WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.360 --> 00:00:10.479 This is parent Data. I'm Emily Oster. If you're listening 2 00:00:10.480 --> 00:00:14.200 to this in the US, it's Thanksgiving, and after a 3 00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:19.319 fall and really a year of divisiveness, I think we 4 00:00:19.400 --> 00:00:22.320 all need a holiday in which all Americans are united 5 00:00:22.760 --> 00:00:27.479 in the task of consuming too much pie. More broadly, 6 00:00:27.880 --> 00:00:31.800 this holiday, more than really any other one, is something 7 00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:37.879 Americans tend to do together. And if Thanksgiving reminds us 8 00:00:37.920 --> 00:00:41.479 of what unites us, not what divides us, so does parenting. 9 00:00:42.400 --> 00:00:46.879 Especially at the beginning, the experience of having a newborn, 10 00:00:47.640 --> 00:00:54.600 the sleeplessness, the disconnection from reality, the wonder it feels 11 00:00:54.640 --> 00:01:00.520 somehow like this incredible, unique, magical thing that only you 12 00:01:00.600 --> 00:01:04.440 have done, and also like a line connecting you to 13 00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:09.479 billions and billions of people throughout the past. And all 14 00:01:09.520 --> 00:01:12.800 of that is why I'm really excited to share today's 15 00:01:12.800 --> 00:01:17.080 episode with you. It's made by my producer Tamar, whom 16 00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:20.360 you've heard from before, and now I'm going to give 17 00:01:20.440 --> 00:01:24.280 over the mic entirely. Before she came to parent Data, 18 00:01:24.720 --> 00:01:28.120 Tamar had been producing her own independent art history podcast 19 00:01:28.360 --> 00:01:32.600 called The Lonely Palette, and this episode about a nineteen 20 00:01:32.720 --> 00:01:38.160 seventies feminist artist named Mary Kelly who meticulously tracked every 21 00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:42.040 data point from her son's birth until age five, diaper 22 00:01:42.040 --> 00:01:46.840 Stain's first babbels. This combines both her love of art history, 23 00:01:47.360 --> 00:01:51.360 my love of data, and our shared love of parenting. 24 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:54.920 I asked Tamar to come and talk a little bit 25 00:01:54.920 --> 00:02:00.120 about this before we play the episode. Tomor Welcome, Welcome 26 00:02:00.120 --> 00:02:01.680 to the hot seat. How do you feel? 27 00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:06.520 Thanks, it's uh, it's it's warm, it's it is. 28 00:02:06.920 --> 00:02:11.239 Get ready, it's getting hotter. We're going to talk about poop. 29 00:02:11.360 --> 00:02:15.080 So let's start by how about you tell us what's 30 00:02:15.080 --> 00:02:17.840 your what's your parenting set up? Over there? You're in 31 00:02:17.880 --> 00:02:20.320 a closet. How's the parenting in the closet? 32 00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:25.200 It's great because I can close the door. The parenting 33 00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:28.600 situation is I have a five almost five and a 34 00:02:28.639 --> 00:02:33.200 half year old whom this episode is actually about his birth, 35 00:02:33.680 --> 00:02:39.119 and then I have a as of this recording tomorrow, 36 00:02:39.200 --> 00:02:43.560 a three year old and one on the way. 37 00:02:44.360 --> 00:02:47.919 So this is an episode from the early twenty twenty 38 00:02:47.960 --> 00:02:54.760 one pandemic times, and it's interesting to listen to several 39 00:02:54.880 --> 00:02:59.880 years later post pandemic. But I'm curious about how important 40 00:02:59.919 --> 00:03:03.239 you think the pandemic is in how you were sort 41 00:03:03.240 --> 00:03:06.080 of thinking about that time and your parenting and this 42 00:03:06.160 --> 00:03:08.640 piece of art, you. 43 00:03:08.639 --> 00:03:10.760 Know, it actually kind of set up the framing for 44 00:03:10.800 --> 00:03:14.080 the entire episode. So my son was born in July 45 00:03:14.360 --> 00:03:20.239 of twenty nineteen, and I actually moved cities that December, 46 00:03:20.440 --> 00:03:24.360 so come March, I had a seven month old, I 47 00:03:24.480 --> 00:03:27.440 had a new city, and then we had this pandemic, 48 00:03:27.520 --> 00:03:32.280 and it was just like triple alienation from the world. 49 00:03:32.960 --> 00:03:36.320 And it was actually there was something very kind of 50 00:03:36.520 --> 00:03:39.440 reassuring that it felt for a little while, at least 51 00:03:39.440 --> 00:03:41.120 at the beginning of the pandemic, that it was like 52 00:03:41.840 --> 00:03:45.080 the whole world was on maternity leave, and it felt 53 00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:49.880 like everybody, you know, everybody who was lucky enough to 54 00:03:49.960 --> 00:03:52.760 kind of be able to just stay home, It felt 55 00:03:52.800 --> 00:03:57.880 like everybody was existing in that weird out of timeeness 56 00:03:58.680 --> 00:04:03.120 that a new mother who's home with her baby just 57 00:04:03.280 --> 00:04:05.960 kind of gets used to, where you're so used to 58 00:04:06.360 --> 00:04:09.320 structuring your life around routine and then all of a sudden, 59 00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:12.240 you can't really tell one day from the next. And 60 00:04:12.480 --> 00:04:16.279 there was something very familiar in that feeling that it's 61 00:04:16.320 --> 00:04:18.799 like you could call up anybody and everybody was feeling 62 00:04:18.960 --> 00:04:21.320 that out of joint. 63 00:04:21.839 --> 00:04:23.680 You talking to being any of the episode about not 64 00:04:23.800 --> 00:04:26.760 knowing what day of the week it is, which I 65 00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:30.440 totally related to both from the new parenting and from 66 00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:33.640 those early, those sort of early pandemic moments. 67 00:04:34.160 --> 00:04:34.520 Yeah. 68 00:04:35.080 --> 00:04:39.640 Yeah, I liked the idea that this experience, for as 69 00:04:39.720 --> 00:04:41.200 long as we can kind of keep it in our 70 00:04:41.240 --> 00:04:45.800 public consciousness, gave us a lot more not just sympathy, 71 00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:47.520 but empathy for new mothers. 72 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:53.640 So I admit I had never heard of Mary Kelly 73 00:04:53.720 --> 00:04:57.479 before this episode, which reflects many different things. We don't 74 00:04:57.480 --> 00:05:02.200 need to go into all of them, but my sense 75 00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:04.400 from you is that this wasn't like I had never 76 00:05:04.440 --> 00:05:08.800 heard of her because I'm an uncultured, you know, individual, 77 00:05:09.600 --> 00:05:12.160 but that she is not that well known, and what 78 00:05:12.200 --> 00:05:13.640 do you why is that? 79 00:05:15.320 --> 00:05:15.560 Well? 80 00:05:15.839 --> 00:05:20.320 So she is a second wave feminist artist, and most 81 00:05:20.360 --> 00:05:26.640 second wave feminist artists were really adamant about asserting their 82 00:05:26.760 --> 00:05:29.960 non motherness, that they were really trying to kind of 83 00:05:30.040 --> 00:05:33.839 break from the idea that women had to be mothers 84 00:05:34.120 --> 00:05:37.719 and that, you know, we had this sexual revolution, we 85 00:05:37.839 --> 00:05:40.120 had the pill, you know, I mean, there were ways 86 00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:44.440 to sidestep and kind of transcend motherhood, and you would 87 00:05:44.440 --> 00:05:48.680 see that a lot in their art, and she did 88 00:05:48.680 --> 00:05:52.599 this really kind of revolutionary thing of actually bringing motherhood 89 00:05:53.120 --> 00:05:57.360 back into second wave feminism. But she also did it, 90 00:05:57.440 --> 00:05:59.279 and you know you'll hear this in the episode, she 91 00:05:59.360 --> 00:06:02.200 did it in a way that if you haven't had kids, 92 00:06:02.240 --> 00:06:04.599 it's really easy to kind of dismiss her as like 93 00:06:04.720 --> 00:06:09.560 a little psycho. And so you have this artist who 94 00:06:09.720 --> 00:06:14.880 both was kind of like subverting the kind of feminist 95 00:06:14.960 --> 00:06:16.719 art you were supposed to be making in the seventies 96 00:06:17.080 --> 00:06:21.680 and doing it in kind of an unappealing way. But 97 00:06:21.800 --> 00:06:24.560 I think she's getting her doe now, you know. I 98 00:06:24.600 --> 00:06:28.200 think that that history is going to be kinder to her, 99 00:06:28.240 --> 00:06:31.280 even if it doesn't make her actually anymore famous. 100 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:37.280 So one of the things I the piece is about 101 00:06:37.279 --> 00:06:42.160 sort of documentation of early childhood, of baby ness and 102 00:06:42.279 --> 00:06:46.160 child and the thing I just kept thinking about, and 103 00:06:46.200 --> 00:06:48.080 this is why I think this is like perfect for 104 00:06:48.120 --> 00:06:52.680 the parent data audience is the person who once set 105 00:06:52.720 --> 00:06:56.000 me a picture of a quilt they had made. And 106 00:06:56.600 --> 00:07:00.920 in the quilt, every stitch was it was the entire 107 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:04.839 first year, with every row was a day, and every 108 00:07:04.839 --> 00:07:08.279 stitch was six minutes, and they were colored whether it 109 00:07:08.360 --> 00:07:10.880 was the baby was awake or asleep, and it was 110 00:07:10.920 --> 00:07:17.480 this like incredible, like wow, blanket documentation, like is it art? 111 00:07:17.560 --> 00:07:22.360 Is it commentary? Is it insane? Like yes? And also yes, 112 00:07:22.480 --> 00:07:25.280 and this is sort of it's like a continuation of 113 00:07:26.200 --> 00:07:29.520 Mary Kelly, but in quolting form, with like an app. 114 00:07:29.600 --> 00:07:31.920 I guess you must have used an app if only 115 00:07:31.960 --> 00:07:32.840 she had had an app. 116 00:07:33.280 --> 00:07:35.680 Well, I mean Mary Kelly is like the precursor for 117 00:07:36.040 --> 00:07:39.920 the nursing app that I used and the contraction app 118 00:07:40.120 --> 00:07:43.000 that I used. And you know, it's like we we 119 00:07:43.080 --> 00:07:45.120 feel like we kind of have to do this, like 120 00:07:45.160 --> 00:07:48.720 we have to track and and I talk about this too, 121 00:07:48.720 --> 00:07:52.360 but it's like, you know, in the hospital right away, 122 00:07:52.520 --> 00:07:56.040 I was given something to keep track of every breastfeeding 123 00:07:56.120 --> 00:07:58.720 attempt and then if there was any latching, it was 124 00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:02.160 like well for how long and which breast? And it's 125 00:08:02.240 --> 00:08:08.640 like right out of the gate, this, this experience that's 126 00:08:08.640 --> 00:08:13.760 supposed to be all about instinct, not only is really regimented, 127 00:08:14.040 --> 00:08:17.360 but makes you question if you can trust your own instinct. 128 00:08:18.280 --> 00:08:21.120 And you know why they do it, you know, you 129 00:08:21.200 --> 00:08:25.240 know why doctors and nurses are keeping tabs on all 130 00:08:25.240 --> 00:08:27.560 this stuff, but it just it sets you up to 131 00:08:27.720 --> 00:08:32.520 just feel like you have to write everything down and 132 00:08:32.559 --> 00:08:34.679 there are just a million ways to do it wrong, 133 00:08:35.679 --> 00:08:40.079 and you know, you slowly build instinct back up. I mean, 134 00:08:40.160 --> 00:08:43.080 I'm I'm anticipating my third and I don't know if 135 00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:45.720 I'll even use my apps anymore. It's like, but I 136 00:08:45.760 --> 00:08:47.400 couldn't have known that with my first. 137 00:08:48.040 --> 00:08:51.160 Yes, this piece of art is very much a first 138 00:08:51.440 --> 00:08:55.079 child art. I feel like her second child, she's got 139 00:08:55.120 --> 00:08:57.120 this first. If she had another child, they just get 140 00:08:57.120 --> 00:08:59.599 like a little poster, you know, like a eight and 141 00:08:59.640 --> 00:09:02.560 a half eleven with a few notes on it. Yeah, 142 00:09:02.600 --> 00:09:05.280 gus on the second part, who knows, I forgot to 143 00:09:05.320 --> 00:09:06.239 take pictures? 144 00:09:06.679 --> 00:09:10.960 Yeah, yeah, Well she never had another kid, unfortunately. 145 00:09:12.160 --> 00:09:14.280 Well, I think we should get into it because I 146 00:09:14.320 --> 00:09:19.040 listened to it again last night and I love it. It's 147 00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:19.120 so good. It's so good. 148 00:09:19.120 --> 00:09:19.520 Tomorrow. 149 00:09:19.559 --> 00:09:23.080 Thank you for sharing it with us, and thanks for 150 00:09:23.120 --> 00:09:25.240 being a part of parent Data and doing all your 151 00:09:25.240 --> 00:09:25.800 cool stuff. 152 00:09:26.600 --> 00:09:29.560 Thanks Emily, thank you so much for sharing this episode 153 00:09:29.640 --> 00:09:31.319 with everybody. That means so much to me. 154 00:09:32.360 --> 00:09:35.959 All right, next up, everybody, we have the Lonely Palette 155 00:09:39.640 --> 00:09:42.600 Hub and Spoke Audio Collective. 156 00:09:47.720 --> 00:09:51.080 This is The Lonely Palette, the podcast that returns art 157 00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:54.880 history to the masses. One object at a time, I'm 158 00:09:54.920 --> 00:10:01.880 tomor Avey shy. 159 00:10:02.200 --> 00:10:04.360 Oh, yes, it was very funny. In the paper I said, 160 00:10:05.200 --> 00:10:07.000 they had a picture of me. I don't know how 161 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:10.199 they got it, and under it said it's art because 162 00:10:10.240 --> 00:10:16.760 I say so. Because there was the you know, the 163 00:10:16.880 --> 00:10:21.480 problem for perhaps some of the critics were involved in 164 00:10:21.559 --> 00:10:24.520 conceptual art at the time, as they say, well, you know, 165 00:10:24.559 --> 00:10:26.760 I like that theory, that structure, but why do you 166 00:10:26.760 --> 00:10:30.560 have to have that stuff in there? And on the 167 00:10:30.600 --> 00:10:32.640 other hand, the women would say, I can, I can 168 00:10:32.679 --> 00:10:34.800 relate to that, but what do you have to why 169 00:10:34.880 --> 00:10:39.160 the theory? Why that? So it seemed to in a sense, 170 00:10:39.640 --> 00:10:43.320 be three interlocking circles, you know, one where you would 171 00:10:43.360 --> 00:10:46.640 have a conceptual artists, you would have women in the 172 00:10:46.720 --> 00:10:50.160 movement right, and you would have mothers, and there would 173 00:10:50.280 --> 00:10:53.480 be one point in the middle where very few people 174 00:10:53.840 --> 00:10:59.600 could understand exactly where this was pointed. And when this 175 00:10:59.640 --> 00:11:03.240 work first shown in the context of conceptual art, this 176 00:11:03.400 --> 00:11:08.760 is before disposable nappies, before disposable diapers, they had something 177 00:11:08.800 --> 00:11:11.000 which was like a liner that you put in a 178 00:11:11.040 --> 00:11:15.199 cloth diaper, and it's really that the stain on that 179 00:11:15.320 --> 00:11:19.600 liner that I kind of used as the evidence of 180 00:11:19.640 --> 00:11:24.439 how well I was doing with the feeding, and there 181 00:11:24.520 --> 00:11:27.559 was actually no other way to go about. 182 00:11:27.280 --> 00:11:37.439 This episode fifty one, Mary Kelly's postpartum document from nineteen 183 00:11:37.480 --> 00:11:51.800 seventy three to seventy nine. Early on in the pandemic, 184 00:11:51.880 --> 00:11:54.400 I was on the phone with my mom, and in 185 00:11:54.400 --> 00:11:57.440 the course of our conversation, I had that experience that 186 00:11:57.679 --> 00:12:01.160 everyone has had at least a couple times since last March, 187 00:12:01.960 --> 00:12:04.520 the realization that I couldn't tell what day of the 188 00:12:04.520 --> 00:12:09.560 week it was. I screwed up my brain and tried 189 00:12:09.559 --> 00:12:12.440 to find some purchase, but it just wouldn't come to me. 190 00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:16.360 We all know how in the before times, each day 191 00:12:16.360 --> 00:12:19.880 of the week had its own unique, imperceptible quality to it. 192 00:12:20.640 --> 00:12:25.320 Monday has fresh momentum, Wednesdays are productive but kind of bloodless. 193 00:12:25.960 --> 00:12:29.439 Thursdays have the promise of Fridays, Sundays kind of feel 194 00:12:29.480 --> 00:12:33.040 like the end of the summer. And now all of 195 00:12:33.040 --> 00:12:37.760 that was replaced with a smooth, blank wall. We knew 196 00:12:37.880 --> 00:12:40.880 on some rational level that the pandemic would mean we 197 00:12:40.880 --> 00:12:44.800 were losing hugs and restaurant meals, but we didn't consider 198 00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:50.800 this kind of loss, the untethering of time itself. My 199 00:12:50.880 --> 00:12:53.680 mom responded with a chuckle. I heard a good one 200 00:12:53.720 --> 00:12:56.520 the other day. She said, we used to have days 201 00:12:56.559 --> 00:13:06.280 of the week. Now every day is Blursday, and I'll 202 00:13:06.280 --> 00:13:09.040 give it to her. It was a good one, and 203 00:13:09.080 --> 00:13:12.079 not just because it rings so true for the pandemic 204 00:13:12.360 --> 00:13:15.920 and it's something that we can all understand, but because 205 00:13:15.960 --> 00:13:19.000 that joke is an old chestnut on loan from a 206 00:13:19.160 --> 00:13:23.000 very specific demographic one that I'd also been a part 207 00:13:23.040 --> 00:13:27.200 of since the summer before, because I'd been living in 208 00:13:27.360 --> 00:13:31.720 months of blursdays by the time the pandemic hit. Because 209 00:13:31.760 --> 00:13:36.840 I was the mother of a freshly born baby, I 210 00:13:36.880 --> 00:13:41.000 had been living the cottony haze as hours bled into hours, 211 00:13:41.160 --> 00:13:46.480 days into nights, into days into nights. Babies aren't born 212 00:13:46.520 --> 00:13:49.839 with a circadian rhythm. They need to develop them, and 213 00:13:49.880 --> 00:13:53.160 that means that as a new parent, you lose yours 214 00:13:54.120 --> 00:13:58.319 three am, three pm, sunlight, moonlight, It's all the same. 215 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:02.440 This decade of my life had been structured by a 216 00:14:02.559 --> 00:14:06.640 nine to five, the distinct borders between weeknights and weekends, 217 00:14:07.120 --> 00:14:09.240 and the seven fifty one train to get to work 218 00:14:09.280 --> 00:14:12.240 on time, and beating the eleven am grocery store rush 219 00:14:12.240 --> 00:14:16.440 on Sundays, And now all of that, I mean truly 220 00:14:16.920 --> 00:14:23.760 all of it. My life, my normal fell away, dissolved, disappeared, 221 00:14:25.920 --> 00:14:30.080 structure itself was meaningless, and the sleepless, broken hours spent 222 00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:34.360 staring into the face of this little, squeaking being who 223 00:14:34.400 --> 00:14:39.680 stared back in equal wonder our most urgent needs, food 224 00:14:39.760 --> 00:14:43.400 going in, food coming out, and the crashing waves of 225 00:14:43.480 --> 00:14:48.360 sleep became our only indication that time was actually passing. 226 00:14:56.600 --> 00:14:59.280 How can I even describe those first days and weeks 227 00:14:59.280 --> 00:15:02.720 of my son's life. Someone once told me that it's 228 00:15:02.760 --> 00:15:06.640 impossible to actually conjure the memory of pain, And when 229 00:15:06.640 --> 00:15:08.960 I think back on that time, I realized that I 230 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:14.560 can't actually conjure the fatigue, only the small, poignant details, 231 00:15:15.520 --> 00:15:17.760 the warm light of the bedside lamp in the middle 232 00:15:17.760 --> 00:15:22.280 of the night, staring at his impossibly tiny, yet wholly 233 00:15:22.320 --> 00:15:26.760 complete fingers, the hollow, little squelchy suck as he nursed. 234 00:15:27.720 --> 00:15:30.240 I remember how simple it was to feed him, and 235 00:15:30.320 --> 00:15:33.960 yet so stressful to feed me, How attempting to follow 236 00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:37.240 recipes brought me to frustrated tears, how I would order 237 00:15:37.280 --> 00:15:39.240 food to pick up just as a reason to leave 238 00:15:39.240 --> 00:15:44.000 the house. And more than anything, I remember how separate 239 00:15:44.080 --> 00:15:47.600 I felt from the world on a solitary rocket ship 240 00:15:47.640 --> 00:15:52.320 to the moon. Life became a series of contradictions. Everything 241 00:15:52.360 --> 00:15:56.080 was both itself and its total opposite, just depending on 242 00:15:56.120 --> 00:16:00.560 the hour. I remember feeling giddy and bursting with love. 243 00:16:01.280 --> 00:16:05.440 I remember feeling wrung out and desperate. My rocket ship 244 00:16:05.520 --> 00:16:10.480 was perfectly cozy and fit to our scale and utterly claustrophobic. 245 00:16:11.720 --> 00:16:14.920 I had nestled in my arms, the exact person who 246 00:16:14.960 --> 00:16:19.600 made me feel whole, and I was really lonely. I 247 00:16:19.720 --> 00:16:23.360 was on this thrilling, far flung adventure whilst sitting in 248 00:16:23.400 --> 00:16:27.320 the same spot on my couch, unmoving sometimes for hours, 249 00:16:27.960 --> 00:16:31.560 wearing the same clothes, steeped in my own gentle stink, 250 00:16:32.480 --> 00:16:38.440 the existential silence of outer space, guided entirely by sounds, whimpers, 251 00:16:38.640 --> 00:16:48.360 snorts and those deep shuddery sighs. But for all its 252 00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:51.920 nebulous haze, the fact is that I can revisit the 253 00:16:52.040 --> 00:16:54.320 nuts and bolts of those days any old time I 254 00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:59.040 want to, because no sooner had this little body been 255 00:16:59.080 --> 00:17:02.400 evacuated from my own, no sooner had I joined the 256 00:17:02.440 --> 00:17:06.480 celestial ranks of our species. I was handed a hospital 257 00:17:06.560 --> 00:17:10.359 chart to fill out which breast, how long, what time, 258 00:17:10.520 --> 00:17:13.720 how many ounces. As soon as he would wake up 259 00:17:13.760 --> 00:17:16.400 all thrashy and sniffy, I was to pop him on 260 00:17:16.400 --> 00:17:20.360 my nipple and start a timer. Countless doctors and nurses 261 00:17:20.400 --> 00:17:22.639 then checked up on it, made sure I was filling 262 00:17:22.680 --> 00:17:25.280 it out, and a student that I was. Of course, 263 00:17:25.320 --> 00:17:30.440 I wanted to impress them, but it wasn't just for them. 264 00:17:31.040 --> 00:17:35.880 I needed it. I needed something, anything that would give 265 00:17:35.920 --> 00:17:46.919 me back some control. This is not a shock to 266 00:17:46.960 --> 00:17:50.080 anyone who really knows me. When I first told my 267 00:17:50.119 --> 00:17:52.680 sister I was pregnant, she shook her head and smiled, 268 00:17:52.920 --> 00:17:56.960 not unkindly about just how much control a control freak 269 00:17:57.080 --> 00:18:00.359 like me was going to have to accept losing. Because 270 00:18:00.359 --> 00:18:04.000 it's true, control is an exceedingly short supply from the 271 00:18:04.040 --> 00:18:07.560 moment of conception from which hormones are released to grow 272 00:18:07.600 --> 00:18:10.199 his spleen, to how long the labor takes, to how 273 00:18:10.240 --> 00:18:12.720 much milk you produce to when he starts to talk. 274 00:18:13.720 --> 00:18:16.800 But you'd never know it from the app store. There 275 00:18:16.800 --> 00:18:20.560 are infinite ways to maintain the illusion of control. To 276 00:18:20.720 --> 00:18:24.600 process all of this unknown With a tap, I was 277 00:18:24.640 --> 00:18:27.480 able to track my ovulation to the day. I know 278 00:18:27.640 --> 00:18:30.720 the exact moment of conception as soon as I found 279 00:18:30.760 --> 00:18:32.760 out I was pregnant, I was able to check in 280 00:18:32.800 --> 00:18:35.960 weekly on what literal size the fruit growing in my 281 00:18:36.080 --> 00:18:39.760 womb was a grape at nine weeks, a grapefruit at 282 00:18:39.760 --> 00:18:43.520 twenty three. With the first labor spasm, I was searching 283 00:18:43.520 --> 00:18:47.080 for apps to time the length between contractions, to tell 284 00:18:47.119 --> 00:18:49.919 me when it was going to happen. And I think 285 00:18:50.200 --> 00:18:54.840 I hoped what was going to happen, because even though 286 00:18:54.880 --> 00:18:57.879 my entire job that day was to give up control 287 00:18:58.040 --> 00:19:00.199 and just get out of my body's way so it 288 00:19:00.200 --> 00:19:02.639 could do the primary act that it was built to do, 289 00:19:03.680 --> 00:19:07.680 the data is still there, structuring the experience in bits 290 00:19:07.760 --> 00:19:10.399 and bytes, making me feel like it could have been 291 00:19:10.440 --> 00:19:13.719 structured at all. And whether or not this kind of 292 00:19:13.760 --> 00:19:17.840 neurotic charting creates more stress on a larger level, I 293 00:19:17.960 --> 00:19:21.520 know that it comforted me in the moment. It gave 294 00:19:21.600 --> 00:19:25.800 me back a sense of control, and it made me understand, 295 00:19:26.200 --> 00:19:28.159 maybe it was the only thing that could make me 296 00:19:28.320 --> 00:19:33.359 understand on a molecular level, what the artist Mary Kelly 297 00:19:33.760 --> 00:19:45.000 was all about. Because if we're being honest, when I 298 00:19:45.080 --> 00:19:47.280 was introduced to the work of Mary Kelly in a 299 00:19:47.359 --> 00:19:52.160 college art history course, I rolled my eyes Postpartum Document 300 00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:54.640 is her most famous work. It's the one that puts 301 00:19:54.680 --> 00:19:58.359 her in college survey art history courses, usually lumped together 302 00:19:58.480 --> 00:20:02.360 with other second wave feminists artists. And if you're familiar 303 00:20:02.400 --> 00:20:07.160 with many of those artists, Marina Abramovic, Kroly Schneman, Judy Chicago, 304 00:20:07.400 --> 00:20:10.520 and others who we've looked at in the past, then you, 305 00:20:10.920 --> 00:20:16.320 like I was, would be predisposed to dismiss Kelly. Come on, girl, 306 00:20:16.520 --> 00:20:18.879 you would say, with all the inflated confidence of a 307 00:20:18.920 --> 00:20:22.880 co ed. You're working alongside women artists who pour their 308 00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:28.280 souls into reclaiming their women bodies. These are artists breaking 309 00:20:28.320 --> 00:20:31.560 out of the gaze or subsuming it or subverting it. 310 00:20:32.480 --> 00:20:36.480 And here you are obsessively tracking the birth of your son. 311 00:20:39.040 --> 00:20:42.000 Because this is what Postpartum Document is on its face, 312 00:20:42.600 --> 00:20:46.119 a series of six sections mounted as a seemingly endless 313 00:20:46.160 --> 00:20:51.600 series of individually framed works, essays, images, and footnotes documenting 314 00:20:51.720 --> 00:20:55.280 every inch of her baby's development until he's five years old. 315 00:20:56.040 --> 00:20:59.879 His feedings, his diaper changes, down to the poop stained clothliners, 316 00:21:00.119 --> 00:21:04.159 his babbels, his scribbles, every little token gifted by his 317 00:21:04.320 --> 00:21:08.800 chubby toddler hand all charted and described with a precision 318 00:21:08.840 --> 00:21:12.360 that I at the time could only have described as 319 00:21:12.400 --> 00:21:20.760 psychotic and worse, unfeminist. To devote your freshly liberated female 320 00:21:20.760 --> 00:21:24.359 body to another person, and to devote your artistic life 321 00:21:24.400 --> 00:21:27.680 to tracking something that only the mother of that specific 322 00:21:27.760 --> 00:21:31.640 baby could ever possibly be interested in, well, it felt 323 00:21:31.640 --> 00:21:37.399 retrograde and trivial. I mean, Shnemann was painting canvases with 324 00:21:37.440 --> 00:21:41.919 her own goddamn vagina. Mary Kelly, all you did was 325 00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:46.000 become a mom, and worse, the kind of insufferable mom 326 00:21:46.040 --> 00:21:49.320 who shows us the whole photo burst when one would 327 00:21:49.359 --> 00:21:59.879 have more than sufficed. Okay, both college age Tamar and 328 00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:03.040 and everyone else, let's sit with this for a moment. 329 00:22:03.080 --> 00:22:07.639 Shall we specifically this idea that all a woman did, 330 00:22:08.160 --> 00:22:12.800 that all our moms did, was become a mom, That 331 00:22:12.960 --> 00:22:16.400 making and caring for new life is so common that 332 00:22:16.480 --> 00:22:19.320 we stop seeing it for the tremendously profound thing that 333 00:22:19.400 --> 00:22:23.680 it is. And this seeps in when you become a mom, 334 00:22:24.080 --> 00:22:27.040 because you start to question, how can something be so 335 00:22:27.280 --> 00:22:34.120 transcendently life altering in theory and yet so mundane in practice. 336 00:22:34.320 --> 00:22:37.160 I was thinking about that this morning as my son 337 00:22:37.280 --> 00:22:41.000 sat calmly on my lap, sucking down a bottle. This 338 00:22:41.200 --> 00:22:43.520 was the leap off the side of the world. The 339 00:22:43.720 --> 00:22:47.639 small innocuous body with the sweet smelling curls, swinging his 340 00:22:47.720 --> 00:22:52.320 little pajamaed legs. This is my new greatest joy, seriously 341 00:22:52.440 --> 00:22:56.760 watching him happily shake a container of cupcake sprinkles. But 342 00:22:56.880 --> 00:23:01.680 it is, and parenting exists in the contrasts at once 343 00:23:01.840 --> 00:23:09.879 everything and nothing, obvious and obliterating. But unlike all the 344 00:23:09.960 --> 00:23:15.200 other existential paradigm shifts that human beings experience, like death 345 00:23:15.480 --> 00:23:20.360 or falling in love, parenting is treated differently. It's treated 346 00:23:20.600 --> 00:23:24.159 like a choice. We choose to take the leap, We 347 00:23:24.359 --> 00:23:28.160 choose to undergo the Copernican revolution in our own lives, 348 00:23:28.760 --> 00:23:31.120 to no longer be the center of our own universes. 349 00:23:32.280 --> 00:23:35.960 And it stands to reason that if something was a choice, 350 00:23:36.040 --> 00:23:38.680 then there's a clear metric for determining if it was 351 00:23:38.720 --> 00:23:44.400 the correct choice, or if it's being done correctly or incorrectly. 352 00:23:45.720 --> 00:23:49.480 That it's indeed possible, as all the mommy sites try 353 00:23:49.480 --> 00:23:59.800 to tell us it is, to rationally track motherhood. These contradictions, 354 00:24:00.119 --> 00:24:04.520 these metrics, the work the leap. These are the issues 355 00:24:04.560 --> 00:24:09.080 that postpartum document tries to unpack, and it's the contradictions 356 00:24:09.080 --> 00:24:12.560 in particular that give the work its spine. Like with 357 00:24:12.680 --> 00:24:17.639 motherhood itself, Postpartum Document is both everything in its opposite. 358 00:24:17.720 --> 00:24:21.040 It's an attempt to view an exposed human heart through 359 00:24:21.080 --> 00:24:26.320 an objective filter. It's an anthropological project that elevates motherhood 360 00:24:26.359 --> 00:24:30.320 to an academic social science that can be understood through 361 00:24:30.480 --> 00:24:35.320 enough observation and dissection through the authority of theoretical analysis. 362 00:24:36.440 --> 00:24:39.440 And it's a deeply ironic parody of such an approach, 363 00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:43.800 from the formal, typewritten cataloging that's covered with crayon scribbles 364 00:24:44.320 --> 00:24:49.400 to the pleasing rorshak like esthetic of poop stains. And 365 00:24:49.840 --> 00:24:54.119 at its core, it's a comfort, a quiet tethering for 366 00:24:54.200 --> 00:24:57.880 a struggling new mom named Mary Kelly, who is clearly 367 00:24:57.960 --> 00:25:01.920 trying to understand something that and sends our understanding, our 368 00:25:02.080 --> 00:25:06.440 language to pin down feelings that can't ever be processed 369 00:25:06.440 --> 00:25:10.119 in real time, only exquisitely remembered with a whiff of 370 00:25:10.160 --> 00:25:15.760 baby shampoo. This attempt at objective rationalism is her own 371 00:25:15.800 --> 00:25:18.600 attempt to make sense of what cannot be made sense 372 00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:21.600 of and to feel a little less unhinged in the 373 00:25:21.640 --> 00:25:27.800 moment by manufacturing this anthropological framework around it. Measuring stains 374 00:25:27.840 --> 00:25:32.240 on diapers with mathematical precision, as she has described, helped 375 00:25:32.280 --> 00:25:35.640 to fend off the anxiety that she wasn't feeding him correctly. 376 00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:41.160 Deciphering his babbels as only a mother can do, reinforced 377 00:25:41.240 --> 00:25:46.000 her own value as only that mother quote. It was 378 00:25:46.080 --> 00:25:49.119 all evidence of how well I was doing, Kelly said. 379 00:25:49.880 --> 00:25:53.359 If you track his progress, she's telling herself, then you 380 00:25:53.400 --> 00:25:57.640 can track your own, and you can reassure yourself, as 381 00:25:57.680 --> 00:26:00.800 every mother must, that you're not talking it all up. 382 00:26:09.840 --> 00:26:14.360 And we need to consider how postpartum documents intrinsic contradictions 383 00:26:14.640 --> 00:26:18.640 met their historical moment. Images of mothers and children are 384 00:26:18.680 --> 00:26:22.159 perhaps the most primal pillar of visual culture, given the 385 00:26:22.160 --> 00:26:26.240 Biblical references to the Madonna and child. The genre essentially 386 00:26:26.280 --> 00:26:29.560 peaked in the nineteenth century with the tender French Impressionist 387 00:26:29.600 --> 00:26:33.080 paintings of Bert Morriso and Mary Cassatt, who had been 388 00:26:33.119 --> 00:26:36.000 confined to their domestic settings by dint of their sex 389 00:26:36.040 --> 00:26:39.320 and class, and therefore painted what they had access to, 390 00:26:39.920 --> 00:26:44.120 that is children. But these images had largely fallen out 391 00:26:44.119 --> 00:26:46.600 of favor by the middle of the twentieth century, and 392 00:26:46.680 --> 00:26:50.199 certainly by the nineteen seventies, when the artistic discourse of 393 00:26:50.240 --> 00:26:54.800 second wave feminism, as we've said, saw itself explicitly about 394 00:26:54.880 --> 00:27:00.280 liberation from the body, from the gaze, and especially from 395 00:27:00.280 --> 00:27:05.439 the home, that is, from homemaking. So when Mary Kelly 396 00:27:05.480 --> 00:27:08.200 first began to show the series in nineteen seventy six, 397 00:27:08.680 --> 00:27:12.840 it's perceived quote unquote anti feminist quote unquote backsliding was 398 00:27:13.080 --> 00:27:16.920 laughed out of the room. Moreover, like with most newcomers 399 00:27:16.960 --> 00:27:20.400 to the work, all people could focus on were the diapers. 400 00:27:21.359 --> 00:27:24.880 After the tates bricks, come the dirty nappies. The headline 401 00:27:24.880 --> 00:27:28.440