‘Being a mother subsumes many of us, and though I had always worked, always made music, my role as a mother shaped the work, the music, me. My idea of family was fundamental to my creativity…took me out into a place where I was visible in the world, then I came back in. Family is my centre.‘1
I finished the book I was reading ‘A Thousand Threads‘ yesterday, after my first PgCert workshop whilst I was musing about the reading I’d been assigned ‘An a/r/tographic métissage: Storying the self as pedagogic practice‘ which ‘traces the experience of four arts educators as they consider ‘self as subject-matter’ through living enquiry‘.2 Although I found the initial reading very tricky and in some part inaccessible, particular the academic tone & jargon, it got me thinking about my own self, practice and how that has impacted my teaching.
I had my baby in November 2022, and returned to work 9 months later in September 2023, and found the adjustment back to work really hard. In Trish’s story it ‘chronicles the separate identities of the artist, researcher and teacher through her personal narrative‘3 and it was the part about the separate identity that struck a chord with me, this idea that one should be able to self-impose a segregation of self, and continue to function as before. Trish goes on to quote Guyotte (2015: 82) ‘stories are understood as fragmented, in perpetual states of becoming, representative of many and sometimes conflicting voices, and complex in their multiple layers and connections‘4 This got me thinking about a book I read at the end of last year; Matrescence by Lucy Jones who unpicks and examines ‘the psychological and physiological significance of becoming a mother: how it affects the brain, the endocrine system, cognition, immunity, the psyche, the microbiome, the sense of self‘ 5
I found myself slower and more thoughtful in my approach to teaching, I found I talked clearer and felt less rushed, after all, my main confidant and companion had been my baby so I felt my references and analogies where quite ‘child-like’ but perhaps more suitable, I felt I embraced myself a little more, was more open with my students after all, my brain is different now. How I think, feel, breathe, sleep…’I was different. I am different. On a cellular level. I would never be singular again.‘6
- Cherry, N (2024) A Thousand Threads, Fern Press. ↩︎
- Osler, T Guillard, I Garcia-Fialdini, A Côté, S (2019) ‘An a/r/topgraphic métissage: Storying the self as pedagogic practice’, Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, 12:1&2 pp. 109 -129 Concordia University. ↩︎
- Osler, T (2019) Echolocating the self ‘An a/r/topgraphic métissage: Storying the self as pedagogic practice’, Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, 12:1&2 pp. 109 -129 Concordia University. ↩︎
- Osler, T (2019) Echolocating the self ‘An a/r/topgraphic métissage: Storying the self as pedagogic practice’, Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, 12:1&2 pp. 109 -129 Concordia University ↩︎
- Jones, L (2023) Matrescence, Allen Lane. ↩︎
- Jones, L (2023) Matrescence, Allen Lane ↩︎