Deep Work in Early Motherhood

Oh, my friends. Hello! I’m thrilled to be back here, writing in the absolute smallest chunks of time, but writing nonetheless.

To recap: we welcomed our fourth baby, a little girl, at the beginning of August. My pregnancy was so easy, so easy, and I took that to mean that the baby would be easy. Joke’s on me! Top 2 hardest babies we’ve ever had! But, I think (I pray) that we’re emerging from the newborn slog. She’s smiling now, starting to coo and giggle. She napped for longer than 45 minutes today! And she’s so cute, which makes a quantifiable difference in how I perceive the quality of my days. All in all, things are fine. We are tired, we have not hit a stride. But I’m not crying every day! (Am I selling all of you childless folks on having kids yet?)

As in newborn-phases past, I’ve been craving the writing process: time to think deeply without interruption, space to read and consider the work of others, the clarity that comes from editing my own work. All of this longing is part and parcel for me (and, I assume, most other mothers) in a period of near-constant interruption. I thought that maybe I’d take it better this time around, that the incessant needs of the tiny ones around me would finally be transformed into something to which I attend with constant joy and grace. But, here we are, still at my wit’s end by breakfast, still repeating “mama needs some space” and “don’t touch her face” and “there’s no need to shout” upwards of 600,000 times a day. With a newborn (and 3 other Intense Kids ™️), all my words and thoughts and minutes are spoken for. There’s been very little left to offer.

I cried about it in the rocking chair a few weeks ago. My thinking went like this: “Poor me! A tortured mother-writer! All these thoughts and absolutely no time to write them down. If only my children weren’t children and didn’t need me to do everything for them! If only they were quieter! If only we could afford a nanny and writing cottage! Then I would be able to write! Then I would be happy!”

Then along came Cal Newport’s Deep Work, a book I’m reading as a part of an ethics class I’m taking (more on this soon, it’s changing my life). The crux of the book is this: You do have the time to create, you just spend it on distraction rather than doing anything truly meaningful.

How dare he.

But he’s right. I’m ashamed to say that I’ve spent nearly all of my rocking-chair hours (of which there are many) digitally distracting myself from the intensity of this transitional period - opting for a quick hit of blue-light dopamine rather than an embodied, thoughtful presence. As I read, I realized I was complaining about a reality I’d chosen: one with plenty of time to pay attention to things that matter, but without the self-control to focus.

And so, I trotted to the kitchen with my tail between my legs, put my phone in a drawer, climbed the stairs, sat back down in that rocking chair, nursed the baby, and thought. I thought about the things that deserve my thinking, but have recently been relegated to frantic snippets of distracted time that leave no room for contemplation or prayer (let alone problem-solving). And guess what: all the hard things are still hard. But I’m not a mental tornado as I handle them.

I am humiliated and I am grateful. I begin writing my next Bible study in a couple of weeks (the first of 3 I’ve signed to write with Tyndale House - ahh!!!) and I’ll need all the intention and focus I can get. And, even in the next couple of weeks, I hope to work out a few ideas here. Just a few days ago during one of those analog nursing sessions, I drafted a whole post for us: a piece on consumerism and how it’s cut mothers off at the knees. Lord (and baby) willing, I’ll be posting that Friday.

Until then, peace and blessing to you!!