Motherhood & Creativity Interview #22- Stephanie Elizabeth
Stephanie Elizabeth is a writer who lives in a small country town by the coast on a 1/4 acre block with her musical husband, two wildlings and five cheeky chooks.
If you are new here, welcome! I’m so happy to have you here as part of this lovely, supportive community of mums. I’m Jenna, a mum of 3, a Coach for Mums and I live by the sea in South Wales.
Here on The Motherhood Connection, I love writing about:
ways to ease your overwhelm and cultivate self-compassion as a mum
tips on how to take imperfect action and live a life that feels good to you
the small moments of family life that bring me joy
honest reflections on motherhood
Every fortnight, I also publish a Motherhood and Creativity interview, where I share the words of creative mums who inspire me here on Substack and beyond. They share their words of joy, strength, creativity and community in motherhood and there’s so much wisdom in every interview.
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Welcome to Motherhood and Creativity, an interview series where I share the words of creative mums who inspire me here on Substack and beyond.
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, and that you find comfort and inspiration in their words too.
You can read all 21 of the previous Motherhood and Creativity interviews here.
Motherhood and Creativity Interview #22 - Stephanie Elizabeth
Stephanie is a writer who lives in a small country town by the coast on a 1/4 acre block with her musical husband, two wildlings and five cheeky chooks. It is here, in their home, on their land, that they are co-creating their family culture - one that is centred around their homegrown, homemade and homeschooling lifestyle. They aim to live truly localised lives that celebrates their beautiful and bountiful region. Art, books, nature, music, community and food, glorious food, are what matters most to them.
How old are your kids?
I am the mother of a six year old daughter and a three year old son.
When your children are older, what do you hope that they remember about the kind of mum that you were?
Loving, kind, caring, compassionate, supportive - all these words spring to mind as I ponder this question. It is my hope to always be a source of comfort, nourishment and refuge to my children.
When you think about the tough parts of your motherhood journey, which of your qualities/strengths have got you through these tough times?
Imagination, tenacity and positivity.
Trusting myself, listening to my body, honouring what my heart desires and what my gut tells me is right.
Having the confidence to make radical choices has also been life changing.
Bigger picture thinking and long term visioning provide clarity and purpose if I feel myself getting lost in the miniature. Coming back to my values, to what is truly important and matters, grounds me.
What brings you joy in motherhood?
My children bring me joy (as well as every other emotion under the sun). Every cuddle and every kiss is precious. Snuggling with them in my arms or on my lap, reading aloud from a big stack of books.
Being in nature together - pottering around our garden, on a bushwalk or at the beach, exploring wild places, adventuring outdoors in all seasons, witnessing their growing connection to the earth and sharing in the wonders of the more than human world.
How important is creativity to you?
It's incredibly important to our whole family.
My husband and I are both creatives, we met in high school as theatre performers. His true passion is music and mine is storytelling (with a side of sewing, knitting, gardening...)
A key reason for choosing not to send our children to school was to give them an unhurried, unscheduled childhood, full of time to be creative and discover their own artistic penchants. Ensuring that each member of our family has enough time to fulfil their creative longings is paramount.
Tell us more about your favourite ways to be creative.
Writing is my most gratifying creative pursuit, but it is also the toughest to etch out time for in this season of life. To write well I need solitude and silence - two words that are antonymous with motherhood! Any noise besides that of the natural world and I'm unable to focus my mind and find my flow state. But once in it, hours melt into seconds as words spill out of me, stitching themselves into meaning upon a page.
Writing around the edges of my radical homemaking/home-educating/homebody life, I am either reflective or inventive, using language to make sense of everything that has unfolded whilst also dreaming of what's to come. It's cathartic to get out of ones own head.
Having more time to write will grow as my children do, at least that is my hope. Right now they need the best and most of me and knowing this I give myself wholeheartedly to motherhood.
One day they won't need me as much and when that time comes it may well break my heart, but I take comfort that my creativity, my art, will be there to fill the cracks. There is at least one book in me that one day I aspire to pen.
Today I choose to pour myself into mothering creatively, designing our life in accordance with our values. I knit beside my daughter as she sketches and paints, I stick my hands into the soil alongside my son, I rearrange the furniture, I curate our reading piles, I bake, make and decorate and bathe in my husbands melodies.
If a little pocket of time happens to presents itself, I retreat into my inner world and work on honing my craft.
Since becoming a mum, have you experienced a creative surge? What did that look like for you?
Yes. During my twenties I felt like I had my foot on the accelerator, doing all the things I thought I was supposed to do, life gaining speed with each passing year until burning out at 30.
Work dominated this decade of my life and I had no energy or time left over to write or create anything. I recall feeling like I had no hobbies and that felt wrong.
Deep within I knew this wasn’t the path I was supposed to be on, this wasn’t my ‘best life’. I knew I had to begin again, get to know myself anew.
I left my career as a restaurateur and traded in our inner city unit for the green open spaces of the Mornington Peninsula where we are now deeply rooted. Relocating was just the beginning of our slow living journey.
Becoming a parent felt like slamming on the brakes. The transition from maiden to mother shifted my world view entirely. I know I’m not the only one who feels completely changed by motherhood. There is a clear delineation of the woman I was before and after the birth of my eldest.
Whilst I had already begun the journey of creatively overhauling my life pre-kids, over the last six years I’ve found myself remade, broken and born again.
I have many hobbies now - reading, podcasting, handicrafts, gardening, but I always come back to writing as the ultimate form of self care. Spending this era of my life in service of my family has unleashed a creative uprising.
Motherhood feeds my creativity. It is both my muse and container. With the help of my family, small measures of time are gifted to me in which I can come back to the heart of what it means to be me.
Quiet space to go within, to listen and write what wants to be sung. I suspect we spend too much of our lives doing what we think we should be doing, rushing from one appointment to the next, ticking boxes, climbing ladders, that we leave little space for dreaming and our imaginations collectively suffer.
Creativity is born of boredom, in the wide open meadows of the mind where ideas can germinate and be tended to with care until they are ready to be transplanted out into the world.
What does honouring your creativity look like for you in this season of your mothering?
Sitting in my studio which overlooks our orchard, watching our chooks peck about the last of the falling leaves and listening to wild birds of all breeds call to one another whilst my thoughts make sense of themselves on the page. Getting to this place however requires forethought and support. I don’t have the luxury of writing whenever the mood strikes me, or time to sit at my desk for hours on end until the right words form.
Having a fellow creative as a life partner means we are each other’s biggest champions. We help one another find the time to each tend to our creative pursuits, knowing that our mental health suffers if we are too long apart from our chosen artistic practices.
Honouring my creativity means accepting my current time restraints but knowing and trusting that there is still plenty of time to come. My dream is that one day when our kids are a little older, we’ll all be creating together, all the time. In little ways we already are. That idea of our family as one big, supportive, creative unit makes my heart swell.
What’s been your experience of finding a community in motherhood?*
Homeschooling has been an incredible gift to our family and the community we’ve found along the way is vital.
I feel grateful to have a network of other home educating parents who live in our region (and others further afield who I’ve connected with through social media and the podcast) that we catch up with on a regular basis, kids and adults together, so that our social needs are mutually met. In the beginning it was just one other homeschooling family whom we bonded with and it slowly grew from there.
Community is not a given when your children don’t go to school, you have to go out of your way to find folk who share similar values and interests as you do. But showing up and putting in the effort is worth it to have other kindred souls to share in the journey with.
What words of encouragement would you offer to a mum who might be struggling at the moment?
You’re doing a wonderful job, Mama. You aren’t alone and this will pass. Tantrums end, children grow, seasons turn and life cycles ever forward. If you feel like you are drowning in motherhood, seek out more support. You may have to get a little creative.
Keep your children close for as long as possible. They are only little for so long and they need you more than anything right now. If you feel overwhelmed, let everything else go, drop every other ball bar them. You are replaceable in every other area of your life, but this one. This is the most important work you’ll ever do.
You can find out more about
here:Stephanie’s Substacks:
is a celebration of simple, seasonal, slow life at home.Stephanie is the host of the Australian Homeschool Stories podcast (available on all major podcast platforms)
Stephanie is also the creator of
Instagram:
Thank you Stephanie for being part of the Motherhood and Creativity interview series.
I loved reading this interview and enjoyed these parts especially:
when Stephanie talks about how making radical choices, having bigger picture thinking and long term visioning grounds her and helps her from getting lost in the small things.
snuggling, reading together and walks in nature bring Stephanie joy in motherhood - my favourite things to do with my kids too!
how creativity is important for Stephanie’s whole family:
“ensuring that each member of our family has enough time to fulfil their creative longings is paramount.”
the balance between not having the time to truly sink into a creative flow state to do the creative work that you’d love to, but instead creating in different ways to fulfil you:
“I knit beside my daughter as she sketches and paints, I stick my hands into the soil alongside my son, I rearrange the furniture, I curate our reading piles, I bake, make and decorate and bathe in my husbands melodies.”
how writing helps Stephanie reflect and dream:
“Writing around the edges of my radical homemaking/home-educating/homebody life, I am either reflective or inventive, using language to make sense of everything that has unfolded whilst also dreaming of what's to come.”
when Stephanie talks about a creative surge and how that has involved a total life change with creativity and motherhood at the centre. I really like how Stephanie talks about the need to slow down more and how:
“Creativity is born of boredom, in the wide open meadows of the mind where ideas can germinate and be tended to with care until they are ready to be transplanted out into the world.”
and finally, Stephanie’s compassionate words for a mum who might be going through a tough time right now:
“You’re doing a wonderful job, Mama. You aren’t alone and this will pass. Tantrums end, children grow, seasons turn and life cycles ever forward. If you feel like you are drowning in motherhood, seek out more support.”
I hope you enjoyed this interview in the ‘Motherhood and Creativity’ series - these interviews will continue fortnightly until April 2025.
You can read all 21 of the previous Motherhood and Creativity interviews here.
I’d love to hear which of Stephanie’s words resonated with you - let me know in the comments.
Work with Jenna in 2025
If you’d like to start 2025 by setting feel-good goals, taking small (totally do-able) steps, that create long-lasting change then just think of me as your personal cheerleader who is going to support you in making those changes!
I’ll boost your confidence by reminding you of your strengths, of all the times when you’ve done hard things before and how amazing you already are - let’s get started and make incredible things happen for you!!
I’ve got space for 2 mums to work with me in my Rediscover YOU 12 week one to one coaching experience, and also space for 2 mums to work with me to create their very own 12 week Bespoke Self Care Plan - you can find all the details for both of these here.
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