Postpartum Production
TL;DR (i.e., give me the elevator pitch!) description: Being a producer of creative projects and a mother don’t need to be mutually exclusive pursuits—how can we as parents in early postpartum (and well beyond!) reframe and reclaim the work we do as creatives and caregivers, to be seen as productive, valued, and meaningful? Join novelist and host Kaitlin Solimine on this journey to reframing postpartum and caregiving as worthy of intellectual, philosophical, and socially-impactful pursuit. Long description: It’s hard to find the balance between being a mother and pursuing creative projects – especially during the 4th trimester. When Kaitlin Solimine, a published, award-winning author and mother of three young children, was lying in bed recovering from her third childbirth, she had an epiphany: this time that most have described as “lost” time, was rather extremely creatively informative for her (she wrote new sections of her novel and even launched this podcast from that bed!). Deep in the trenches of early postpartum herself, join Kaitlin and her creator-activist-mother guests, as they navigate the liminal space between mothering and creating. If you are a new parent in postpartum, had a creative pursuit before you became a mother, or simply seek inspiration from other artists who are creating during a transitional time, this is the podcast for you. These episodes will provide you with practical and philosophical suggestions on how to reframe your work in a space where parenting is not ordinarily considered meaningful productivity, generate new ideas on how to incorporate creativity into motherhood (and how parenting moments may inspire creative pursuits as well!), and explore other artists’ processes around creating during the transition to parenting young children. Although this podcast is not meant to be prescriptive, hearing these stories and learning about the tools other creatives use will hopefully inspire you to consider ways to integrate your artist and caregiver identities in meaningful, impactful ways. Why the term “production”? Google the term “postpartum” and you’ll be led to a plethora of websites about postpartum depression and anxiety. While these are important topics and experiences worthy of additional research and support, the postpartum period, when treated with support and curiosity, can be reframed as one of creative possibility and identity transformation. Rather than relinquishing new mothers to corners where they need to choose between creative work and caregiving, or where they feel completely lost when it comes to their creative identity, this podcast provides a third path for creative mothers who are seeking meaning and validation of the caregiving work they do on a daily basis. What is “productive” time when you’re a mother and a creative? How can public-facing creative projects, and the often hidden and devalued time of raising humans, be seen as “productive” pursuits within the current capitalist structure of American and Western society? Kaitlin herself has discovered that the postpartum period after birth offers an opportunity to pause and find new significance to exploring artistry while caregiving as an integral part of life. Notably, Kaitlin recorded the early episodes of her first season while in postpartum with her third child. Biweekly, Kaitlin talks with authors, poets, writers, painters, philosophers, and parenting experts about mothering, changing perceptions of motherhood/parenting, art, creativity, activism, family leave, childbirth, finding inspiration, changing identities, expansive change, caregiving roles, and more.
Episodes
“The bulk of my work comes out of this place of the explosive female body and really meditating on that and looking at that. The body has always been my deepest interest, and painting the figure, and that has been the case for many, many years. And so when I started to think about family building and my reproductive health and my fertility, just even the inkling of those thoughts, the work started to become infused with these...
Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Postpartum Production! We are thrilled to begin Season 3 of the podcast, and to be in community with you once again.
Before we kick off Season 3, Kaitlin checks in to provide an update on the podcast, a peek into what we’ll be exploring together this season (more on that in a moment!), and some heartfelt reflections on the never-ending challenges of balancing creative work, caregiving,...
In this episode, we look back at a few of the themes that emerged from our conversations this season and take stock of what this means now; looking back and also looking forward to the work we all have to continue in our examination of this intersection of caregiving and creativity.
We’re incredibly grateful that our guests could take the time to sit with Kaitlin, and for their honesty and vulnerability, which really make this podca...
We are capping off our season of conversations with Ben Berman, the author of three books of poems and the new collection of humorous and literary essays, Writing While Parenting. Ben has won the Peace Corps Award for the Best Book of Poetry, has twice been shortlisted for the Massachusetts Book Awards, and has received awards from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, New England Poetry Club, and ...
"I think about rage as containing information. I talk about anger as a weathervane pointing you towards the places that need attention and healing. So I think rage can be useful in that way of teaching you what needs to change in your life. And it might be that you need more support or you need to not be in charge of bedtime every night or whatever.
Rage is also useful in giving you the energy to create change larger than just your ...
“The way that we think about art, about care work or housework or maintenance labor is interconnected in the sense that these are spheres of society that are often deemed unproductive. Obviously, first and foremost, we need to resist that notion because it's the most important work that we do. I do think of writing as a kind of care work in that sense. It's like a tending. It's tending to our narratives and our cultural understandi...
“It's like all of the pressures of everything happening build up inside you, and if you don't write it down or put it somewhere— I just couldn't even handle it. I had no other coping mechanisms left. I came to poetry when I was younger as a coping mechanism, and I think I still do sometimes.
Some poets like to pretend that it's a totally intellectual practice and that there's no therapeutic benefit for them. But for me, it did start...
“I remember saying to my husband, I wish there was some sort of machine where I could attach a keyboard to my limbs and learn to type differently through my body so that the writing was a physical dance; instead of just my fingers dancing, it was my whole body dancing. I want to feel, not just sensations in my body, but feel my body in motion as I am writing.
And so a lot of what I do is recording myself as I walk – writing wi...
**This episode is brought to you in partnership with the With Her and Mind Awareness Campaign of Mindful Philanthropy. Learn how you can act ‘with her in mind’ by visiting www.withherinmind.org.**
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"Throughout life, we ...
This episode is sponsored by Needed, a leading women's health supplement brand. (You can save 20% off your first order of any vitamins or supplements at thisisneeded.com with code POSTPARTUMPRODUCTION.)
AND
Better Help, the world's largest therapy service 100% online. (Go to https://betterhelp.com/postpartumproduction for 10% off your first month of therapy with BetterHelp and get matched with a therapist who will listen an...
This episode is sponsored by Needed, a leading women's health supplement brand. (You can save 20% off your first order of any vitamins or supplements at thisisneeded.com with code POSTPARTUMPRODUCTION.)
AND
Better Help, the world's largest therapy service 100% online. (Go to h...
“Having something that you keep for yourself can actually be the most revolutionary and important thing that you could do in your postpartum journey.” ~ Kimberly Seals Allers
We are thrilled to share with you this conversation with Kimberly Seals Allers, an award-winning journalist, five-time author, and founder of Irth. A leading voice on the racial and sociocultural complexities of birth, breastfeeding, and motherhood, Kimberly cr...
“It's okay to struggle in a society that doesn't support you. It's okay to be like, this doesn't work and I have to get some stuff done. The question is then, how do you approach those changes that you have to make with your family in mind [...] while considering everyone? So it's also looking at your child and saying, Yep, this may not be ideal, it may not be what I want it to be, but how do I do it knowing what's most important t...
“I think of the boundary as in the pause. So your boundary is in the space between when someone asks you for something or offers something and you take your pause and then you can say yes, you can say no, or you can negotiate. So the boundary isn't the no, the boundary actually is the space. And then you decide how you're going to move. It's not a brick wall.” ~ Dr Pooja Lakshmin
We’re really excited to talk to Dr Pooja Lakshmin, a ...
“The thing that has not changed for me is the need to protect the time that I need to achieve my creative goals. But the biggest barrier is [that] there's always more to do in that busy household. So you have to make a concerted effort to set aside that time.” ~ KJ Dell’Antonia
In this episode, Kaitlin is joined by KJ Dell’Antonia, the New York Times best-selling author of The Chicken Sisters, In Her Boots, How to Be a Happier Paren...
This episode features Kaitlin speaking with author and essayist Jazmina Barrera. Born in Mexico City in 1988, Jazmina is the author of four books in Spanish, Cuerpo Extraño, Cuaderno de Faros, Linea Nigra and the children’s books, Los Nombres de los Animales and Punto de Cruz, a recipient of the Latin American Voices prize and a finalist in several awards.
She’s the editor and co-founder of Ediciones Antílope and lives in Mexico Cit...
We'd love to highlight this episode’s sponsor, a product and company that's working to build technologies to assist caregivers in the early phases of postpartum and caregiving—the Bonoch Long Range Baby Monitor.
The Bonoch Long Range Baby Monitor is perfect for larger houses and bigger families so you can effortlessly hear your children when they wake and ensure they're cared for.
Follow this link to find out more about the imp...
“I feel like I have the most internal struggle when I recognize that my work doesn't have value in a traditional sense and that my creative work and the work I do as a mother is not valued in this system. And trying to remind myself of the values of that, trying to say, Okay, I'm going to spend time today working on this literary fiction that I know will not pay our bills. Does it matter?”
~ Kaitlin Solimine
I don't know, liste...
"What an immense privilege it is to be able to put words on paper."~ Annabelle Kim
This episode is a special dedication to a dear writer-mother-friend, Annabelle Kim, who passed away in September of 2021 after a battle with stage 4 cancer.
Annabelle, a mother of four, was a mechanical engineer, an inventor, and a novelist. She was the author of Tiger Pelt, published by Leaf Land Press, a small independent publisher. The novel tracks...
**This episode is sponsored by Full Spectrum Features, a nonprofit social justice organization that uses film to inspire dialogue and create impact. They’re a Chicago-based 501(c)(3) committed to driving equity in the independent film industry by producing, exhibiting, and supporting the work of women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ filmmakers.
You can find out more about Full Spectrum Features and their support of artist caregivers in this ...
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