Care Takes

Since having my baby, I have experienced a ceaseless desire to talk about it.

“It” being the exhaustion. “It” being the life-affirming moments of joy that come from the weight of a small human sleeping on you; the soul-draining dread of wondering if I’m being sidelined in my career for procreating. “It” being the concern of my brain and wit ever coming back. “It” being the sensation that I’ve been grasping at the edge of the pool, weighed down by a sodden down jacket, just trying to get to the next second, the next minute, the next hour, the next day…

When I started working in film, I was a critic. This seems almost archaic now, as I made a living (of sorts) writing for a series of (many now defunct) blogs, weekly alt papers, and beautiful print magazines. I founded an online feminist film magazine, cléo journal, because I was so mad at the sheer inequality of bylines and perspectives. I started to work in festival programming, living nomadically and from contact to contract. This period granted me some of the greatest creative freedom I’ve known, counterbalanced with a yearning for partnership (professional and personal) that was strained from not being in any one place for longer than a matter of weeks or months.

Through these times, I observed those around me on the festival circuit, writing, and making movies, and tried to find a pattern in how the ones who decided to become caregivers managed to do it. I never really found one.

When I moved to Los Angeles I shifted into producing, and also shifted into motherhood. Most of the discussions leading up to giving birth were about maternity leave and the cost of medical care. But then when I gave birth, I noticed there was an odd silence…

It felt like few people in film spoke about their families. It was as if everyone thought it was a strike against them, and this other part of you shouldn’t be openly revealed. It was treated as a limitation instead of being seen as a potentially life-expanding capability. As the months went by I felt stifled. What I wanted was simply a normalization of talking about existing in film while parenting. Thus, Care Takes.

I’m curious from a practical sense: Daycare? Nanny? Grandparents? Patching it together between Zooms and shifts? But my questions also come from a place of soul-searching: Who are you now? Did your art shift? What are the intersections of body, mind, and work? In the same way society ideals bodies “bouncing back” after birth, do we do the same with creativity and careers? And if we know the first is toxic and steeped in misogyny and capitalism, is the latter too?

The only examples I could find in late night tear-soaked Google searches of these questions were girl boss coded narratives of “pushing through” and “leaning in.” But in conversations with friends and random strangers in cafés, they weren’t doing this. Two years in, I don’t have any answers, but talking has helped.

This isn’t meant to be an advice column or a Wikihow on parenting in film. It’s just openly having the conversations that are already happening in a space where more can share in and of them. The format will be interviews, profiles, and essays, talking with parents and caregivers in film around the world. And also just some movie and book recommendations.

This is not about balance. This is not about doing it all. This is not about surviving, thriving, excelling, flailing, failing. This is, above all, not about having figured it out. This is about how, simply, it just is. It gets done. Not by some magical essence that a person holds, but through practicality in the face of reality.