 11 singers who generously agreed to answer three questions about how they navigate creativity and motherhood.
A friend and former student, Rebecca Sanborn, posted three questions on Facebook a couple of years ago when her daughter Nadia was two and a half years old. She wrote:
“Artists with children. Tell me your secrets. How do you get your work done? What are your patterns? How do you treat yourself when you can't get to your work?”
When I asked 11 singers these same questions, the responses were so rich and full of wisdom that I decided to make this a two-part series. In Part One, you'll hear how these singers structure their lives, including tips on finding time and solitude for their creative work. In Part Two, you'll hear how women navigate their inner lives when they can't get to their work, plus the many practices they use to support their emotional well-being.
Valerie Day and the photos of the eleven singers she interviews for this episode.
The women I interviewed have all experienced motherhood from different perspectives. Some have partners, while others were single when their children were born. Some of their pregnancies were planned. Others were a surprise. A few women work as full-time singers, while others supplement their income with day jobs. Two are full-time mothers who sing or perform when they can.
Of course, no two of their perspectives are the same. Yet, despite their differences, there are some common threads. These women share a deep love for their children, and they all agree parenting is one of the most difficult and rewarding things they've ever done.
“I think the challenge is just, you have to have a sense of humor. You have to roll with the punches, and then if you’re a perfectionist, that has to be thrown out the window or you’ll make yourself crazy, you’ll beat yourself up. And I mean, you’re not talking about a job where you just have a skillset. This is creative work. Creativity doesn’t just, you know, show up. You’re, you’re still trying to dig deep into something that no one else has created yet. ”
LINKS & MUSIC
I'd like to express my gratitude to the 11 women who generously lent their voices to the series:
Rebecca Sanborn
Danielle Tucker
Moana Wolfgramm
N'Kenge
Rosi Amador
Ara Lee James
Whitney Jones
Karla Harris
Alex Whiler
China Forbes, and
Stephanie Schneiderman.
It was a gift to spend time with them.
The songs featured in this series are: Stand and Sway, written by Ara Lee James and Beth Wood from their album Deep Blue, Sleep Is A Wonderful Thing, by Morley from the album Borderless Lullabies (Borderless Lullabies is a collection of songs and spoken-word recordings, with 100% of proceeds benefiting KIND: Kids In Need of Defense: supportkind.org) Right Before My Eyes, written by my husband John Smith from our Nu Shooz Orchestra album Pandora's Box, and Stephanie Schneiderman's song, Wherever You Go, from her album Crossfire.
Theme music for the Podcast was composed by John Smith. He edits all the podcast episodes too. (Thanks, honey!)
Resources
Here’s the book mentioned in the introduction to this episode: The Baby On The Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood & The Mind-Baby Problem by Julie Phillips.
This is a great list of books about art and motherhood, curated by Austin Kleon.
And here’s Mother Nurture, a book by one of my favorite psychologists, Rick Hanson, Ph.D., his wife, Jan Hanson, and Ricki Pollycove. The Hansons also have a website for mothers, NurtureMom.com. The site needs updating, but the content is still rich, relevant, and useful.
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Valerie: Hi, I'm Valerie Day, a singer, educator, and creative explorer. You might know me from my work with the Grammy-nominated band Nu Shooz. Welcome to Living A Vocal Life, where I interview singers who have succeeded in creating a life in music. You'll hear from vocalists of all genres, in different stages of their careers, including singers who've been on the Billboard charts and those who are teaching the next generation. What do they have in common? They're all performers with amazing stories to tell and experiences to share.
In our conversations, you'll learn what inspired them to become a singer, the kinds of challenges they've encountered, and how they've overcome them. I'll also share what I've learned on my own journey as a singer and educator, practical tools, and insights that will help you to live your best, most authentic vocal life. Hello, and welcome to this special episode of Living a Vocal Life, all about motherhood and creativity. This is a different kind of episode for me. Usually, I focus on one voice, one singer, and their unique vocal journey. However, in this special two-part series, you'll hear the voices of 11 singers who generously agreed to answer three questions about how they navigate creativity and motherhood.
The questions came from a Facebook post that a friend and former student, Rebecca Sanborn, wrote a couple of years ago when her daughter Nadia was two and a half years old. It was November in the Pacific Northwest. Dark and dreary. Almost a year into the pandemic. Rebecca had lost both her day job and her gigs. And on top of everything, it was the anniversary of her best friend's death.
Her pandemic bubble consisted of herself, her daughter, Nadia, and her husband Ji.
Now, despite Ji being a very involved father, Rebecca had very little time alone. She found herself feeling envious of others who were posting on Facebook about how the pandemic was giving them more time, more time to learn, deepen their practice, or create. In a moment of desperation, she posted the following message.
Artists with children. Tell me your secrets. How do you get your work done? What are your patterns? How do you treat yourself when you can't get to your work?
Her post struck a cord. 52 people commented, not all of whom were musicians. Some gave advice, while others commiserated. Many were men.
The consensus was that parenting is never easy and that having a child changes your relationship with yourself and your essential creative work. Especially when that work is your reason for living.
Andrew Solomon, author of Far From The Tree, writes that “motherhood is an identity. And the passage to motherhood is one of the most significant shifts in identity that transpires in adulthood.”
In her book, The Baby On The Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, And The Mind Baby Problem, Julie Phillips summarizes Solomon's thesis. She explains that "A woman who becomes a parent has to deal with two new relationships, one with her child and one with herself as a mother. Building these relationships and for a creative mother rebuilding her relationship to her vocation involves redefining herself as a person in relation to her child and in relation to what she expects from motherhood. In effect, she comes of age all over again."
Motherhood significantly impacts the work of women who are compelled to create. They must navigate this new coming of age while dealing with sleepless nights and disrupted creative routines and aspirations. For biological mothers, physical changes such as hormone fluctuations during and after pregnancy, weight gain and loss, and the risk of dehydration from nursing can affect their singing voice and psychological well-being.
In Rebecca's Facebook post and the many responses to it, I heard an echo of my own struggle with balancing creativity and parenting. It made me wonder — how have other singers coped? And what is the new generation of mothers experiencing?
Then I had another thought. Why not ask them? And that's how this podcast episode was born.
(SONG: Stand & Sway) Mmmmm. Shhhh. Mmmm. Shhhh. A woman's made to stand and sway, rock the baby, the baby, the baby. Shhhhh. A woman's made to stand and sway. Rock the baby, the baby, the baby. Shhhhh. A woman's made to stand and sway. Bring the water, the water. Shhhh. A woman's made to stand and sway, a woman's made to stand and sway. Bring the water, the water. A woman's made to stand and sway. Rock the baby, the baby.
Valerie: The struggle to balance art, work, and family isn't new. Throughout history, women have had limited options regarding their roles in civic and family life. They've often been relegated to caretaking positions, responsible for raising children, caring for the sick and elderly, and confined to the home.
In or outside of the family unit, most had little power or agency. For instance, it wasn't until 1900 that every state in the U.S. granted married women the right to keep the money they made and own property in their own name. And their children? Well, until the early 1800s, children were considered property - owned by their fathers.
If you were poor or a person of color, your options were even more limited. Not only were you responsible for your own children, but you often had to take on domestic work and care for the children of others.
Since those times, we've made some progress. It's been slow, but gains have been made in the last two centuries. Women have more choices regarding if and when they become a mother, at least for now.
Men, as the response to Rebecca's post shows, are more involved in raising children than ever before. But the tension between mothering and a vocation still exists.
I know from personal experience that part of that tension stems from an intense desire to create, the other from the incredible love you feel for the small being you're caring for.
A friend once said to me that having a child is like undergoing open-heart surgery, but the surgeon forgets to close you back up afterward. Your heart is just out there, vulnerable to everything.
So, how do we, as singers, cope? How do we find the time to nurture both our children and our creativity?
In Rebecca's three questions. I saw two main threads. First, there's the external thread, the practical, the structure in a life. Who will take care of the children and when? How do you make time in your days for islands of solitude in which to practice or create?
Then there's the internal thread. What kind of relationship do you have with yourself, your children, and your art? How do all these different parts of a self, often with different agendas and competing commitments, make space for each other in the constellation of your being?
The responses to these questions were so rich and full of wisdom. When I began editing the interviews, I realized it would be impossible for one episode to hold it all. So I decided to make it a two-part series. In Part One, you'll hear answers to that first thread of questions about how these singers structure their lives as creative parents. In Part Two, you'll hear how women navigate their inner lives when they can't get to their work, plus the many practices they use to support their emotional well-being.
The women I interviewed have all experienced motherhood from different perspectives. Some have partners, while others were single when their children were born, some of their pregnancies were planned. Others were a surprise. A few women work as full-time singers, while others supplement their income with day jobs. Two are full-time mothers who sing or perform when they can.
Of course, no two of their perspectives are the same. Yet, despite their differences, there are some common threads. These women share a deep love for their children, and they all agree parenting is one of the most difficult and rewarding things they've ever done.
So let's take a look at some of the answers to Rebecca's first question, How do singers get their creative work done?
[00:09:32] Karla Harris
Valerie: Here's my friend Karla Harris, a jazz singer, songwriter, and vocal instructor at Kennesaw State University. Besides performing and recording, Karla is a freelance writer for corporate communications, a job that she's done for decades. She lives in Roswell, Georgia, with her husband, John, and has two grown sons, J.J., 34, and Nate, 29.
So when your boys were young, they're only five years apart, how did you get your work done?
Karla Harris: When my youngest was little, my oldest was in kindergarten, so that helped because I could get a babysitter for Nate while J.J. was at school. When JJ was little, my mother-in-law helped watch him. We lived near her she helped watch him.
So, yeah, just because I worked from the home didn't mean that I had all these accessible hours by any means because, as everybody who has little kids knows, as soon as you sit down to work is when they decide they need your complete and total attention. I can remember times when I'd be on the phone, and I'd throw like a box of vanilla wafers basically in their general direction.
Take the sugar. Take the sugar, and please let make a phone call.
Valerie: I know. There's so little uninterrupted time.
Karla Harris: I don't feel like it was a truly very creative period for me, musically. When the kids were really little, I was in mom mode, and I was performing with bands, but you know, I had to get prepared for that.
So I can remember spending time in the basement, you know, while they were busy doing things, maybe, you know, with their dad.
So I'd be learning new songs and writing and transcribing lyrics because there was no internet, and there was no way to go find the lyrics. You had to listen to the song and try to figure out what they were saying and write your lyrics down.
You know, as far as writing music or anything, that didn't come till much, much later. And I do feel like your brain has to be open to receiving that.
And it has to have some uncluttered, uh, some, big, broad times of uncluttered thinking, at least for me.
Valerie: It seems like it takes uninterrupted it's time where you can actually go deep enough to get into a flow, and then other ideas come than would if you only have 15 minutes, or there's the threat of the wake-up.
Like they're, they're napping, but any minute, you know, half your brain, an umbilical cord is like over in the other room making sure they're alive all the time..
Karla Harris: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Or the fatigue. Or the very basic things about just living that need to get done during that time. You know, I need to whatever, mop the floor or whatever I need laundry. Yeah. Make the, make the grocery shopping list, all those things.
[00:12:16] Ara Lee James
Valerie: And here's Ara Lee James, a vocalist, poet, and somatic voice coach who's currently in graduate school and has two children, Willa, who's 13, and Iris, who's eight. Ara lives on Vashon Island in Washington State with her partner, guitarist Jamie Stillway.
How did you get your work done when they were younger?
Ara Lee: You know, I hate to say it because I know a lot of us talk about it, and it's just the answer I don't wanna give, but it was waking up before they woke up. It was, it was creating, um, a lot of, in the sort of therapy world, there's a lot of talk about islands of safety, right? Like, we need to create islands of safety for our mental health.
And I think as an artist, creating islands of solitude, islands of time that belong to you. And again, this idea that you're gonna have all day or, you know, have a, have a four-hour chunk or have an entire day or a retreat, you know, this idea, this isn't always accessible. And certainly, we can have a whole conversation about privilege, right? And the reality of all of us have different responsibilities and different lives and resources.
So for me, waking up before they were awake oftentimes really was the only time that I would have time in my mind before they were up. And, it may have been because, as a parent, once they were up, especially when they're little, you know, you're on, and you're on. You're on for, like, if you're not on, they could, they might not live. I mean, it's that kind of on, right? Like you're, you're on 100% of the time.
And so when they're sleeping, for me, when they were asleep, I could have the breath out and have time to sit and write and get my brain around thoughts that just weren't accessible when they were awake. Right?
Valerie: If you wake up early enough to have that alone time, sometimes you sacrifice sleep. So is that something that used to happen?
Ara Lee: Oh, abs, of course. Absolutely. And it wasn't, and I, you know, this idea that like every morning I'm gonna wake up at five, and that's when I'm getting my work done. It's not like that, right? I mean, there are some mornings that you can wake up, and some mornings you just can't.
[00:14:24] Moana Wolfgramm
Valerie: So there are mornings, and then there's the other end of the day. Moana Wolfgramm, one of the lead singers of the platinum-selling eighties band, The Jets, has six children with her husband Junior, three boys and three girls ranging in age from 10 to 22. Although Moana and Junior still travel for Jets gigs, they usually do so on the weekends. When they're at home on Oahu, Junior works a day job at the local college, and Moana holds down the fort at home. They also work together writing songs and recording when they have the time, usually at night.
Here's Moana talking about the challenge of finding the time for creativity.
Moana: Oh my goodness. That has been the biggest challenge. Um, my husband and I are songwriters and trying to write music with little kids around, and mind you, I breastfed all of them. So we had to get creative; bedtime, put 'em down, and then we'd sneak away from 10 to 11 at night until two in the morning just trying to write and create.
I mean, before we had kids, we had all the time in the world to just pull from any kind of influence we had and just sit for hours and just create. But when the kids come along, it's just way more challenging. I give it to anybody who's a songwriter or an artist in any way because they just drain a lot.
You're, you know, you're trying to be there for your kids, and you're also trying to remember you're your own person. So we started off doing the nocturnal shift just for a few hours that we could put in there. And, um, you know, my husband's doing a day job, and I'm a full-time mother. So, um, yeah, it was hard to get creative, but that's kind of what we did in the beginning.
And now that they're older, they take care of themselves, they kind of know a schedule. And then he and I can kind of run away and do some projects. Then I come back and run 'em to soccer and basketball and then, so I don't know. It's just one of those things where you just roll with the, you know, whatever's happening at the time.
Valerie: Right, because anything can happen at any moment and often does. Yeah.
Moana: Right before this interview, my uh, special needs daughter flooded the toilet, so I was just in there with rubber boots on just finishing that. Then I was like, Hey, let me get myself together for the interview. Just nothing ever goes right, you know?
Valerie: No. And actually, do you find that it kind of makes you a little looser about, like how you show up to these things?
Moana: Yes. I think you have to accept reality and laugh about it.
Valerie: So when you say that you and Junior, your husband, get away, does that just mean you go to a room in your house? What do you do to create the space?
Moana: Our last project was a gospel project with four sisters, and we worked on two records for them. It was kind of like a contemporary, inspirational album, and then traditional hymns. We worked at night to create the arrangements, and then we worked with some arrangers to help us execute it in the studio.
So him and I would, uh, spend our evenings pretty much arranging the stuff. And then, while the kids were in school, we would run away and create studio time. Time management is key. And if my husband was working, I would go in the studio, work with the girls, work on all the vocals, and then him and I would come back and edit at night and work with editors tuning them and all that fun stuff.
So, yeah, I mean, luckily, it was a local project. We could just come right down the street. I had to work out studio time at like six different studios in our area just to make it work. And then him and I would arrange in one living room while the kids are doing homework in the back living room.
And we don't have a big space, but you literally just do what you can just within your environment. I mean, that is the challenge of being a parent and still doing what you love.
Yeah. I, I think the challenge is just you have to have a sense of humor. You have to roll with the punches, and then if you're a perfectionist, that has to be thrown out the window, or you'll make yourself crazy, you'll beat yourself up. And I mean, you're not talking about a job where you just have a skillset. This is creative work. Creativity doesn't just, you know, show up. You're, you're still trying to dig deep into something that no one else has created yet.
Valerie: Yup. Uh, a sense of humor is definitely essential. And speaking for myself as a recovering perfectionist, I can also relate to what Mona says about throwing perfectionism out the window to stay sane. You just don't have time. As a wise woman once told me, you've just got to throw down and let good enough be good enough.
[00:19:28] Danielle Tucker
Valerie: Daniel Tucker is one of the lead singers of the San Diego-based band, The Mighty Untouchables. Danielle has a thriving vocal studio and is the driving force behind the Unstoppable Singer Summit, a three-day virtual event she created for singers featuring over 30 top industry experts that she hosts once a year.
Here's Danielle talking about what life is like now that her eight and ten-year-old daughters, Ashley and Anna, are in school, plus the mindset she's developed over time to create a family schedule that works best for all of them.
How do you get your work done with these two little ones?
Danielle: Oh gosh. Well, up until now, at this stage of their life, it was tricky. It was really tricky. But they're both in school, so I really try to make the most of the time while they are at school to get all of my stuff done. I had enrolled them in the after-school program so that I could lengthen my office hours because I wanna be able to shut everything down by the time they get home so my attention is on them and what they need and their activities. That's not always possible, but that's what I'm always shooting for. For me, it's a juggling act of just constantly reprioritizing things. So everything's always urgent. Everything always needs to be done right away. But I think I've just developed more of a mindset of, like, I'm just gonna keep the most important thing in my mind at any given time, even though there are 20 important things on the list, I'm gonna keep the top one in mind and try to, you know, work on that first.
Ever since my kids were young, I've always wanted to really show my kids who I really am. And so they were raised in a green room. I went back to work after having them probably like four weeks after having the babies.
They were in the green room with a nanny. I was coming backstage and nursing them and, you know, all this craziness. And I've never been, I guess, what you'd consider maybe a traditional mom where you do certain things a certain way, or you're a good homemaker. I'm not bad at those things, but I kind of do things differently because of who I am as a business person and artistically, but I want my girls to see that.
I want them to see that you create your life the way you wanna do it, and you don't need to apologize for that or you don't need to fit a certain mold. Society tells you how you're supposed to be a mom, you know, or else your kids are gonna be messed up and..
Valerie: Right. And it'll be all your fault.
Danielle: All your fault. And, you know, so if you don't have a refrigerator full of organic greens, you know, you're done; your kids are going to prison.
You know, it's just, it's just not true. You know, I, I, and, and so I, I do things off the beaten path a lot, but I have two really happy little girls, and they're really thriving. They're doing great. They know who their mom is, and they know that when they grow up, they can be whoever they want to be.
And so we have built a life and a schedule and a routine around who we are as people. It's not the right thing for everybody, but it really, really works for us.
And so, you know, I think any mom out there that's struggling with that, I think it's really first removing that weight of guilt or comparison to other parents out there that, like, I don't look like the mom next door, and I don't act the way she does.
I would just drop that right away. And just, you know, ask yourself who, who are you as a family, and you know, how can you build a schedule and routine and habits that align with that? And don't apologize for that.
Valerie: So when they were younger, before they were in school, what looked different, and how much does your husband help?
Danielle: Yeah, it was so much different back then, and I, I felt that same pressure of just so much mom guilt around the fact that, like, I really wanted to keep the momentum going in my business, but I also wanted to be a really good mom. Inevitably when you're putting effort in one thing, another is suffering.
And so I guess it's just kind of a little bit of a back and forth of trying to keep that somewhat in balance. But if I could go back and talk to myself as a new mom, I would say relax. And it's not always gonna be like this. Just try to enjoy all of the different stages and not feel too much pressure to make things happen. All the potty training, the bottle feeding, all of the things the, the walking, all those things you feel so pressured about.
Um, I felt tremendous guilt about the fact that I had to have a lot of help. You know, I had to have a nanny all the time. My mom was present and was there to help. My husband was there to help.
I always felt guilty that I should be able to do all this by myself. But if I had tried to do that and also run multiple businesses, I would've had a nervous breakdown.
So, you know, I asked for help. I did the best that I could. And it was a tremendous relief when they did turn that corner, where you develop a certain level of trust in your kids, where you know they're not going to jump out of a window or burn the house down or anything...
...crazy.
Valerie: Right.
Danielle: And, you know, you can turn your back for a minute and..
Valerie: Right. They're more than potty trained. You can take 'em out in the world. And they won't, they won't freak out and lie screaming on the grocery store floor cuz they didn't get the gum or...
Danielle: Right.
Yes.
Valerie: All those things.
Yeah.
Danielle: Yeah. Thank God they're at the age they are now. Cuz I really try to teach them to be independent and to take care of their own needs that they are capable of taking care of. And I think as moms, we really kind of chop their legs out from underneath them a lot of times by trying to do too much for them.
Where we're really, in the end, we're really trying to grow capable people that we can send out into society, you know, that can be, uh, helpful. So I try... I'm really always working on that, trying to make them more independent and build their confidence by showing them that, um, they can do a lot more for themselves than they think they can.
[00:25:44] N'Kenge
Valerie: N'Kenge a multi-genre singer and actress based in New Jersey, also has something to say about building confidence in her daughter, eight-year-old Jahzara.
Your daughter, Jahzara, was born in 2014. And from what I've seen on Instagram, she sounds a lot like you. She's super energetic. Tiny, cute. She's totally a ham in front of the camera. She loves to perform. So I have a few questions to ask you about parenting and childhood, but I'm gonna start with this one. How do you get your work done now that you're a mother? What's changed from before parenthood to now?
N'Kenge: I have to allocate time specifically to do my work when I am not with her. I mean, listen, I can't choose all the time. There's definitely times when I'm working, and I'm home with her. Right?
So I just can't avoid that. But now I try and do all of my work and interviews like this when she's in school, and so I have time from after I drop her off at school to when it's time to pick her up at three o'clock to do all the different things that I need to do.
Then I will also be up late at night. So after she goes to sleep, I'll do some work even though my husband will be like, come to bed, come to bed, honey, you know. And I just got just a couple of more things I need to do, a few more documents I need to print out, you know, things like that.
So, it's just kind of finding the pockets of time. And then, other times, you just gotta turn it off and be totally focused and present because these moments don't last forever. And I want to be as present as possible in her life so that she's not 18 years old, and I'm like, what happened? Right?
And there are times it's not, it's not always perfect. There are times where she's mommy; why do you always have to be on the telephone? And I have to explain to her, well, mommy works on the telephone. I'm not searching the web. You know? I'm answering emails on the phone. The phone has turned into like my workstation. No one's walking around with their computers anymore. Right? So you're getting all your emails. I'm responding to emails. I'm sending documents, sending attachments, it's like all on my telephone.
Right? So she's seeing that. And so I have to explain to her, and I'm very transparent with her. I'm like, Mommy has to work right now. This is work. Like Mommy has to go on the email, she has to send things. And in order for you to have all the wonderful lessons that you're doing on a weekly basis, that robotics club that you like so much after school, the piano lessons, the dance classes, all that stuff has to be paid for by mommy and daddy.
So this is my version of work and when I go and perform. So I have to, like, I always have to set it straight for her so she knows that mommy is working hard because I'm trying to make sure that not only am I pursuing my dream and my passion, but I'm trying to create a legacy to pass on to her. And I'm trying to give her the opportunities, all the opportunities I can possibly give her, that she could have to pursue whatever she wants to pursue, right? And have that training and that exposure. So I am very vocal about that with her.
And so I feel like because of that transparency and being vocal about that, she understands it more when she sees me working.
So I try to incorporate her fully into my life. Not just mommy has to go to work, but like, you wanna come with mommy to go to work? Right? When I have those opportunities. She'll travel with me when I do my symphony concerts. And, like sometimes, I've taken her outta school for a day or two so that she can be with me on the road doing a symphonic concert.
And then I've also incorporated her in shows. Fort Worth Symphony, we did a holiday concert, and I asked the conductor if it was OK for her to do a duet with me. And she did. And she was so professional. And I can't even imagine. Like I'd never had that kind of experience at eight years old, right? And you have this eight-year-old who walks on stage, and when I'm introducing her in the middle of the song, this huge sound of applause from like a 3000-seat house, and she just walks on stage just, totally cool.
And, you know, just with the full orchestra and then back. And then I didn't even know I, the conductor, and I watch each other for a cutoff, right? And I do like a hand movement. And I didn't know that she was doing a hand movement with me. saw a video of because she's behind me, you know, like I'm, me and the conductor are eye to eye, and she's on the other side of me. he's watching me, and I'm like, yeah, boom. And I do the hand, and I saw a video of it, and she did it exactly with me.
It's like, wow. Like, so she's holding her own, you know? And whether she's gonna do this for, um, a career, who knows? But at least she has that confidence level of being able to hold a room, you know? Whether she's singing on stage or whether she is introducing a cure for cancer.
So she's gonna have that fire, and it makes me so proud.
So, parenting is hard, but hard in a good way because you just wanna put all your heart into it. You just, you wanna be the best. You wanna be, I like, I wanna be the best mom, and I wanna be the best mentor, and I wanna give her everything I could possibly do. But at the same time, not spoil her. And at the same time make her an independent individual so that I don't have to worry when it's time for her to leave the nest. And be solid as to like what her passion is and be able to speak up when you know she wants something. And to not take no for an answer if it's something she solely believes in and is the right thing to do.
And with everything that has happened with the Black Lives Matter and so much that's happening socially too, and, you know, she's involved in that too. Like, I've had her with me for some of these peaceful marches here in New Jersey.
And so she is like in it to win it. Like, totally like, I mean, kids, not just her, but just this new generation that has been exposed to so many different things. It's been wonderful to see how they're gonna turn out as adults, you know, with these movements and making a difference in this new world that we live in.
So my goal is to raise her as a leader. And to raise her as a strong, fierce, smart, talented woman.
[00:32:41] Rosi Amador
Valerie: Speaking of strong, smart, and talented, this next mother, Rosie Amador, is all that and more A multi-lingual singer and percussionist, she also ran Music Amador, an international booking agency. Now, in addition to singing in a band with her husband, Brian, Rosi runs the family voiceover business Amador Bilingual Voiceovers.
Rosi has two grown children, Alisa and Zia. After five years of submitting recordings, Alisa won NPR's Tiny Desk Concert last year. Rosi's transgender son Zia is a visual artist and voiceover actor. One of his many projects is at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. It's Zia's voice you'll hear if you go see the exhibit about Guillermo del Toro's fantastic film Pinocchio.
Here's Rosi talking about the early years of touring with two twin babies.
Can you imagine? No.
How did you manage to get your work done when they were younger?
Rosi: Oh, what a great question. So I did end up having only two children. Brian and I thought, oh, it'd be nice to have two girls. We thought they'd, you know, pop out one at a time, but that's okay. We thought, okay, fine, then we'll take 'em, you know?
I was already 37 because I had waited because of the touring, you know, I thought it's just too hard. We better get the touring, you know, done as much as possible. Plus we had toured with our bass player whose daughter, as an infant, really needed a lot of her attention. So I thought, this is too hard, you know, for us. Uh, it will be too hard for us.
So, so I waited, and, um, we decided to continue, but we decided to ramp down a little bit. So, from 150 shows, I think we went down to, I don't know, uh, at like 80. And, at that time, what we would do is when they were really little, well, first, I took three months off. So then after that, when they were really little, I hired someone to help us and come to shows. And we, we kept it very local in the beginning to just hold onto them for me so that I wouldn't have to be nursing them, you know because I nursed for a long time. And, um, and that was a priority for me. So I wanted them nearby. I didn't wanna leave them somewhere with somebody.
And then I actually put it in our contracts when we toured. The presenters had to supply someone to take care of my kids. And most of the time, they agreed to it. You know, I paid for it, but I needed their help in arranging it. And that way, I'd only be away for a few hours.
Valerie: And my question would be as a, as someone listening, oh, how could you trust these people?
Did you feel like, I don't know, maybe in the beginning that it was harder... fear and then...
Rosi: You know, I, I didn't, and I think because so many of our wonderful friends would help take care of our twins, and they didn't know them, and they did great. These twins were, they got along with everybody, and they weren't problematic. They weren't needy, so they were super social, you know?
So I felt a sense of trust. And I also thought, okay, these people are paying us money to come and perform. They're not gonna give me a mass murderer to take care of my kids.
Valerie: Right.
Rosi: They're, you know, they know that I'm a mom. Brian's a dad, and they're not gonna feel very good if something happens to our kids.
So they made sure to choose trusted people. And it always went well. We would come home, and the kids would be like, the next day, like, we had such a good time with so-and-so. I'm like, good.
Valerie: I bet. And I, I wonder too, that must have impacted them in kind of a powerful way to learn that they could trust other people.
Rosi: Absolutely. Well, and they toured with us, you know, they toured, they were in the backseat of our van with our musicians learning from them and, and oh my gosh. So many stories that have come out of that experience. They just got used to having all these uncles cuz it was a lot of men and me in the sextet.
Yeah. And they were raised in green rooms. They say it themselves, you know, raised in green rooms because they constantly toured with us. And when they were six, we made a bilingual children's cd at the request of our fans who started having kids and saying, don't you think you would like to make a CD for kids some time with your music?
And we made a bilingual one, and we consulted with bilingual educators and the head of our kid's preschool and consultants. And Rounder Records put it out. And we had an angel who was someone who really cared about our family, fund it, and made it possible. And our kids sang on it.
Valerie: What advice would you give to aspiring singers who are also mothers?
Rosi: Get ready. It's quite a ride. You have to be so focused. So committed. Uh, I think that I've always been very good at asking for help, and that has served me well. I know what I'm good at, and I know what I'm less good at.
Once I was making enough money to cover my basic expenses, this is even, before the kids, you know, I was like, okay, I have enough. I'm gonna bring in someone else to take care of this chunk of work so that I don't so that I can do the stuff that drives our business forward. So, you know, if you're a musician, you have to be an entrepreneur. You have to get organized. You have to do your own finances, you have to do your own marketing.
And, at some point, you need to figure out, okay, do I have enough money to farm out some of this work that I'm doing so that I don't go crazy? And I recommend that you think about that carefully and start doing it as soon as you're able because otherwise, you burn out.
Valerie: It's too much.
Rosi: And it affects your music; it affects everything. Your, your spirit. It affects your enjoyment of life. I still see it, you know, some of Alisa's friends are working so, so hard. And I see, I see the effects of the burnout, you know, or the effects that it has on their body. You know, they're, they ache, they ache. And my heart goes out to them because I, I was there and, you know, I didn't immediately have the money to get help, but as soon as I did, I started to do it.
And it made a big difference. And it did mean that I made less money, but I had a saner life.
[00:38:39] China Forbes
Valerie: Another mother that's taken her child on the road is China Forbes, one of the lead singers for Pink Martini. China, like Rosi, waited until she was in her late thirties to have a baby. Her son Cameron is now in high school. Here's China talking about pregnancy postpartum, depression, touring with an infant, and how she gets her creative work done when she's home.
Did motherhood come easy to you? Was it different than you imagined it would be?
China: It was not easy. I think I was delusional because I felt like I spent my thirties cause I had, I had him right before I turned 39. So like most of my thirties, I was fretting about, am I going to have a baby? Am I not going to have a baby? Do I want to have, do I want to have a baby?
Maybe not. Like my sister had babies, and I thought, oh my God, I don't know if I can handle this.
But then I finally realized as I was getting up there that I really did want to. And then pregnancy was heaven for me, heaven because I've always been asked if I'm pregnant because my stomach sticks out a lot and my limbs are more thin.
So people always think that I'm pregnant to the point where they don't even wonder; they just blurt out, Like, when are you due? You know? It's like, oh my God.
Valerie: Never ask someone that question. Never, never, never.
China: Never, I won't ask even people who are about to go into labor if they're pregnant. But, um, I, I was so happy when I was pregnant because I could say, yes, I am pregnant. It was so I didn't have to hold it in my stomach. It was so heavenly. I didn't really have any horrible complications. It was so great.
And then I had the baby, and he was outside of my body. And suddenly everything was so complicated. You know, it was like easy to bring him around with me when I was pregnant.
Um, suddenly, I needed to have a nanny and go on tour with a baby, and I had postpartum depression, and it was really horrible. And I didn't really feel connected when he was a tiny baby. You know, it was just really horrible.
And I can't, I don't know. I just feel like people don't realize that it's not so great for everyone. I mean, I think now people are much more aware of that, but it really takes you by surprise. Cause you're so happy when the baby's born, and you can't believe like you're so lucky that you had this baby and this is so great. And then suddenly, everything changes and like crashes into this horrible pit of despair.
Valerie: I think it's, it's really hard because up until just this very moment in our culture, you didn't talk about it that much, except maybe with good friends who were also mothers to say, wow, maybe we were delusional, you know, in thinking we could do this. Because it is much harder. I don't know about you, but I felt really guilty about some of the feelings that I was having.
China: Yes. Oh yeah. It's just really, it's really tough. Especially, if you're like having chemical imbalances, you know, and you don't, you just, you, you actually cannot connect because of the way you're feeling. But I finally came out of that, and I've had a great time with my son; he's so funny and cute and hilarious. And I wrote down everything he ever said that was funny and just made a book for his 13th birthday called Cam Said, and it's all of the things he ever said and all the pictures of him at those ages.
And it's so so cool. It's so cool.
And he read it out loud to both of his grandmothers.
Valerie: Oh!
China: And loved it.
Valerie: I bet they were in heaven. What a great idea.
China: It was really good, except they weren't in heaven cause some of it's wildly inappropriate, but they liked it up to a point.
Valerie: So, yeah. So, how long did it take you to come out of that postpartum depression?
China: Um, it was about six to six to eight months.
Valerie: Hmm. Did your hormones just change, or did you do anything specific?
China: I had to take medicine. I had to take medication. Yeah. I couldn't, it wasn't happening on its own.
Valerie: Yeah, and I think a lot of times, women don't ask for the help they need. But you were probably desperate. How soon after he was born did you go on tour?
China: I went on tour in May. He was born end of February.
Valerie: Wow.
China: So he was three months.
Valerie: Three months old. And you took a nanny with you on the tour, you said. And then were you breastfeeding and backstage and then running onstage?
China: Oh my God. Yeah, I was, I was breastfeeding up until 15 months, so he toured the, you know until he was 15 months. And I would breastfeed and go on stage and then come off. And I don't know, I don't how graphic I want to get on the, on the, on the airways, but let's just say it was an emergency, like things, things build up, and you need to release them or else there's a mad, it's kind of like a fire hydrant. Let's just say that.
Valerie: Wow. Yeah. It's stressful. I don't, I mean, touring is stressful. And then to have this little one that you know is dependent on you, along with the whole audience being dependent on you and the band dependent on you for showing up and singing. It's a lot of, it's a lot of stress.
China: It is.
Valerie: How do you get your work done?
China: Now, at this age?
Valerie: Yeah. Now. I mean, I'm sure that it's changed over the years.
China: Well, I'm a night person. And yet my studio is at my piano, which is, you know, in the main room of my house and above Cameron's bedroom. So when it's nighttime, I can't really do stuff, you know? I can't really play the piano or record anything. So I try to get it done. Like I've been forced to get it done during school hours.
It's just not what; it's not the creative time of my dreams, but I found that having a child imposed a schedule on me that was actually a bit helpful because it wasn't just never-ending undefined time. It was like, you have only this many hours; get it done.
And so it's motivating in that way. But the hard thing is when they're napping, but you want to take a nap too, and that's probably what you should do. But you kind of have to just like accept; it's all about acceptance. Like you're not going to get your work done and just deal with it.
Like you cannot do it all. You can't do everything perfectly all the time. So maybe give yourself some time or hire a caregiver to give yourself like a day here and there where you have more time.
Valerie: Right where you can really dive in. Because sometimes, I mean, I agree with you when you have a set time period, and you know that like, okay, I've got an hour, and this is, what I have to just throw down. Um, there's no dinking about. And then you just have to get right to work. But then I know that I, I used to really miss those longer expansive times where I could really drill down into something in a way where I knew I wouldn't have to come back out of it for a while, you know, two or three hours.
China: Right. Oh my God. That's heaven. I love that. I, because it's so hard for me, it's hard to muster the energy to start, but once I'm started, I never want to stop. And it's always annoying that like these other things stop you, and you can never like really have that immersion that you're craving.
So I think it's knowing that they're going to grow up, and this is a short window of time. It feels like it never ends, and it will never change. But that was the thing motherhood made me realize is everything is a phase. And as hard as some of the phases feel, they really aren't going to last that long.
So just maybe try to enjoy the things that are happening in that phase. Like how darn cute that little three-year-old is.
[00:46:48] Whitney Jones
Valerie: So what about women who don't have resources, who are just starting out in life, and have barely begun to realize their dream of becoming a singer? What happens if you find yourself pregnant at age 16 and decide to keep the baby while still pursuing your goals?
Sounds hard. Right? Whitney Jones is a dynamic, talented singer-songwriter who refused to give up her dreams or her baby when she became pregnant while still in high school. With the help of family, she graduated with honors, worked two jobs, and raised money by selling chicken dinners to move to Boston, where she'd been accepted to the Berkeley School of Music.
Whitney drove from Atlanta, Georgia, to Massachusetts with Robert, her three-year-old son. The money she'd saved was enough to get them there, with a little leftover for living expenses. But Whitney still needed more to pay her tuition. Undaunted and determined, Whitney planted herself and her son in the school's financial aid office and stayed there until they found a way to help her.
Here's Whitney talking about her decision to become a mother and her determination to continue pursuing her dream of becoming a singer.
So you were 16 then when you became pregnant. And I read that all you'd wanted since seventh grade was to go to Berkeley College of Music in Boston. And so I'm just wondering why did you decide, okay, well, I'm gonna become a mom now instead of later.
Whitney: Well, honestly, uh, it's a result of trauma. You know, I, I really believe that if a teenager ends up pregnant, then something's happened along the way. And that's essentially what happened. Just to be transparent, I was molested as a child, and I was grieving going through a lot of grief process, um, after my cousin who was like, my brother died. We relocated from Illinois to Georgia. It was just a huge shift. Everything was different on top of grief. And I was just kinda lashing out, so to speak. And boom, I ended up pregnant. And I remember not knowing what my future would look like at that point. It wasn't like I planned it, you know?
I couldn't see past my circumstance, and I honestly wanted to die. I had thoughts of suicide. I couldn't, I feel like I was just in survival mode. And I remember crying a lot, and my stepmom was in town, and, um, I said, Oh, I made my family a statistic. I don't wanna be a statistic. Oh, oh. You know, like, woe is me. This happened, and I don't wanna be a statistic.
And she looked at me, and she said, well, don't. It was like a light bulb went off, and it was like, what? You can still do everything that you said you wanted to do. You just have a baby. It's gonna be hard, but you can do it. Oh, okay. So, that was a turning point for me because I definitely was depressed.
I'll say that. Um, I was, I was going through depression. And, um, that light bulb went off, and it basically lit a fire under me. It, it lit a fire under me. I was like, okay. Here we go. I'm gonna do everything that I set out to do. You know, I'm, I'm gonna beat the odds. I had so many people doubting me at that point. I wanted to prove all them wrong. I wanted to show them that I can do what I said I was gonna do, which is make it.
Valerie: And make it, she did. Whitney graduated from Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in music with a concentration in music therapy. To graduate. She created a regimented schedule that enabled her to parent attend classes, study, and hold a part-time job. She credits that schedule with teaching her how to be disciplined, a skill that still serves her. Fast forward to now. Whitney lives with her husband and their blended family in Phoenix, Arizona.
You've had two more children since you had Robert years ago.
Whitney: Now, my husband and I, we have a blended family. We have Robert, who's the 19-year-old, and then we have two others, and they're 14, 12, and then our toddler, our two-year-old, and then the six-week-old. That's the age range, 19 to six weeks.
Valerie: So, how do you get your creative work done now?
Whitney: Um, honestly, it's the same as before. I, I have to wait until I'm inspired, and when I'm inspired, everybody in the house knows I hear nothing. The food will burn. I don't know what's going on. Our other children, they call me Mama Whit, they're like, Mama Whit, Mama Whit. And I'm just like, huh, huh. Oh, okay. Yeah.
Valerie: You just tune it all out and focus.
Whitney: I tune everybody out. I tune 'em out. The only person I can't tune out right now is the six-week-old. Obviously, you know. I'm also nursing. I think breastfeeding is amazing, uh, for the mother and for the baby. So I don't tune, I don't tune him out or the toddler, but you know, for the most part, everyone else is like, I cannot hear what you're saying. I don't know what's going on. I am writing.
I do a lot of writing when people are asleep.
Valerie: So, do you sacrifice your own sleep sometimes for the muse?
Whitney: Oh, oh, yeah. Yeah. But it doesn't feel like it. I can go without food and water when I'm working on music and sleep. It energizes me.
Valerie: Do you feel, though, like it's harder to go deep into the creative process when there's all this other stuff going on?
Whitney: Now I would say that. There, there are challenges where you know, there may be a time limit, or I have to tend to something as a mom or a wife or just within our household, so I have to stop. Which always makes me a little sad. But you know, ideally, it'd be nice to just sit for 12 hours and just work on music uninterrupted. But that hasn't been the case for me.
So I, it's kind of like, okay, the baby sleep. All right. The toddlers sleep. All right. Everybody else is at school, husband's at work. Oh, okay. Woo-hoo. Gonna work on this. You know what I mean? I'm like writing really quickly or doing something.
Sometimes it's in the car. I have a lot of voice memos cuz I listen to my music on repeat, and I'm like hearing, okay, what else am I hearing with this part? What am I doing? Oh. And so I'm driving, picking kids up, and I'm like, recording voice memos. You guys be quiet. I gotta record this idea. You know? And they know, they know.
Valerie: They're respectful of your time and your creativity? Have you talked to them about that?
Whitney: So Robert obviously grew up with me in music, right? And the other two, I've known them for four years now. So they've, seen, you know what I do, and they've come to performances and concerts. They see me at the piano writing or recording videos or this or that, you know, so they know.
One of my sons, he said, Mama Whit, when you gonna make some new music? I'm tired of hearing this song.
So I was like, OK, fine. I'll make something. And so I've been working on my album actually for the past couple of years. So now I'm like, see, I have new music.
[00:54:32] Islands of Solitude
Valerie: There are numerous ways that mothers find to create space for themselves. Stealing moments when the children are sleeping in school, or even, like Whitney, tuning everyone out when she's inspired. These women also rely on family, partners, and childcare to create pockets of time for their work; islands of solitude to practice and create.
Here's Karla Harris talking about one of the ways she made time every week for songwriting.
Karla Harris: I do remember there was a time it was the first time that I got into songwriting. And I was able to carve out, with the help of my husband, a certain number of evenings that I went to a guitar-playing friend of mine, and we were collaborating on writing. And this was when the kids were little.
So that's what I did. We wrote a handful of songs, and we entered them into some local St. Louis contests. And it was really a creative outlet, and it was fun. And I did that for a short, relatively short period of time.
And then, you know, life took over, and things got busy, and I put it away, and I didn't go back to it for 20 years, I guess, you know, to songwriting. But there was that time that I made those appointments.
I reached out to him and asked if he'd be interested, and we had appointments. It was very intentional. And I think that's another thing too. If it's important to you, then you will figure out a way to get that time in.
Valerie: And here's Ara talking about the importance of creating islands of solitude within a creative relationship.
Ara Lee: Rainer Maria Rilke has this quote that talks about when you love someone being guardians of each other's solitude.
And I think particularly, I mean, for any relationship, but being in a relationship with another artist, and I know you know this, you and John, it's like you have to have time alone. You have to have time away. You can't be interrupted, you know? And there's beautiful work that happens when you co-create with someone.
And it's very different than the work that has to happen in solitude. There's no replacement for it because it's a relationship with you and you. It's a relationship with your voice and your creativity and your mind and your heart. And it's a singular journey. It really is.
[00:56:41] Alex Whiler
Valerie: Alex Weiler and her husband, Brendan, are both creative. She's a singer-songwriter. He's a visual artist. Like most creatives, they do better when there's time and space to go deeply into their creative processes. With two children, five and 18 months old, finding that time can be challenging, but they've found a way.
Here's how they create islands of solitude for each other.
Alex: We are always trying to look out for each other. I think being each other's advocate for our artwork, for the other person's artwork, because we know how healthy and how good it is for both ourselves and the other person to have that time, to release some things, to fill up the well like you said.
And so we have found, with just how we work, we both do better with like large chunks of time. And so, mostly on the weekends, we call it splitting the day or splitting the weekend, where we'll decide in the beginning of the weekend. Okay, do we want to split one day where, you know, I take the morning, and you take the afternoon? Or do we need a whole day, you know, maybe it's been one of those weeks or months where we need, I'm gonna take Saturday, and you take Sunday.
And then there's no, um, there's no resentment. There's no, like, oh, well, he's taking more time than I am. Or, you know, we really try to be careful about respecting each other's creative time. And a lot of times I'm working on music, I need them out of the house. And so there's, like, a lot of coordinating that he and I do pretty much at the beginning of every weekend just anticipating that we will need time to recharge, time to ourselves. We're both a little more introverted than others. And so we need that alone time.
And our kids, they roll with it, and they, there's definitely like, oh man, you guys need alone time? You know, from the five-year-old. He's like, what do you mean alone time? Um, he, but he knows it's, it's, he knows it's what we need, and we try to be really vocal about, you know, it's not time away from you that we need. It's just time to just take care of us.
Valerie: I love that..
Alex: So yeah, I think as they get older, maybe they will also need alone time. We'll see!
[00:59:00] Stephanie Schneiderman
Valerie: Becoming parents was a huge shift in the creative lives of singer-songwriter Stephanie Schneiderman and her husband Tony Furtado, one of the country's top banjo players and a gifted sculptor. Before their son, Liam, was born, they toured extensively together and separately. Tony and Stephanie are songwriters. Before they had a child, they had plenty of space to create.
Here Stephanie talks about how things changed after becoming parents.
Having a child in the mix, how did that change your musical career?
Stephanie: Ah, so it's such a, such an enormous way. I think one thing that has worked well with Tony and I is that we both understand what the role of solitude plays in our personal creativity. Mm-hmm. And so it was a relationship where there was quite a bit of space, even though how connected we are and how devoted we are to each other, there was a lot of space, and I think that made it work.
And that ties into your question because that really changed with Liam because your time and your space, it changes.
Valerie: I know for me, even though we waited 20 years to have Malcolm. Yeah. Which is a weird thing to be able to say, you know, but we thought we were ready, and then..
Oh my God. I wasn't, I just, I had no idea. And then I felt like there was this invisible umbilical cord always there. As he grew older and I was able to do more things, I've never felt like I was doing anything well. I felt guilty about not being there for him.
Cuz I was focused on other things, and I wanted to still create, and then, you know, I felt like I wasn't doing any of the other things well either. So, I don't know what it's like for you, but...
Stephanie: Pretty much what you just said!
Valerie: How do you deal, how do you cope with that, that feeling of never quite getting any of the lists ticked off?
Stephanie: It's such a... it's just such a tangled thing. And there's so much in there because you know, it's these small moments you wanna be available for, you wanna be available for them. Mm-hmm...
Valerie: And you can't just show up and say, okay, now we're gonna have quality time. Let's have a special moment. It doesn't...
Stephanie: Special moment begins...
Valerie: No, no. You have to be around for a big space of time, just like with anybody, really. And then there's this kind of trust and this kind of, I don't know, things just unfold rather than being pressured to happen.
Stephanie: And I think in those first few years when Liam was born, I let go a little bit, just a little bit about my career.
I mean, I have a lot of projects I've been working on, but this is my first solo album in nine years.
Valerie: Yeah. And he's how old now?
Stephanie: Nine. So there..
Valerie: There you have it.
Stephanie: There you go. There's my answer to the question. But, um, I think those first few years I really did, I, I was still busy, especially with Swan Sovereign, but I, it was different.
Both Tony and I decided he's, he was touring still quite a bit, and that was what we were choosing. We were choosing for that to be the focus and for me to be home with Liam. Mm-hmm. I remember having him on my lap and sitting and writing things on the, at the piano, and he'd just be, you can hear I would be recording it cuz you just take a little voice memo of yourself creating.
Valerie: Right.
Stephanie: And you hear these little blah, you hear these cute little sounds. And it's me trying to work on a song idea, and he's on my lap. Just, I was like, you're here for this. So here we go.
Valerie: Yeah. Yeah. Ah, so what's the hardest part of combining music and motherhood for you?
Stephanie: Just exactly what you said. I think I feel guilty when I'm really focused, and maybe I'm not available to him. But I also think he's great. He's okay. And he has parents that, you know, our jobs aren't nine to five, so we're home more in some ways.
Valerie: If it's any consolation, our son Malcolm is now 26.
Stephanie: 26. Wow.
Valerie: I know. And so I ask him every once in a while, Did you feel like I was unavailable? Cuz I remember there was one point in time I was working a lot on a nonprofit called Artist for the Arts. He'd come in when he was little and say, Mom, I'm so sick of AFTA. Like, AFTA, AFTA, AFTA. Like, he was just telling me..
Stephanie: Oh, that's so funny.
Valerie: But now that he's 26, I'll ask him what those years were like for him. And he says I'm just so lucky to have parents like you. And I'm so glad for my upbringing and all the music that was in the house. And so all the, all those kinds of things. So I think, yeah, but it is hard.
So what's your favorite thing about being a mom?
Stephanie: Ah, I mean, Liam!
Valerie: Aren't boys wonderful?
Stephanie: Oh, he's just so funny, so philosophical and funny. And I marvel at just the way he takes in the world. And it's exciting. It's exciting to watch somebody come into themselves constantly. Yeah. It's so exciting. I don't know. It's the most exciting thing.
[01:04:03] There Are No Secrets
Valerie: As you've heard in this episode, creating space for your creativity when you have children is challenging. There are no secrets. Finding islands of solitude is hard. As Rebecca said when I interviewed her recently about her Facebook post, you just have to get scrappy and use any bits of time you can find.
The other takeaway for me is that the external threads, the practicalities, and structure of life are intimately connected and interwoven with the internal thread of how you treat yourself when you feel like you can't be a good enough artist or mother. Rebecca's question, how do you treat yourself when you can't get your work done, is the question that hit me hardest.
Making music saved my life when I was young, and letting go of it for a time when my son was born was really hard. Plus, I got down on myself when I didn't live up to an impossible standard of perfection on all fronts.
So, how do we treat ourselves when we can't do the work we love? The work that keeps us sane?
In my conversations with these singers, I heard the word guilt multiple times. Many of us feel that when it comes to our children, we should be available and all-loving all the time. But as Glennon Doyle writes in Untamed, "calling martyrdom love teaches our children that when love begins, life ends." Jung said it best: There is no greater burden on a child than the unlived life of a parent.
So true. Mothering is an intensely difficult and transformational endeavor. It literally and figuratively asks us to stretch and grow in ways we never knew we could. And even though the love we feel for our children is powerful and runs deep, it can feel sometimes like an impossible task to mother.
It is, as Stephanie said, incredibly exciting to see our children becoming and blossoming right before our eyes. But growing up is hard work. It's full of uncertainty and emotional turmoil. As mothers, it can be exhausting to try and figure out and feel our way through a child's developmental stages. What worked last week has no effect today. What worked with one child might work with another, but sometimes not. Every child comes with their own gifts and challenges. I know for me, there were times when I just didn't want to be anyone's mother for a while.
When Rebecca's daughter, Nadia, was going through a particularly rough growing patch filled with emotional outbursts that would seemingly come from out of nowhere. Rebecca posted something on Facebook that resonated deeply with other mothers.
[01:07:01] Sometimes Mothers Don't Wanna Be Mothers, And That's OK.
Rebecca: I made a post that sometimes mothers don't wanna be mothers, and that's okay. And holy fuck, the private messages I got from that broke my heart.
I was like, wow. That was a therapy session in and of itself. And so many moms were like, I am so glad you said this because I haven't said it.
And sometimes I don't wanna be this, I wish I wasn't, I just wanna be alone. And all this to say that someday Nadia might read that, or she might hear a bit of a conversation I'm having with a mom about how we just want time to ourselves or... But I wanna be open with her all the time about how the same way it is when you feel angry or grumpy, it doesn't erode love or a bond or your willingness to stay.
It's just that fluctuation, right? Like in meditation, where the emotions pop up, and they're the waves on the surface of the vast, limitless ocean. As her parent, I will get angry. It doesn't mean I don't love her. I'll be crabby sometimes. It doesn't mean I don't love her. I might say the wrong thing. It doesn't mean I don't love her. I might need to be alone for a little bit. It doesn't mean I don't love her.
Just engaging in the conversation around that as it comes up naturally, you know, we talk about those things when it's the right time. But when it pops up, say, you know, you're my favorite person in the whole world. I love you more than anything. I, that's never, ever, ever gonna go away. You know, just this morning, like the first thing that she said when she woke up was like, I'm so happy you're my mama. And I'm like, I'm so happy you're my daughter. And it was the cuddliest, squishiest, most wonderful moment, and that that's gonna be there even if I am being kind of a jerk cuz my coffers are empty.
Valerie: Right, right. And here's the lovely thing too. I think children are sometimes afraid of these big feelings that they have. Because if you're angry, if you're fearful, if you're sad, it feels like there's only that feeling. That all the other feelings that you've ever felt have gone away. And they're never gonna come back because you don't have a sense of things returning. You don't have a sense of the long game, the cycle of things, the seasons of a, of an emotion. And for her to have you say these words about this, this feeling is here, but it doesn't mean that there isn't love underneath it.
Rebecca: Absolutely.
I feel like modeling the truth of where we are in a compassionate way gives permission for future Nadia when she is, has her own kids if she chooses that path, you know, that hopefully she has some permission to be outta sorts and that it's okay.
Valerie: Giving ourselves permission to feel out of sorts, naming our feelings, and then, when it's appropriate, sharing them with our kids gives them permission to do the same. We are each other's greatest teachers.
One of the things that I learned from my son was how performing wasn't the be-all, end-all of my life. The crucible of parenthood taught me that there was more to living a creative life than performing.
Opera singer Renee Fleming offers the same perspective in her book, The Inner Singer. She received advice from the renowned diva Renata Scotto, who told her to have children. She told Renee that after having her son, she approached singing from a much healthier perspective. " I don't live or die on the stage every night." she said. "I have more than that in my life."
Our children are, of course, the light of our lives, the more that puts our art and performing in perspective.
In the final part of this two-part series, you'll hear what these women have discovered about who they are as mothers and creatives and how they navigate their inner lives so they don't go batshit crazy. You won't want to miss it.
[01:11:17] Thanks For Listening!
Valerie: Thank you for listening to Part One of this series on creativity and motherhood. To learn more about the vocalists and music featured in this episode, visit livingavocallife.com. Please share your thoughts on how this episode resonated with you by leaving a comment on the episode page.
While you're there, you can also sign up for my newsletter, Vocal Notes. About once a month, you'll find an email in your inbox filled with fun, empowering, and practical tips to help you navigate your life as a singer.
Until next time be well, and keep on singing. Valerie: Hi, I'm Valerie Day, a singer, educator, and creative explorer. You might know me from my work with the Grammy-nominated band Nu Shooz. Welcome to Living A Vocal Life, where I interview singers who have succeeded in creating a life in music. You'll hear from vocalists of all genres, in different stages of their careers, including singers who've been on the Billboard charts and those who are teaching the next generation. What do they have in common? They're all performers with amazing stories to tell and experiences to share.
In our conversations, you'll learn what inspired them to become a singer, the kinds of challenges they've encountered, and how they've overcome them. I'll also share what I've learned on my own journey as a singer and educator, practical tools, and insights that will help you to live your best, most authentic vocal life. Hello, and welcome to this special episode of Living a Vocal Life, all about motherhood and creativity. This is a different kind of episode for me. Usually, I focus on one voice, one singer, and their unique vocal journey. However, in this special two-part series, you'll hear the voices of 11 singers who generously agreed to answer three questions about how they navigate creativity and motherhood.
The questions came from a Facebook post that a friend and former student, Rebecca Sanborn, wrote a couple of years ago when her daughter Nadia was two and a half years old. It was November in the Pacific Northwest. Dark and dreary. Almost a year into the pandemic. Rebecca had lost both her day job and her gigs. And on top of everything, it was the anniversary of her best friend's death.
Her pandemic bubble consisted of herself, her daughter, Nadia, and her husband Ji.
Now, despite Ji being a very involved father, Rebecca had very little time alone. She found herself feeling envious of others who were posting on Facebook about how the pandemic was giving them more time, more time to learn, deepen their practice, or create. In a moment of desperation, she posted the following message.
Artists with children. Tell me your secrets. How do you get your work done? What are your patterns? How do you treat yourself when you can't get to your work?
Her post struck a cord. 52 people commented, not all of whom were musicians. Some gave advice, while others commiserated. Many were men.
The consensus was that parenting is never easy and that having a child changes your relationship with yourself and your essential creative work. Especially when that work is your reason for living.
Andrew Solomon, author of Far From The Tree, writes that “motherhood is an identity. And the passage to motherhood is one of the most significant shifts in identity that transpires in adulthood.”
In her book, The Baby On The Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, And The Mind Baby Problem, Julie Phillips summarizes Solomon's thesis. She explains that "A woman who becomes a parent has to deal with two new relationships, one with her child and one with herself as a mother. Building these relationships and for a creative mother rebuilding her relationship to her vocation involves redefining herself as a person in relation to her child and in relation to what she expects from motherhood. In effect, she comes of age all over again."
Motherhood significantly impacts the work of women who are compelled to create. They must navigate this new coming of age while dealing with sleepless nights and disrupted creative routines and aspirations. For biological mothers, physical changes such as hormone fluctuations during and after pregnancy, weight gain and loss, and the risk of dehydration from nursing can affect their singing voice and psychological well-being.
In Rebecca's Facebook post and the many responses to it, I heard an echo of my own struggle with balancing creativity and parenting. It made me wonder — how have other singers coped? And what is the new generation of mothers experiencing?
Then I had another thought. Why not ask them? And that's how this podcast episode was born.
Mmmmm. Shhhh. Mmmm. Shhhh. A woman's made to stand and sway, rock the baby, the baby, the baby. Shhhhh. A woman's made to stand and sway. Rock the baby, the baby, the baby. Shhhhh. A woman's made to stand and sway. Bring the water, the water. Shhhh. A woman's made to stand and sway, a woman's made to stand and sway. Bring the water, the water. A woman's made to stand and sway. Rock the baby, the baby.
Valerie: The struggle to balance art, work, and family isn't new. Throughout history, women have had limited options regarding their roles in civic and family life. They've often been relegated to caretaking positions, responsible for raising children, caring for the sick and elderly, and confined to the home.
In or outside of the family unit, most had little power or agency. For instance, it wasn't until 1900 that every state in the U.S. granted married women the right to keep the money they made and own property in their own name. And their children? Well, until the early 1800s, children were considered property - owned by their fathers.
If you were poor or a person of color, your options were even more limited. Not only were you responsible for your own children, but you often had to take on domestic work and care for the children of others.
Since those times, we've made some progress. It's been slow, but gains have been made in the last two centuries. Women have more choices regarding if and when they become a mother, at least for now.
Men, as the response to Rebecca's post shows, are more involved in raising children than ever before. But the tension between mothering and a vocation still exists.
I know from personal experience that part of that tension stems from an intense desire to create, the other from the incredible love you feel for the small being you're caring for.
A friend once said to me that having a child is like undergoing open-heart surgery, but the surgeon forgets to close you back up afterward. Your heart is just out there, vulnerable to everything.
So, how do we, as singers, cope? How do we find the time to nurture both our children and our creativity?
In Rebecca's three questions. I saw two main threads. First, there's the external thread, the practical, the structure in a life. Who will take care of the children and when? How do you make time in your days for islands of solitude in which to practice or create?
Then there's the internal thread. What kind of relationship do you have with yourself, your children, and your art? How do all these different parts of a self, often with different agendas and competing commitments, make space for each other in the constellation of your being?
The responses to these questions were so rich and full of wisdom. When I began editing the interviews, I realized it would be impossible for one episode to hold it all. So I decided to make it a two-part series. In Part One, you'll hear answers to that first thread of questions about how these singers structure their lives as creative parents. In Part Two, you'll hear how women navigate their inner lives when they can't get to their work, plus the many practices they use to support their emotional wellbeing.
The women I interviewed have all experienced motherhood from different perspectives. Some have partners, while others were single when their children were born, some of their pregnancies were planned. Others were a surprise. A few women work as full-time singers, while others supplement their income with day jobs. Two are full-time mothers who sing or perform when they can.
Of course, no two of their perspectives are the same. Yet, despite their differences, there are some common threads. These women share a deep love for their children, and they all agree parenting is one of the most difficult and rewarding things they've ever done.
So let's take a look at some of the answers to Rebecca's first question, How do singers get their creative work done?
[00:09:32] Karla Harris
Valerie: Here's my friend Karla Harris, a jazz singer, songwriter, and vocal instructor at Kennesaw State University. Besides performing and recording, Karla is a freelance writer for corporate communications, a job that she's done for decades. She lives in Roswell, Georgia, with her husband, John, and has two grown sons, J.J., 34, and Nate, 29.
So when your boys were young, they're only five years apart, how did you get your work done?
Karla Harris: When my youngest was little, my oldest was in kindergarten, so that helped because I could get a babysitter for Nate while J.J. was at school. When JJ was little, my mother-in-law helped watch him. We lived near her she helped watch him.
So, yeah, just because I worked from the home didn't mean that I had all these accessible hours by any means because, as everybody who has little kids knows, as soon as you sit down to work is when they decide they need your complete and total attention. I can remember times when I'd be on the phone, and I'd throw like a box of vanilla wafers basically in their general direction.
Take the sugar. Take the sugar, and please let make a phone call.
Valerie: I know. There's so little uninterrupted time.
Karla Harris: I don't feel like it was a truly very creative period for me, musically. When the kids were really little, I was in mom mode, and I was performing with bands, but you know, I had to get prepared for that.
So I can remember spending time in the basement, you know, while they were busy doing things, maybe, you know, with their dad.
So I'd be learning new songs and writing and transcribing lyrics because there was no internet, and there was no way to go find the lyrics. You had to listen to the song and try to figure out what they were saying and write your lyrics down.
You know, as far as writing music or anything, that didn't come till much, much later. And I do feel like your brain has to be open to receiving that.
And it has to have some uncluttered, uh, some, big, broad times of uncluttered thinking, at least for me.
Valerie: It seems like it takes uninterrupted it's time where you can actually go deep enough to get into a flow, and then other ideas come than would if you only have 15 minutes, or there's the threat of the wake-up.
Like they're, they're napping, but any minute, you know, half your brain, an umbilical cord is like over in the other room making sure they're alive all the time..
Karla Harris: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Or the fatigue. Or the very basic things about just living that need to get done during that time. You know, I need to whatever, mop the floor or whatever I need laundry. Yeah. Make the, make the grocery shopping list, all those things.
[00:12:16] Ara Lee James
Valerie: And here's Ara Lee James, a vocalist, poet, and somatic voice coach who's currently in graduate school and has two children, Willa, who's 13, and Iris, who's eight. Ara lives on Vashon Island in Washington State with her partner, guitarist Jamie Stillway.
How did you get your work done when they were younger?
Ara Lee: You know, I hate to say it because I know a lot of us talk about it, and it's just the answer I don't wanna give, but it was waking up before they woke up. It was, it was creating, um, a lot of, in the sort of therapy world, there's a lot of talk about islands of safety, right? Like, we need to create islands of safety for our mental health.
And I think as an artist, creating islands of solitude, islands of time that belong to you. And again, this idea that you're gonna have all day or, you know, have a, have a four-hour chunk or have an entire day or a retreat, you know, this idea, this isn't always accessible. And certainly, we can have a whole conversation about privilege, right? And the reality of all of us have different responsibilities and different lives and resources.
So for me, waking up before they were awake oftentimes really was the only time that I would have time in my mind before they were up. And, it may have been because, as a parent, once they were up, especially when they're little, you know, you're on, and you're on. You're on for, like, if you're not on, they could, they might not live. I mean, it's that kind of on, right? Like you're, you're on 100% of the time.
And so when they're sleeping, for me, when they were asleep, I could have the breath out and have time to sit and write and get my brain around thoughts that just weren't accessible when they were awake. Right?
Valerie: If you wake up early enough to have that alone time, sometimes you sacrifice sleep. So is that something that used to happen?
Ara Lee: Oh, abs, of course. Absolutely. And it wasn't, and I, you know, this idea that like every morning I'm gonna wake up at five, and that's when I'm getting my work done. It's not like that, right? I mean, there are some mornings that you can wake up, and some mornings you just can't.
[00:14:24] Moana Wolfgramm
Valerie: So there are mornings, and then there's the other end of the day. Moana Wolfgramm, one of the lead singers of the platinum-selling eighties band, The Jets, has six children with her husband Junior, three boys and three girls ranging in age from 10 to 22. Although Moana and Junior still travel for Jets gigs, they usually do so on the weekends. When they're at home on Oahu, Junior works a day job at the local college, and Moana holds down the fort at home. They also work together writing songs and recording when they have the time, usually at night.
Here's Moana talking about the challenge of finding the time for creativity.
Moana: Oh my goodness. That has been the biggest challenge. Um, my husband and I are songwriters and trying to write music with little kids around, and mind you, I breastfed all of them. So we had to get creative; bedtime, put 'em down, and then we'd sneak away from 10 to 11 at night until two in the morning just trying to write and create.
I mean, before we had kids, we had all the time in the world to just pull from any kind of influence we had and just sit for hours and just create. But when the kids come along, it's just way more challenging. I give it to anybody who's a songwriter or an artist in any way because they just drain a lot.
You're, you know, you're trying to be there for your kids, and you're also trying to remember you're your own person. So we started off doing the nocturnal shift just for a few hours that we could put in there. And, um, you know, my husband's doing a day job, and I'm a full-time mother. So, um, yeah, it was hard to get creative, but that's kind of what we did in the beginning.
And now that they're older, they take care of themselves, they kind of know a schedule. And then he and I can kind of run away and do some projects. Then I come back and run 'em to soccer and basketball and then, so I don't know. It's just one of those things where you just roll with the, you know, whatever's happening at the time.
Valerie: Right, because anything can happen at any moment and often does. Yeah.
Moana: Right before this interview, my uh, special needs daughter flooded the toilet, so I was just in there with rubber boots on just finishing that. Then I was like, Hey, let me get myself together for the interview. Just nothing ever goes right, you know?
Valerie: No. And actually, do you find that it kind of makes you a little looser about, like how you show up to these things?
Moana: Yes. I think you have to accept reality and laugh about it.
Valerie: So when you say that you and Junior, your husband, get away, does that just mean you go to a room in your house? What do you do to create the space?
Moana: Our last project was a gospel project with four sisters, and we worked on two records for them. It was kind of like a contemporary, inspirational album, and then traditional hymns. We worked at night to create the arrangements, and then we worked with some arrangers to help us execute it in the studio.
So him and I would, uh, spend our evenings pretty much arranging the stuff. And then, while the kids were in school, we would run away and create studio time. Time management is key. And if my husband was working, I would go in the studio, work with the girls, work on all the vocals, and then him and I would come back and edit at night and work with editors tuning them and all that fun stuff.
So, yeah, I mean, luckily, it was a local project. We could just come right down the street. I had to work out studio time at like six different studios in our area just to make it work. And then him and I would arrange in one living room while the kids are doing homework in the back living room.
And we don't have a big space, but you literally just do what you can just within your environment. I mean, that is the challenge of being a parent and still doing what you love.
Yeah. I, I think the challenge is just you have to have a sense of humor. You have to roll with the punches, and then if you're a perfectionist, that has to be thrown out the window, or you'll make yourself crazy, you'll beat yourself up. And I mean, you're not talking about a job where you just have a skillset. This is creative work. Creativity doesn't just, you know, show up. You're, you're still trying to dig deep into something that no one else has created yet.
Valerie: Yup. Uh, a sense of humor is definitely essential. And speaking for myself as a recovering perfectionist, I can also relate to what Mona says about throwing perfectionism out the window to stay sane. You just don't have time. As a wise woman once told me, you've just got to throw down and let good enough be good enough.
[00:19:28] Danielle Tucker
Valerie: Daniel Tucker is one of the lead singers of the San Diego-based band, The Mighty Untouchables. Danielle has a thriving vocal studio and is the driving force behind the Unstoppable Singer Summit, a three-day virtual event she created for singers featuring over 30 top industry experts that she hosts once a year.
Here's Danielle talking about what life is like now that her eight and ten-year-old daughters, Ashley and Anna, are in school, plus the mindset she's developed over time to create a family schedule that works best for all of them.
How do you get your work done with these two little ones?
Danielle: Oh gosh. Well, up until now, at this stage of their life, it was tricky. It was really tricky. But they're both in school, so I really try to make the most of the time while they are at school to get all of my stuff done. I had enrolled them in the after-school program so that I could lengthen my office hours because I wanna be able to shut everything down by the time they get home so my attention is on them and what they need and their activities. That's not always possible, but that's what I'm always shooting for. For me, it's a juggling act of just constantly reprioritizing things. So everything's always urgent. Everything always needs to be done right away. But I think I've just developed more of a mindset of, like, I'm just gonna keep the most important thing in my mind at any given time, even though there are 20 important things on the list, I'm gonna keep the top one in mind and try to, you know, work on that first.
Ever since my kids were young, I've always wanted to really show my kids who I really am. And so they were raised in a green room. I went back to work after having them probably like four weeks after having the babies.
They were in the green room with a nanny. I was coming backstage and nursing them and, you know, all this craziness. And I've never been, I guess, what you'd consider maybe a traditional mom where you do certain things a certain way, or you're a good homemaker. I'm not bad at those things, but I kind of do things differently because of who I am as a business person and artistically, but I want my girls to see that.
I want them to see that you create your life the way you wanna do it, and you don't need to apologize for that or you don't need to fit a certain mold. Society tells you how you're supposed to be a mom, you know, or else your kids are gonna be messed up and..
Valerie: Right. And it'll be all your fault.
Danielle: All your fault. And, you know, so if you don't have a refrigerator full of organic greens, you know, you're done; your kids are going to prison.
You know, it's just, it's just not true. You know, I, I, and, and so I, I do things off the beaten path a lot, but I have two really happy little girls, and they're really thriving. They're doing great. They know who their mom is, and they know that when they grow up, they can be whoever they want to be.
And so we have built a life and a schedule and a routine around who we are as people. It's not the right thing for everybody, but it really, really works for us.
And so, you know, I think any mom out there that's struggling with that, I think it's really first removing that weight of guilt or comparison to other parents out there that, like, I don't look like the mom next door, and I don't act the way she does.
I would just drop that right away. And just, you know, ask yourself who, who are you as a family, and you know, how can you build a schedule and routine and habits that align with that? And don't apologize for that.
Valerie: So when they were younger, before they were in school, what looked different, and how much does your husband help?
Danielle: Yeah, it was so much different back then, and I, I felt that same pressure of just so much mom guilt around the fact that, like, I really wanted to keep the momentum going in my business, but I also wanted to be a really good mom. Inevitably when you're putting effort in one thing, another is suffering.
And so I guess it's just kind of a little bit of a back and forth of trying to keep that somewhat in balance. But if I could go back and talk to myself as a new mom, I would say relax. And it's not always gonna be like this. Just try to enjoy all of the different stages and not feel too much pressure to make things happen. All the potty training, the bottle feeding, all of the things the, the walking, all those things you feel so pressured about.
Um, I felt tremendous guilt about the fact that I had to have a lot of help. You know, I had to have a nanny all the time. My mom was present and was there to help. My husband was there to help.
I always felt guilty that I should be able to do all this by myself. But if I had tried to do that and also run multiple businesses, I would've had a nervous breakdown.
So, you know, I asked for help. I did the best that I could. And it was a tremendous relief when they did turn that corner, where you develop a certain level of trust in your kids, where you know they're not going to jump out of a window or burn the house down or anything...
...crazy.
Valerie: Right.
Danielle: And, you know, you can turn your back for a minute and..
Valerie: Right. They're more than potty trained. You can take 'em out in the world. And they won't, they won't freak out and lie screaming on the grocery store floor cuz they didn't get the gum or...
Danielle: Right.
Yes.
Valerie: All those things.
Yeah.
Danielle: Yeah. Thank God they're at the age they are now. Cuz I really try to teach them to be independent and to take care of their own needs that they are capable of taking care of. And I think as moms, we really kind of chop their legs out from underneath them a lot of times by trying to do too much for them.
Where we're really, in the end, we're really trying to grow capable people that we can send out into society, you know, that can be, uh, helpful. So I try... I'm really always working on that, trying to make them more independent and build their confidence by showing them that, um, they can do a lot more for themselves than they think they can.
[00:25:44] N'Kenge
Valerie: N'Kenge a multi-genre singer and actress based in New Jersey, also has something to say about building confidence in her daughter, eight-year-old Jahzara.
Your daughter, Jahzara, was born in 2014. And from what I've seen on Instagram, she sounds a lot like you. She's super energetic. Tiny, cute. She's totally a ham in front of the camera. She loves to perform. So I have a few questions to ask you about parenting and childhood, but I'm gonna start with this one. How do you get your work done now that you're a mother? What's changed from before parenthood to now?
N'Kenge: I have to allocate time specifically to do my work when I am not with her. I mean, listen, I can't choose all the time. There's definitely times when I'm working, and I'm home with her. Right?
So I just can't avoid that. But now I try and do all of my work and interviews like this when she's in school, and so I have time from after I drop her off at school to when it's time to pick her up at three o'clock to do all the different things that I need to do.
Then I will also be up late at night. So after she goes to sleep, I'll do some work even though my husband will be like, come to bed, come to bed, honey, you know. And I just got just a couple of more things I need to do, a few more documents I need to print out, you know, things like that.
So, it's just kind of finding the pockets of time. And then, other times, you just gotta turn it off and be totally focused and present because these moments don't last forever. And I want to be as present as possible in her life so that she's not 18 years old, and I'm like, what happened? Right?
And there are times it's not, it's not always perfect. There are times where she's mommy; why do you always have to be on the telephone? And I have to explain to her, well, mommy works on the telephone. I'm not searching the web. You know? I'm answering emails on the phone. The phone has turned into like my workstation. No one's walking around with their computers anymore. Right? So you're getting all your emails. I'm responding to emails. I'm sending documents, sending attachments, it's like all on my telephone.
Right? So she's seeing that. And so I have to explain to her, and I'm very transparent with her. I'm like, Mommy has to work right now. This is work. Like Mommy has to go on the email, she has to send things. And in order for you to have all the wonderful lessons that you're doing on a weekly basis, that robotics club that you like so much after school, the piano lessons, the dance classes, all that stuff has to be paid for by mommy and daddy.
So this is my version of work and when I go and perform. So I have to, like, I always have to set it straight for her so she knows that mommy is working hard because I'm trying to make sure that not only am I pursuing my dream and my passion, but I'm trying to create a legacy to pass on to her. And I'm trying to give her the opportunities, all the opportunities I can possibly give her, that she could have to pursue whatever she wants to pursue, right? And have that training and that exposure. So I am very vocal about that with her.
And so I feel like because of that transparency and being vocal about that, she understands it more when she sees me working.
So I try to incorporate her fully into my life. Not just mommy has to go to work, but like, you wanna come with mommy to go to work? Right? When I have those opportunities. She'll travel with me when I do my symphony concerts. And, like sometimes, I've taken her outta school for a day or two so that she can be with me on the road doing a symphonic concert.
And then I've also incorporated her in shows. Fort Worth Symphony, we did a holiday concert, and I asked the conductor if it was OK for her to do a duet with me. And she did. And she was so professional. And I can't even imagine. Like I'd never had that kind of experience at eight years old, right? And you have this eight-year-old who walks on stage, and when I'm introducing her in the middle of the song, this huge sound of applause from like a 3000-seat house, and she just walks on stage just, totally cool.
And, you know, just with the full orchestra and then back. And then I didn't even know I, the conductor, and I watch each other for a cutoff, right? And I do like a hand movement. And I didn't know that she was doing a hand movement with me. saw a video of because she's behind me, you know, like I'm, me and the conductor are eye to eye, and she's on the other side of me. he's watching me, and I'm like, yeah, boom. And I do the hand, and I saw a video of it, and she did it exactly with me.
It's like, wow. Like, so she's holding her own, you know? And whether she's gonna do this for, um, a career, who knows? But at least she has that confidence level of being able to hold a room, you know? Whether she's singing on stage or whether she is introducing a cure for cancer.
So she's gonna have that fire, and it makes me so proud.
So, parenting is hard, but hard in a good way because you just wanna put all your heart into it. You just, you wanna be the best. You wanna be, I like, I wanna be the best mom, and I wanna be the best mentor, and I wanna give her everything I could possibly do. But at the same time, not spoil her. And at the same time make her an independent individual so that I don't have to worry when it's time for her to leave the nest. And be solid as to like what her passion is and be able to speak up when you know she wants something. And to not take no for an answer if it's something she solely believes in and is the right thing to do.
And with everything that has happened with the Black Lives Matter and so much that's happening socially too, and, you know, she's involved in that too. Like, I've had her with me for some of these peaceful marches here in New Jersey.
And so she is like in it to win it. Like, totally like, I mean, kids, not just her, but just this new generation that has been exposed to so many different things. It's been wonderful to see how they're gonna turn out as adults, you know, with these movements and making a difference in this new world that we live in.
So my goal is to raise her as a leader. And to raise her as a strong, fierce, smart, talented woman.
[00:32:41] Rosi Amador
Valerie: Speaking of strong, smart, and talented, this next mother, Rosie Amador, is all that and more A multi-lingual singer and percussionist, she also ran Music Amador, an international booking agency. Now, in addition to singing in a band with her husband, Brian, Rosi runs the family voiceover business Amador Bilingual Voiceovers.
Rosi has two grown children, Alisa and Zia. After five years of submitting recordings, Alisa won NPR's Tiny Desk Concert last year. Rosi's transgender son Zia is a visual artist and voiceover actor. One of his many projects is at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. It's Zia's voice you'll hear if you go see the exhibit about Guillermo del Toro's fantastic film Pinocchio.
Here's Rosi talking about the early years of touring with two twin babies.
Can you imagine? No.
How did you manage to get your work done when they were younger?
Rosi: Oh, what a great question. So I did end up having only two children. Brian and I thought, oh, it'd be nice to have two girls. We thought they'd, you know, pop out one at a time, but that's okay. We thought, okay, fine, then we'll take 'em, you know?
I was already 37 because I had waited because of the touring, you know, I thought it's just too hard. We better get the touring, you know, done as much as possible. Plus we had toured with our bass player whose daughter, as an infant, really needed a lot of her attention. So I thought, this is too hard, you know, for us. Uh, it will be too hard for us.
So, so I waited, and, um, we decided to continue, but we decided to ramp down a little bit. So, from 150 shows, I think we went down to, I don't know, uh, at like 80. And, at that time, what we would do is when they were really little, well, first, I took three months off. So then after that, when they were really little, I hired someone to help us and come to shows. And we, we kept it very local in the beginning to just hold onto them for me so that I wouldn't have to be nursing them, you know because I nursed for a long time. And, um, and that was a priority for me. So I wanted them nearby. I didn't wanna leave them somewhere with somebody.
And then I actually put it in our contracts when we toured. The presenters had to supply someone to take care of my kids. And most of the time, they agreed to it. You know, I paid for it, but I needed their help in arranging it. And that way, I'd only be away for a few hours.
Valerie: And my question would be as a, as someone listening, oh, how could you trust these people?
Did you feel like, I don't know, maybe in the beginning that it was harder... fear and then...
Rosi: You know, I, I didn't, and I think because so many of our wonderful friends would help take care of our twins, and they didn't know them, and they did great. These twins were, they got along with everybody, and they weren't problematic. They weren't needy, so they were super social, you know?
So I felt a sense of trust. And I also thought, okay, these people are paying us money to come and perform. They're not gonna give me a mass murderer to take care of my kids.
Valerie: Right.
Rosi: They're, you know, they know that I'm a mom. Brian's a dad, and they're not gonna feel very good if something happens to our kids.
So they made sure to choose trusted people. And it always went well. We would come home, and the kids would be like, the next day, like, we had such a good time with so-and-so. I'm like, good.
Valerie: I bet. And I, I wonder too, that must have impacted them in kind of a powerful way to learn that they could trust other people.
Rosi: Absolutely. Well, and they toured with us, you know, they toured, they were in the backseat of our van with our musicians learning from them and, and oh my gosh. So many stories that have come out of that experience. They just got used to having all these uncles cuz it was a lot of men and me in the sextet.
Yeah. And they were raised in green rooms. They say it themselves, you know, raised in green rooms because they constantly toured with us. And when they were six, we made a bilingual children's cd at the request of our fans who started having kids and saying, don't you think you would like to make a CD for kids some time with your music?
And we made a bilingual one, and we consulted with bilingual educators and the head of our kid's preschool and consultants. And Rounder Records put it out. And we had an angel who was someone who really cared about our family, fund it, and made it possible. And our kids sang on it.
Valerie: What advice would you give to aspiring singers who are also mothers?
Rosi: Get ready. It's quite a ride. You have to be so focused. So committed. Uh, I think that I've always been very good at asking for help, and that has served me well. I know what I'm good at, and I know what I'm less good at.
Once I was making enough money to cover my basic expenses, this is even, before the kids, you know, I was like, okay, I have enough. I'm gonna bring in someone else to take care of this chunk of work so that I don't so that I can do the stuff that drives our business forward. So, you know, if you're a musician, you have to be an entrepreneur. You have to get organized. You have to do your own finances, you have to do your own marketing.
And, at some point, you need to figure out, okay, do I have enough money to farm out some of this work that I'm doing so that I don't go crazy? And I recommend that you think about that carefully and start doing it as soon as you're able because otherwise, you burn out.
Valerie: It's too much.
Rosi: And it affects your music; it affects everything. Your, your spirit. It affects your enjoyment of life. I still see it, you know, some of Alisa's friends are working so, so hard. And I see, I see the effects of the burnout, you know, or the effects that it has on their body. You know, they're, they ache, they ache. And my heart goes out to them because I, I was there and, you know, I didn't immediately have the money to get help, but as soon as I did, I started to do it.
And it made a big difference. And it did mean that I made less money, but I had a saner life.
[00:38:39] China Forbes
Valerie: Another mother that's taken her child on the road is China Forbes, one of the lead singers for Pink Martini. China, like Rosi, waited until she was in her late thirties to have a baby. Her son Cameron is now in high school. Here's China talking about pregnancy postpartum, depression, touring with an infant, and how she gets her creative work done when she's home.
Did motherhood come easy to you? Was it different than you imagined it would be?
China: It was not easy. I think I was delusional because I felt like I spent my thirties cause I had, I had him right before I turned 39. So like most of my thirties, I was fretting about, am I going to have a baby? Am I not going to have a baby? Do I want to have, do I want to have a baby?
Maybe not. Like my sister had babies, and I thought, oh my God, I don't know if I can handle this.
But then I finally realized as I was getting up there that I really did want to. And then pregnancy was heaven for me, heaven because I've always been asked if I'm pregnant because my stomach sticks out a lot and my limbs are more thin.
So people always think that I'm pregnant to the point where they don't even wonder; they just blurt out, Like, when are you due? You know? It's like, oh my God.
Valerie: Never ask someone that question. Never, never, never.
China: Never, I won't ask even people who are about to go into labor if they're pregnant. But, um, I, I was so happy when I was pregnant because I could say, yes, I am pregnant. It was so I didn't have to hold it in my stomach. It was so heavenly. I didn't really have any horrible complications. It was so great.
And then I had the baby, and he was outside of my body. And suddenly everything was so complicated. You know, it was like easy to bring him around with me when I was pregnant.
Um, suddenly, I needed to have a nanny and go on tour with a baby, and I had postpartum depression, and it was really horrible. And I didn't really feel connected when he was a tiny baby. You know, it was just really horrible.
And I can't, I don't know. I just feel like people don't realize that it's not so great for everyone. I mean, I think now people are much more aware of that, but it really takes you by surprise. Cause you're so happy when the baby's born, and you can't believe like you're so lucky that you had this baby and this is so great. And then suddenly, everything changes and like crashes into this horrible pit of despair.
Valerie: I think it's, it's really hard because up until just this very moment in our culture, you didn't talk about it that much, except maybe with good friends who were also mothers to say, wow, maybe we were delusional, you know, in thinking we could do this. Because it is much harder. I don't know about you, but I felt really guilty about some of the feelings that I was having.
China: Yes. Oh yeah. It's just really, it's really tough. Especially, if you're like having chemical imbalances, you know, and you don't, you just, you, you actually cannot connect because of the way you're feeling. But I finally came out of that, and I've had a great time with my son; he's so funny and cute and hilarious. And I wrote down everything he ever said that was funny and just made a book for his 13th birthday called Cam Said, and it's all of the things he ever said and all the pictures of him at those ages.
And it's so so cool. It's so cool.
And he read it out loud to both of his grandmothers.
Valerie: Oh!
China: And loved it.
Valerie: I bet they were in heaven. What a great idea.
China: It was really good, except they weren't in heaven cause some of it's wildly inappropriate, but they liked it up to a point.
Valerie: So, yeah. So, how long did it take you to come out of that postpartum depression?
China: Um, it was about six to six to eight months.
Valerie: Hmm. Did your hormones just change, or did you do anything specific?
China: I had to take medicine. I had to take medication. Yeah. I couldn't, it wasn't happening on its own.
Valerie: Yeah, and I think a lot of times, women don't ask for the help they need. But you were probably desperate. How soon after he was born did you go on tour?
China: I went on tour in May. He was born end of February.
Valerie: Wow.
China: So he was three months.
Valerie: Three months old. And you took a nanny with you on the tour, you said. And then were you breastfeeding and backstage and then running onstage?
China: Oh my God. Yeah, I was, I was breastfeeding up until 15 months, so he toured the, you know until he was 15 months. And I would breastfeed and go on stage and then come off. And I don't know, I don't how graphic I want to get on the, on the, on the airways, but let's just say it was an emergency, like things, things build up, and you need to release them or else there's a mad, it's kind of like a fire hydrant. Let's just say that.
Valerie: Wow. Yeah. It's stressful. I don't, I mean, touring is stressful. And then to have this little one that you know is dependent on you, along with the whole audience being dependent on you and the band dependent on you for showing up and singing. It's a lot of, it's a lot of stress.
China: It is.
Valerie: How do you get your work done?
China: Now, at this age?
Valerie: Yeah. Now. I mean, I'm sure that it's changed over the years.
China: Well, I'm a night person. And yet my studio is at my piano, which is, you know, in the main room of my house and above Cameron's bedroom. So when it's nighttime, I can't really do stuff, you know? I can't really play the piano or record anything. So I try to get it done. Like I've been forced to get it done during school hours.
It's just not what; it's not the creative time of my dreams, but I found that having a child imposed a schedule on me that was actually a bit helpful because it wasn't just never-ending undefined time. It was like, you have only this many hours; get it done.
And so it's motivating in that way. But the hard thing is when they're napping, but you want to take a nap too, and that's probably what you should do. But you kind of have to just like accept; it's all about acceptance. Like you're not going to get your work done and just deal with it.
Like you cannot do it all. You can't do everything perfectly all the time. So maybe give yourself some time or hire a caregiver to give yourself like a day here and there where you have more time.
Valerie: Right where you can really dive in. Because sometimes, I mean, I agree with you when you have a set time period, and you know that like, okay, I've got an hour, and this is, what I have to just throw down. Um, there's no dinking about. And then you just have to get right to work. But then I know that I, I used to really miss those longer expansive times where I could really drill down into something in a way where I knew I wouldn't have to come back out of it for a while, you know, two or three hours.
China: Right. Oh my God. That's heaven. I love that. I, because it's so hard for me, it's hard to muster the energy to start, but once I'm started, I never want to stop. And it's always annoying that like these other things stop you, and you can never like really have that immersion that you're craving.
So I think it's knowing that they're going to grow up, and this is a short window of time. It feels like it never ends, and it will never change. But that was the thing motherhood made me realize is everything is a phase. And as hard as some of the phases feel, they really aren't going to last that long.
So just maybe try to enjoy the things that are happening in that phase. Like how darn cute that little three-year-old is.
[00:46:48] Whitney Jones
Valerie: So what about women who don't have resources, who are just starting out in life, and have barely begun to realize their dream of becoming a singer? What happens if you find yourself pregnant at age 16 and decide to keep the baby while still pursuing your goals?
Sounds hard. Right? Whitney Jones is a dynamic, talented singer-songwriter who refused to give up her dreams or her baby when she became pregnant while still in high school. With the help of family, she graduated with honors, worked two jobs, and raised money by selling chicken dinners to move to Boston, where she'd been accepted to the Berkeley School of Music.
Whitney drove from Atlanta, Georgia, to Massachusetts with Robert, her three-year-old son. The money she'd saved was enough to get them there, with a little leftover for living expenses. But Whitney still needed more to pay her tuition. Undaunted and determined, Whitney planted herself and her son in the school's financial aid office and stayed there until they found a way to help her.
Here's Whitney talking about her decision to become a mother and her determination to continue pursuing her dream of becoming a singer.
So you were 16 then when you became pregnant. And I read that all you'd wanted since seventh grade was to go to Berkeley College of Music in Boston. And so I'm just wondering why did you decide, okay, well, I'm gonna become a mom now instead of later.
Whitney: Well, honestly, uh, it's a result of trauma. You know, I, I really believe that if a teenager ends up pregnant, then something's happened along the way. And that's essentially what happened. Just to be transparent, I was molested as a child, and I was grieving going through a lot of grief process, um, after my cousin who was like, my brother died. We relocated from Illinois to Georgia. It was just a huge shift. Everything was different on top of grief. And I was just kinda lashing out, so to speak. And boom, I ended up pregnant. And I remember not knowing what my future would look like at that point. It wasn't like I planned it, you know?
I couldn't see past my circumstance, and I honestly wanted to die. I had thoughts of suicide. I couldn't, I feel like I was just in survival mode. And I remember crying a lot, and my stepmom was in town, and, um, I said, Oh, I made my family a statistic. I don't wanna be a statistic. Oh, oh. You know, like, woe is me. This happened, and I don't wanna be a statistic.
And she looked at me, and she said, well, don't. It was like a light bulb went off, and it was like, what? You can still do everything that you said you wanted to do. You just have a baby. It's gonna be hard, but you can do it. Oh, okay. So, that was a turning point for me because I definitely was depressed.
I'll say that. Um, I was, I was going through depression. And, um, that light bulb went off, and it basically lit a fire under me. It, it lit a fire under me. I was like, okay. Here we go. I'm gonna do everything that I set out to do. You know, I'm, I'm gonna beat the odds. I had so many people doubting me at that point. I wanted to prove all them wrong. I wanted to show them that I can do what I said I was gonna do, which is make it.
Valerie: And make it, she did. Whitney graduated from Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in music with a concentration in music therapy. To graduate. She created a regimented schedule that enabled her to parent attend classes, study, and hold a part-time job. She credits that schedule with teaching her how to be disciplined, a skill that still serves her. Fast forward to now. Whitney lives with her husband and their blended family in Phoenix, Arizona.
You've had two more children since you had Robert years ago.
Whitney: Now, my husband and I, we have a blended family. We have Robert, who's the 19-year-old, and then we have two others, and they're 14, 12, and then our toddler, our two-year-old, and then the six-week-old. That's the age range, 19 to six weeks.
Valerie: So, how do you get your creative work done now?
Whitney: Um, honestly, it's the same as before. I, I have to wait until I'm inspired, and when I'm inspired, everybody in the house knows I hear nothing. The food will burn. I don't know what's going on. Our other children, they call me Mama Whit, they're like, Mama Whit, Mama Whit. And I'm just like, huh, huh. Oh, okay. Yeah.
Valerie: You just tune it all out and focus.
Whitney: I tune everybody out. I tune 'em out. The only person I can't tune out right now is the six-week-old. Obviously, you know. I'm also nursing. I think breastfeeding is amazing, uh, for the mother and for the baby. So I don't tune, I don't tune him out or the toddler, but you know, for the most part, everyone else is like, I cannot hear what you're saying. I don't know what's going on. I am writing.
I do a lot of writing when people are asleep.
Valerie: So, do you sacrifice your own sleep sometimes for the muse?
Whitney: Oh, oh, yeah. Yeah. But it doesn't feel like it. I can go without food and water when I'm working on music and sleep. It energizes me.
Valerie: Do you feel, though, like it's harder to go deep into the creative process when there's all this other stuff going on?
Whitney: Now I would say that. There, there are challenges where you know, there may be a time limit, or I have to tend to something as a mom or a wife or just within our household, so I have to stop. Which always makes me a little sad. But you know, ideally, it'd be nice to just sit for 12 hours and just work on music uninterrupted. But that hasn't been the case for me.
So I, it's kind of like, okay, the baby sleep. All right. The toddlers sleep. All right. Everybody else is at school, husband's at work. Oh, okay. Woo-hoo. Gonna work on this. You know what I mean? I'm like writing really quickly or doing something.
Sometimes it's in the car. I have a lot of voice memos cuz I listen to my music on repeat, and I'm like hearing, okay, what else am I hearing with this part? What am I doing? Oh. And so I'm driving, picking kids up, and I'm like, recording voice memos. You guys be quiet. I gotta record this idea. You know? And they know, they know.
Valerie: They're respectful of your time and your creativity? Have you talked to them about that?
Whitney: So Robert obviously grew up with me in music, right? And the other two, I've known them for four years now. So they've, seen, you know what I do, and they've come to performances and concerts. They see me at the piano writing or recording videos or this or that, you know, so they know.
One of my sons, he said, Mama Whit, when you gonna make some new music? I'm tired of hearing this song.
So I was like, OK, fine. I'll make something. And so I've been working on my album actually for the past couple of years. So now I'm like, see, I have new music.
[00:54:32] Islands of Solitude
Valerie: There are numerous ways that mothers find to create space for themselves. Stealing moments when the children are sleeping in school, or even, like Whitney, tuning everyone out when she's inspired. These women also rely on family, partners, and childcare to create pockets of time for their work; islands of solitude to practice and create.
Here's Karla Harris talking about one of the ways she made time every week for songwriting.
Karla Harris: I do remember there was a time it was the first time that I got into songwriting. And I was able to carve out, with the help of my husband, a certain number of evenings that I went to a guitar-playing friend of mine, and we were collaborating on writing. And this was when the kids were little.
So that's what I did. We wrote a handful of songs, and we entered them into some local St. Louis contests. And it was really a creative outlet, and it was fun. And I did that for a short, relatively short period of time.
And then, you know, life took over, and things got busy, and I put it away, and I didn't go back to it for 20 years, I guess, you know, to songwriting. But there was that time that I made those appointments.
I reached out to him and asked if he'd be interested, and we had appointments. It was very intentional. And I think that's another thing too. If it's important to you, then you will figure out a way to get that time in.
Valerie: And here's Ara talking about the importance of creating islands of solitude within a creative relationship.
Ara Lee: Rainer Maria Rilke has this quote that talks about when you love someone being guardians of each other's solitude.
And I think particularly, I mean, for any relationship, but being in a relationship with another artist, and I know you know this, you and John, it's like you have to have time alone. You have to have time away. You can't be interrupted, you know? And there's beautiful work that happens when you co-create with someone.
And it's very different than the work that has to happen in solitude. There's no replacement for it because it's a relationship with you and you. It's a relationship with your voice and your creativity and your mind and your heart. And it's a singular journey. It really is.
[00:56:41] Alex Whiler
Valerie: Alex Weiler and her husband, Brendan, are both creative. She's a singer-songwriter. He's a visual artist. Like most creatives, they do better when there's time and space to go deeply into their creative processes. With two children, five and 18 months old, finding that time can be challenging, but they've found a way.
Here's how they create islands of solitude for each other.
Alex: We are always trying to look out for each other. I think being each other's advocate for our artwork, for the other person's artwork, because we know how healthy and how good it is for both ourselves and the other person to have that time, to release some things, to fill up the well like you said.
And so we have found, with just how we work, we both do better with like large chunks of time. And so, mostly on the weekends, we call it splitting the day or splitting the weekend, where we'll decide in the beginning of the weekend. Okay, do we want to split one day where, you know, I take the morning, and you take the afternoon? Or do we need a whole day, you know, maybe it's been one of those weeks or months where we need, I'm gonna take Saturday, and you take Sunday.
And then there's no, um, there's no resentment. There's no, like, oh, well, he's taking more time than I am. Or, you know, we really try to be careful about respecting each other's creative time. And a lot of times I'm working on music, I need them out of the house. And so there's, like, a lot of coordinating that he and I do pretty much at the beginning of every weekend just anticipating that we will need time to recharge, time to ourselves. We're both a little more introverted than others. And so we need that alone time.
And our kids, they roll with it, and they, there's definitely like, oh man, you guys need alone time? You know, from the five-year-old. He's like, what do you mean alone time? Um, he, but he knows it's, it's, he knows it's what we need, and we try to be really vocal about, you know, it's not time away from you that we need. It's just time to just take care of us.
Valerie: I love that..
Alex: So yeah, I think as they get older, maybe they will also need alone time. We'll see!
[00:59:00] Stephanie Schneiderman
Valerie: Becoming parents was a huge shift in the creative lives of singer-songwriter Stephanie Schneiderman and her husband Tony Furtado, one of the country's top banjo players and a gifted sculptor. Before their son, Liam, was born, they toured extensively together and separately. Tony and Stephanie are songwriters. Before they had a child, they had plenty of space to create.
Here Stephanie talks about how things changed after becoming parents.
Having a child in the mix, how did that change your musical career?
Stephanie: Ah, so it's such a, such an enormous way. I think one thing that has worked well with Tony and I is that we both understand what the role of solitude plays in our personal creativity. Mm-hmm. And so it was a relationship where there was quite a bit of space, even though how connected we are and how devoted we are to each other, there was a lot of space, and I think that made it work.
And that ties into your question because that really changed with Liam because your time and your space, it changes.
Valerie: I know for me, even though we waited 20 years to have Malcolm. Yeah. Which is a weird thing to be able to say, you know, but we thought we were ready, and then..
Oh my God. I wasn't, I just, I had no idea. And then I felt like there was this invisible umbilical cord always there. As he grew older and I was able to do more things, I've never felt like I was doing anything well. I felt guilty about not being there for him.
Cuz I was focused on other things, and I wanted to still create, and then, you know, I felt like I wasn't doing any of the other things well either. So, I don't know what it's like for you, but...
Stephanie: Pretty much what you just said!
Valerie: How do you deal, how do you cope with that, that feeling of never quite getting any of the lists ticked off?
Stephanie: It's such a... it's just such a tangled thing. And there's so much in there because you know, it's these small moments you wanna be available for, you wanna be available for them. Mm-hmm...
Valerie: And you can't just show up and say, okay, now we're gonna have quality time. Let's have a special moment. It doesn't...
Stephanie: Special moment begins...
Valerie: No, no. You have to be around for a big space of time, just like with anybody, really. And then there's this kind of trust and this kind of, I don't know, things just unfold rather than being pressured to happen.
Stephanie: And I think in those first few years when Liam was born, I let go a little bit, just a little bit about my career.
I mean, I have a lot of projects I've been working on, but this is my first solo album in nine years.
Valerie: Yeah. And he's how old now?
Stephanie: Nine. So there..
Valerie: There you have it.
Stephanie: There you go. There's my answer to the question. But, um, I think those first few years I really did, I, I was still busy, especially with Swan Sovereign, but I, it was different.
Both Tony and I decided he's, he was touring still quite a bit, and that was what we were choosing. We were choosing for that to be the focus and for me to be home with Liam. Mm-hmm. I remember having him on my lap and sitting and writing things on the, at the piano, and he'd just be, you can hear I would be recording it cuz you just take a little voice memo of yourself creating.
Valerie: Right.
Stephanie: And you hear these little blah, you hear these cute little sounds. And it's me trying to work on a song idea, and he's on my lap. Just, I was like, you're here for this. So here we go.
Valerie: Yeah. Yeah. Ah, so what's the hardest part of combining music and motherhood for you?
Stephanie: Just exactly what you said. I think I feel guilty when I'm really focused, and maybe I'm not available to him. But I also think he's great. He's okay. And he has parents that, you know, our jobs aren't nine to five, so we're home more in some ways.
Valerie: If it's any consolation, our son Malcolm is now 26.
Stephanie: 26. Wow.
Valerie: I know. And so I ask him every once in a while, Did you feel like I was unavailable? Cuz I remember there was one point in time I was working a lot on a nonprofit called Artist for the Arts. He'd come in when he was little and say, Mom, I'm so sick of AFTA. Like, AFTA, AFTA, AFTA. Like, he was just telling me..
Stephanie: Oh, that's so funny.
Valerie: But now that he's 26, I'll ask him what those years were like for him. And he says I'm just so lucky to have parents like you. And I'm so glad for my upbringing and all the music that was in the house. And so all the, all those kinds of things. So I think, yeah, but it is hard.
So what's your favorite thing about being a mom?
Stephanie: Ah, I mean, Liam!
Valerie: Aren't boys wonderful?
Stephanie: Oh, he's just so funny, so philosophical and funny. And I marvel at just the way he takes in the world. And it's exciting. It's exciting to watch somebody come into themselves constantly. Yeah. It's so exciting. I don't know. It's the most exciting thing.
[01:04:03] There Are No Secrets
Valerie: As you've heard in this episode, creating space for your creativity when you have children is challenging. There are no secrets. Finding islands of solitude is hard. As Rebecca said when I interviewed her recently about her Facebook post, you just have to get scrappy and use any bits of time you can find.
The other takeaway for me is that the external threads, the practicalities, and structure of life are intimately connected and interwoven with the internal thread of how you treat yourself when you feel like you can't be a good enough artist or mother. Rebecca's question, how do you treat yourself when you can't get your work done, is the question that hit me hardest.
Making music saved my life when I was young, and letting go of it for a time when my son was born was really hard. Plus, I got down on myself when I didn't live up to an impossible standard of perfection on all fronts.
So, how do we treat ourselves when we can't do the work we love? The work that keeps us sane?
In my conversations with these singers, I heard the word guilt multiple times. Many of us feel that when it comes to our children, we should be available and all-loving all the time. But as Glennon Doyle writes in Untamed, "calling martyrdom love teaches our children that when love begins, life ends." Jung said it best: There is no greater burden on a child than the unlived life of a parent.
So true. Mothering is an intensely difficult and transformational endeavor. It literally and figuratively asks us to stretch and grow in ways we never knew we could. And even though the love we feel for our children is powerful and runs deep, it can feel sometimes like an impossible task to mother.
It is, as Stephanie said, incredibly exciting to see our children becoming and blossoming right before our eyes. But growing up is hard work. It's full of uncertainty and emotional turmoil. As mothers, it can be exhausting to try and figure out and feel our way through a child's developmental stages. What worked last week has no effect today. What worked with one child might work with another, but sometimes not. Every child comes with their own gifts and challenges. I know for me, there were times when I just didn't want to be anyone's mother for a while.
When Rebecca's daughter, Nadia, was going through a particularly rough growing patch filled with emotional outbursts that would seemingly come from out of nowhere. Rebecca posted something on Facebook that resonated deeply with other mothers.
[01:07:01] Sometimes Mothers Don't Wanna Be Mothers, And That's OK.
Rebecca: I made a post that sometimes mothers don't wanna be mothers, and that's okay. And holy fuck, the private messages I got from that broke my heart.
I was like, wow. That was a therapy session in and of itself. And so many moms were like, I am so glad you said this because I haven't said it.
And sometimes I don't wanna be this, I wish I wasn't, I just wanna be alone. And all this to say that someday Nadia might read that, or she might hear a bit of a conversation I'm having with a mom about how we just want time to ourselves or... But I wanna be open with her all the time about how the same way it is when you feel angry or grumpy, it doesn't erode love or a bond or your willingness to stay.
It's just that fluctuation, right? Like in meditation, where the emotions pop up, and they're the waves on the surface of the vast, limitless ocean. As her parent, I will get angry. It doesn't mean I don't love her. I'll be crabby sometimes. It doesn't mean I don't love her. I might say the wrong thing. It doesn't mean I don't love her. I might need to be alone for a little bit. It doesn't mean I don't love her.
Just engaging in the conversation around that as it comes up naturally, you know, we talk about those things when it's the right time. But when it pops up, say, you know, you're my favorite person in the whole world. I love you more than anything. I, that's never, ever, ever gonna go away. You know, just this morning, like the first thing that she said when she woke up was like, I'm so happy you're my mama. And I'm like, I'm so happy you're my daughter. And it was the cuddliest, squishiest, most wonderful moment, and that that's gonna be there even if I am being kind of a jerk cuz my coffers are empty.
Valerie: Right, right. And here's the lovely thing too. I think children are sometimes afraid of these big feelings that they have. Because if you're angry, if you're fearful, if you're sad, it feels like there's only that feeling. That all the other feelings that you've ever felt have gone away. And they're never gonna come back because you don't have a sense of things returning. You don't have a sense of the long game, the cycle of things, the seasons of a, of an emotion. And for her to have you say these words about this, this feeling is here, but it doesn't mean that there isn't love underneath it.
Rebecca: Absolutely.
I feel like modeling the truth of where we are in a compassionate way gives permission for future Nadia when she is, has her own kids if she chooses that path, you know, that hopefully she has some permission to be outta sorts and that it's okay.
Valerie: Giving ourselves permission to feel out of sorts, naming our feelings, and then, when it's appropriate, sharing them with our kids gives them permission to do the same. We are each other's greatest teachers.
One of the things that I learned from my son was how performing wasn't the be-all, end-all of my life. The crucible of parenthood taught me that there was more to living a creative life than performing.
Opera singer Renee Fleming offers the same perspective in her book, The Inner Singer. She received advice from the renowned diva Renata Scotto, who told her to have children. She told Renee that after having her son, she approached singing from a much healthier perspective. " I don't live or die on the stage every night." she said. "I have more than that in my life."
Our children are, of course, the light of our lives, the more that puts our art and performing in perspective.
In the final part of this two-part series, you'll hear what these women have discovered about who they are as mothers and creatives and how they navigate their inner lives so they don't go batshit crazy. You won't want to miss it.
[01:11:17] Thanks For Listening!
Valerie: Thank you for listening to Part One of this series on creativity and motherhood. To learn more about the vocalists and music featured in this episode, visit livingavocallife.com. Please share your thoughts on how this episode resonated with you by leaving a comment on the episode page.
While you're there, you can also sign up for my newsletter, Vocal Notes. About once a month, you'll find an email in your inbox filled with fun, empowering, and practical tips to help you navigate your life as a singer.
Until next time be well, and keep on singing.
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