Maternity leave: a resource guide

Mother; hydrocal, tar, synthetic hair; 2019

Hello there.

This is my last newsletter before I head out on mat leave for three months. If you missed my June newsletter, I'm popping out a kid very soon. God bless.

Recently I was catching up with a Canadian friend and she asked me, "So how long do you get for mat leave?" She was shocked to learn that in the US there is no federal maternity leave. Taking time off work to take care of yourself or your kid just means you're not working.

Artists are not alone on this one. There is essentially no social safety net for most American workers—no paid sick leave, no paid vacation, no subsidized childcare. The US is the only major country to not provide any federal paid sick or family leave to its workers.

It is in a word...barbaric.

This was particularly evident during the pandemic. With limited federal resources, women—particularly women of color—were more likely than men to quit work in order to take on childcare and home-schooling responsibilities. Many of them have yet to be able to return to work. In the US, we seem to use mothers and their labor as our back-up plans when shit hits the fan. The inequity of this is infuriating :)

Over the last few months, I've talked with many creative parents about these issues—money, domestic labor, returning to work, co-parenting. I asked the women specifically about the question of mat leave:

"Did you take maternity leave? How did you make it work?"

I got a range of answers.

Some women had paid leave from their jobs. Some had partners who could support them. Some had family support. Some did fundraisers and some got grants. Some used Covid unemployment to carry them through. All of them were scrappy in one way or another.

But mostly in these conversations I was troubled to learn just how few working women get paid maternity leave. Friends employed full-time at universities, non-profits, and major companies had little-to-no access to paid leave. Turns out, only 21% of workers get any paid family leave at all. A best case scenario seems to be: "We'll let you come back to this job when you're ready. Good luck!"

Fucking hell.

This is obviously a systemic issue and it's not going to change over night. But I think it's important to talk about here. It's important to take the shame out of needing to ask for resources or examples of HOW artist-mothers make it work. Until there is some serious federal progress here, parents gotta stick together.

So, how did I carve out three months for my mat leave?

Well, I did a combination of things. I did a coaching call with an artist who kicked my ass and encouraged me to make a plan. I did a mat leave art sale (THANK YOU to everyone who supported it). I got an artist grant. I tapped into some lingering Covid relief money and I made a game-plan with my partner on how we could swing it financially and logistically. I won't lie to you—it was a hustle. And no parent-to-be should have to do it.

Below are some financial, practical, and inspirational resources that I pulled together as I prepared for my time off. I hope they're helpful to all you creative mamas-and-papas-to-be out there. <3

Louise Bourgeois, Pregnant Woman

Artist Relief Grant
$5,000. For artists facing financial emergencies due to Covid. If you're a parent, this could be used to offset childcare or maternity expenses.

Sustainable Arts Foundation
$5,000 for artist-parents. Grant can be used to support a residency or creative project.

Pollock-Krasner Grant
Up to $30,000 for visual artists. Grant can be used to offset a medical expense (i.e. giving birth).

Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grant
$5,000. For artists experiencing unexpected medical expenses.



Here are some other emergency grants for artists that you might be eligible for.

Kiki Smith, Born

On the podcast

Creating an Exit Strategy

In this episode, I talk about how to create an exit strategy that helps you step away from a big project. I use my mat leave and taking a break from AMP as an example.

Stepping away from a project you care about can seem impossible. But when you're on the "production hamster-wheel" for too long, you lose sight of what you want FOR your work and FROM your work. How do you want your work to serve others? How do you want your work to serve you?

Sara Vanderbeek's batik installation on motherhood and mental health.

Artists drawing from parenthood

Here are 5 artists I love whose work explores the complicated experiences of parenthood:


Louise Bourgeois and her drawings of the pregnant body.

Sara Vanderbeek's batik installations tackling motherhood and mental health.

Greg Piwonka's paintings based on drawings he makes with his son.

Lenka Clayton and her Artist Residency in Motherhood project.

Joey Fauerso's drawing installations that explore themes of family and the creative processes of children.

Wangechi Mutu, Histology of the Different Classes of Uterine Tumours.

Other things percolating

The Very Real "Motherhood Penalty" in the Art-world (Hyperallergic)
"If we consider the museum professions with a higher percentage of women, such as conservation and education, the greatest concentration of these jobs are in the country’s most expensive childcare marketplaces (New York, Massachusetts, Washington DC) typically costing $20,000 annually. Children are a public good, not just a private obligation, therefore no family should have to contribute more than seven percent of its household income to childcare."


Mothers as Makers of Death (Paris Review)
"When a woman becomes a mother, a set of changes is set off within her; the most altering is that she, as if under a spell, loses her autonomy of mind. In A Life’s Work, Rachel Cusk posits that the mother is divided the moment she watches another human being exit her body. This is the instant the mother is no longer alone and can no longer achieve aloneness within.”


Department of Speculation by Jenny Offill.
"New parents, but especially new mothers like the [main character], have a set of alarms going off in their heads during the early, high stakes period of trying to keep a baby alive, while dealing with the pleasant lull of housebound boredom. The transcendence is undercut by the tedium. I wanted to get that feeling on the page. The solution I came up with was to describe her thoughts and actions in fragments, so that one would always be dislocating the other."


Random bits:
Designing Motherhood - advocacy + resources on IG.
Artist/Mother podcast - conversations on making + mothering.
The Dark Side of Mothering - an episode from This Jungian Life podcast.


Also this. Just 'cause it haunts my dreams in the best possible way.

Mother - detail (womb); tar, hair, pins, foam; 2019

I'll be out through September but back this fall with my 12-week coaching program for artists (waitlist here). If you'd like to join that session, sign up for the waitlist to learn about early enrollment. Start date: Sept 29th.

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Thanks for reading <3

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