Motherhood and Creativity Interview #10 - Rahma Dutton
Rahma Dutton is a writer, storyteller, facilitator, and mother. Rahma writes the Substack 'A Woman Who Wanders'.
Welcome to Motherhood and Creativity, an interview series where I share the words of creative mums who inspire me here on Substack and beyond.
Every fortnight, I share words of joy, strength, creativity and community in motherhood.
I feel like when we read the words of mums who speak so honestly about motherhood - the good parts, the hard parts and everything in between - this can really help give us some comfort and feel less alone.
I find so much inspiration from reading about mums who are all weaving their work and creativity around their kids too, as this is the situation I’m currently in. Knowing that there are other mums out there with creative dreams and careers and they are making it work around the edges of motherhood, that is so encouraging.
I hope you enjoy reading the words from these wonderful mums over the next few months, and that you find comfort and inspiration in their words too.
You can read all of the Motherhood and Creativity interviews here and the most recent interviews here:
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Motherhood and Creativity Interview #9 with
Motherhood and Creativity Interview #10 - Rahma Dutton
I’m
- a writer, storyteller, facilitator, and mother. I write the Substack . I live in the middle of nowhere in Northern Italy with my husband Muhammad, my daughter Nabila, and my son Ayyub.
How old are your kids?
2 and 4
When your children are older, what do you hope that they remember about the kind of mum that you were?
One thing I admire about my own mother is the fact that she is constantly changing, learning and growing. I strive to do the same and I hope my kids will remember me as a mother who grew and learned and did the best I could have done with what I knew at the time.
When you think about the tough parts of your motherhood journey, which of your qualities/strengths have got you through these tough times?
Patience and a bit of imagination. I'm acutely aware how quickly things change in motherhood. I change, my children change, our individual needs and our collective dynamic changes. Whenever something is really tough it's never too long until it changes. It's the same when things are going great... so I just try to be in the bit I'm in, fully. Something that helps me with that is to imagine all the mothers in the world today, and those in the past and in the future, who know, or will know, this experience. I remember that I'm not in the slightest bit alone, even when it feels that way.
What brings you joy in motherhood?
Right now it's the way that my two-year-old strings a sentence together with the limited phrases and grammatical structures he has available. For example, this morning when a lorry drove past he asked "What's that, this noise? Think so a truck." He manages to make himself understood and it makes me chuckle at the same time, so that's a win-win. That moment at night when they're both finally asleep is a particular joy too. It's when my nervous system can come offline and I have a moment to pause and appreciate both of them without them making any urgent demands of me.
How important is creativity to you?
Creativity is the current of life itself. It's very important to me and necessary for my health and wellbeing.
Tell us more about your favourite ways to be creative.
Words are my medium of choice. I love to write and I trust myself to write - for me it doesn't feel as vulnerable as other modes of creativity can. If I'm creating just for fun, I love to collage or play around with something messy like paper mache. I recently acquired some land so in the years to come I'll be experimenting with the ways I can co-create with the earth to grow wonderful things.
Since becoming a mum, have you experienced a creative surge? What did that look like for you?
With both my children I experienced a creative surge when they reached about 9 or 10 months old. I guess it's once they're a bit more established on solids and their day sleep has a bit more of a pattern to it. I experienced it as a wellspring of ideas and a strong pull to action, both in writing and life generally. It's a bit frustrating and can be overwhelming because the reality of my life doesn't allow the space to follow through on much of it. I can maybe pick one thing to really focus on outside of the mundane motherhood tasks.
What does honouring your creativity look like for you in this season of your mothering?
It looks like accepting help from other people. Allowing them to do what they can for me, so that I can do the things that only I can do for myself. It looks like writing before the housework is finished because it will never ever be finished. The sink of dishes will still be there after I've taken a moment to write... It looks like working at a snail's pace. I do things in stolen moments, chipping away bit by bit, slowly, over time. It's very different from the way I used to work.
What’s been your experience of finding a community in motherhood?
Community is up there with creativity as one of the most important things in my life; it's the basis of my health. I started my mothering journey in the middle of the COVID pandemic so I was extremely isolated and had no in-person community.
When my daughter was just over a year old we moved to South Africa and lived together with another family in the same house. We shared meals and cooking and I had the presence of another mother with me most days. She was more experienced too. Her eldest was 7 and she had 3 children. I spent my second pregnancy and my first 6 months postpartum like that.
Then we moved back to Italy and it was completely the other extreme: me at home with a 6 month old and a 2 year old in a country where I don't really speak the language. I knew I couldn't survive as a mother, with any sense of mental health, unless I found some sort of community. That's how we ended up where we live now, in rural Northern Italy. An interesting community of Italian and international parents has gathered here, around a new Waldorf-inspired bilingual school, Village Forest School.
In the 9 months between leaving South Africa and moving to where we are now, I was without a permanent base and without any in-person community. I got my "community fix" online with a mother's circle called Mother Nurture. While the mothers in that group couldn't pop over and share a cup of tea with me or bring me a meal, being witnessed by them, in all I was going through, was an enormous source of strength.
What words of encouragement would you offer to a mum who might be struggling at the moment?
I would remind her she is not alone and I'd encourage her to find a mothers' circle! In person or online.
Half of what makes motherhood so difficult is that our work is so invisible to so many. To be seen by others, even if it doesn't change anything in a tangible way, makes such a difference. The weight doesn't feel so heavy when you realise you're not alone.
I've also found that, in the exhale that comes with being truly seen, I can often figure out a way to make a tangible change too, when that is what is required. I strongly recommend the book What Mothers Do: Especially When it Looks Like Nothing by Naomi Stadlen. It's all about this subject and is so so encouraging and affirming.
You can find out more about on her Substack
Thank you for these wonderful words Rahma, there’s so many parts of this interview I loved, including:
when Rahma said, “I hope my kids will remember me as a mother who grew and learned and did the best I could have done with what I knew at the time” - it’s so true that we as mums, are learning and growing alongside our kids too and we can often forget that. I feel like self- compassion is easier to access when we realise that we are works in progress too, making mistakes and learning from them.
how Rahma is acutely aware that change is a constant in motherhood, and how this knowledge can help us when things are tough knowing that it won’t last forever, and also when things are good, to sink into the moment more.
how Rahma experienced a creative surge with both of her children, which looked like “…a wellspring of ideas and a strong pull to action, both in writing and life generally”, but that is coupled with the frustration of not having the time to actually carry out a lot of the ideas, in and amongst motherhood.
how part of Rahma honouring her creativity in this season of motherhood “…looks like accepting help from other people. Allowing them to do what they can for me, so that I can do the things that only I can do for myself.” I feel like this is such a great reminder that it’s OK to accept help from others, and we don’t have to do it all alone.
how community has taken on different forms for Rahma over the last 4 years - from total isolation, living with another family, finding an online community, to now living in rural Northern Italy with a community of Italian and international parents.
I hope you enjoyed this interview in the ‘Motherhood and Creativity’ interview series - I’ll be publishing these interviews every fortnight for as long as the interviews keep coming through.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments:
Which of Rahma’s words resonated with you?
How easy/hard is it for you to accept help from others, as a mum?
Like Rahma, has finding a community as a mum looked different for you throughout your motherhood journey?
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Love your energy, Rahma. Such a beautiful photo. Like you, I also love conversations with children and look forward to doing it all over again with my littlest. There’s so much we can learn from them, especially when it comes to riding those waves of change 💛
So lovely