The Joy (And Surprises) of Motherhood

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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Welcome back, everybody. Happy Friday. I'm Brigid Bergin filling in for Brian today. Mother's Day is this Sunday, but you knew that already, right? In honor of all the moms and mother figures out there, we'll end the show with a call-in for them. When you become a mom, you get a lot of advice, sometimes unsolicited, sometimes even contradictory. A lot of motherhood is just figuring it out for yourself. New moms, veteran moms, mother figures, the phones are open to you. What were some of the first surprises you experienced in motherhood?

Whether you gave birth, adopted, or fostered, what surprised you the most? There are so many things no one tells you about the sleep regression. Maybe breastfeeding was really hard. Did you find that you needed way more or way less things for the babies? Babies have so many things. What frustrated you most? Was it other parents, the cost of childcare, just how few elevators there actually are on the subway, and what was surprisingly joyful? Call us now at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can also text at that number.

With us now to take some of your calls and discuss her new book is Illustrator Liana Finck. You may know her from her cartoons in The New Yorker, where she regularly contributes. Her new book is How to Baby: A No-Advice-Given Guide to Motherhood, with Drawings. Liana, welcome to WNYC.

Liana Finck: Thanks, Brigid. I'm so happy to be here.

Brigid Bergin: And for listeners who are familiar with your work in The New Yorker or on Instagram, you illustrate cartoon jokes. Do you want to talk a bit first about your style, how you found it?

Liana Finck: Yes. I love how you put that. When I was in art school, people spoke as if you were born with a style, and if you didn't know your style, then it wasn't real, but I consciously came up with my style. I thought about who I am, which is simple and vulnerable, and I have a very quiet voice. I love to draw. [inaudible 00:02:32] favorite places to doodle are in the margins of things. I don't like a big page and I don't like a huge page. I started looking around at other people's work that was simple. I'd gone to art school, so I thought of-- I was working very not realistically, but complicatedly and I had to unlearn that.

I worked simply. I tried stick figures. I was going a tiny bit too far, but the simplicity was innate but also had to be relearned. I had a revelation when I looked at Roz Chast's work. I've always looked at her work. One day I looked at it again and I realized that she cared less about facial features than about facial expressions, and same about body. She cared more about body language than about making the body look like the same person's body in every panel. That's part of it. I think the last part is that I decided that words and pictures are interchangeable and can be redundant and that you shouldn't use both if you can use only one.

Brigid Bergin: Oh, that's so interesting. Well, let's talk a little bit about your graphic memoir, somewhat skewering the traditional parenting book. Why did you want to tackle the how-to category of books and particularly, the parenting books?

Liana Finck: I think because how-to books are the rare thing that I both really, really love and also really like to make fun of. I think these days how-to books are really popular and they're really popular with me. I think probably two out of three books I read are self-help books. I also read a bunch of real doozies about parenting, and I love them. I love the ones I love, and I love the ones I hate, and I thought that would be ripe for making fun of. I think parodying something, it's a good shield that helps you really share a lot about your own life without feeling like you're sharing too much. I always need a shield, and that was my shield with this book. It's a parody, but it's also a memoir.

Brigid Bergin: Your book starts from your decision to have a baby and goes through getting pregnant, especially that time when you announced your pregnancy and get a ton of unsolicited advice. You want to describe that part a bit more and why you included it?

Liana Finck: Yes. I was going to say, I think because this is a fake self-help book, but I think the reason this is a fake self-help book is that you are given so much advice when you start thinking about having a baby and when you get pregnant and when you actually have a baby. The advice is so, I don't want to say bad, it's just funny and weird, and it really highlights how everyone has such a different experience. People will tell you, "The one thing we used was a little tent that our baby slept in." You'll be like, "Oh my gosh, your parenting experience must have been so different from mine," after you go and buy the tent.

Before it happens, you really trust-- or at least I really trusted all of the advice. Since I asked so many people for advice and so many people gave me the advice, I had so many different wild ideas about parenthood, none of which were true for me.

Brigid Bergin: We're going to talk a little bit more about some of the things that were true. I'm going to give you a little bit of a warning, Liana, that I'm going to pose to you the question that we've posed to listeners about what surprised you most about motherhood, and how you would answer that question, your biggest surprise as a new mom. I want to start with one of our callers. Let's go to Theresa in Manasquan, New Jersey. Theresa, thanks for calling.

Theresa: Hi there. Thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to share that I really hadn't been around many babies and I remember being given the book What to Expect When You're Expecting, and it all sounded like it was going to be easy. I think my biggest shock was how you literally have no time to yourself, absolutely very little time to yourself. I remember feeling like, "Oh, if I could just get a shower in today," that was my big goal. I think that one of the most important things for new moms is to just talk to other moms and to really listen to the realities of what having a baby entails.

I will say that my happiest thing is that for me, I felt like I had unlocked the meaning to life. Because even though I struggled initially, feeling a little incompetent as a mom, feeling a little overwhelmed as a mom, once they were one year old and they could talk a little and they could express their needs, I don't know, I just really felt very fulfilled and very fortunate that I am a mom. I'm now a very happy mom of two really beautiful children.

Brigid Bergin: Theresa, thank you so much for that story and for that call. Liana, back to you. Any reaction to that and does it help you think of what one of the earliest surprises was for you as a new mom?

Liana Finck: Yes, I really love what Theresa said. I think I was also surprised by how little time I had to myself. I think I was very prepared to fight to be able to be a working mom, and I was very prepared with thoughts about daycare and dividing up childcare between my husband and myself and asking my parents for help when they could, and they were great. I wasn't prepared to let go of all of the time that wasn't childcare and that wasn't work that I used to take for granted. The time that it would take to shower, I didn't allow myself and I still don't.

I give myself maybe seven hours a day off of childcare when I have daycare for my son five days a week. Those are working hours and sometimes chore hours, but you really need-- the ease goes away. I also agree with what Theresa said about it being so fulfilling. You stop taking the time to take care of yourself and you're spending so much time taking care of someone else. There are pluses and minuses to that. One of the pluses is how amazing it is to get to spend time with this person who's your child and who's incredible.

Brigid Bergin: Liana, I want to give you a moment to share a little bit more from your memoir with us. You selected a reading for much later on when your- -baby started going to the playground. Do you want to read that for us?

Liana Finck: Yes. The book is in chapters. This chapter is called The Playground. Every chapter has an illustrated first page, and I loved making those. They're so fun. One of the things I love about children's books and sometimes other illustrated books is all of the decorative design elements. The chapter page is called The Playground and the illustration has a little border around it, and it has a picture in the middle that has an explorer walking into this strange land and he's wearing one of those khaki hats and a little backpack and little shorts with a belt around them. He's in a playground and he's surrounded by children carrying sticks and crawling around and doing what kids do. He's saying, "It's a metropolis of children." Here's the chapter.

You'll begin to feel cooped up in your apartment, what with all the playing, and here's a picture of a mom and a baby both saying, "Entertain me." I know, you will think there's a place for this, and then there's an Oz-like illustration of a mom pushing a stroller and seeing this glowing land, which is the playground. Once you start visiting the playground daily, you will become familiar with the regulars. The first regular is the gatekeeper. This book ends when your child is one or maybe a tiny bit older than one.

The gatekeeper tends to be a little bit older yet, and the kids who are a little bit older are so bizarre when you're a new parent. This is probably a 15-month-old and it's the kid who's standing, amazing, standing up in front of the gate to the playground and opening and closing it so that you cannot get in with your stroller and you have to interact with this weird old baby. You say, "Excuse me," and of course, they don't listen. The next regular is the executive and this is a parent yelling into the phone while pushing, totally ignoring their kid in a swing, and they're [crosstalk] saying, "You heard me a gazillion." Wait, what did you say?

Brigid Bergin: I said I've met these people. I've been to this playground.

Liana Finck: Yes, they're everywhere. The empath and the empath is the opposite of the executive. It's the parent who is grinning very largely at their child in the swing and they're saying, "Weee." Then there's the braggart. In my experience, the braggart actually doesn't like living in your neighborhood and is about to move, but that's just from experience. I didn't know this when I made the book. The braggart is saying-- they're hanging out with a baby the same age as yours and they're saying, "Don't worry. I'm sure your kid will talk soon. Mine's just freakishly genius." Her kid is not actually talking, it's just saying, "Goo, goo."

Then they're nice kids. In my playground, there are only baby swings, those kind of like baskets with little leg holes. Often there's a large kid stuffed into the basket. Sometimes they're just like sitting atop it. You interact with these large kids who are sitting on these. It's like some kind of a Kafka story. They're just sitting in these baskets and they interact differently with your baby. You get to know really fast which kids are the nice kids. The nice kids are so nice and they're talking to your baby from the swing.

Then there are mean kids, which are two-year-olds. You find out later when your kid becomes a mean kid. The mean kid is yelling at your baby, who's probably grabbed their hair or something or grabbed their foot and they're saying, "Move." Then there are-- [crosstalk]

Brigid Bergin: We're going to-- I'm sorry, go on.

Liana Finck: Too much?

Brigid Bergin: I'm going to jump in there--

Liana Finck: [unintelligible 00:14:11]

Brigid Bergin: I'm going to jump in just for a second because I love all of these images and all of these what I think were probably surprises for you as a new mother, but I also want to thank our listeners who've called in with stories. We didn't get to all of them and we appreciate you. We see you, the people who have struggled with breastfeeding, who've struggled with the expense of childcare. We also want to acknowledge the people who've struggled with the loss of a child, who this day is very difficult for.

We're holding space for you also today, but I want to really thank our guest, Liana Finck, who is an illustrator and regular contributor to The New Yorker and author of several books, most recently, How to Baby: A No-Advice-Given Guide to Motherhood, with Drawings. Thank you so much for coming on and a happy Mother's Day to you.

Liana Finck: Thanks for having me.

Brigid Bergin: The Brian Lehrer Show producers are Lisa Allison, MaryEileen Croke, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum with help from Brianna Brady today. Our intern is Ethlyn Daniel-Scherz. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen takes care of the podcast. Megan Ryan is the head of live radio and [unintelligible 00:15:22] and Milton Ruiz are at the studio controls. I'm Brigid Bergin and this is The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Have a great weekend. Happy Mother's Day. Do call in during the All Of It segment about Mother's Day plans. Thanks for listening.

 

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