Earlier this month, Well Rounded NY came over my apartment to document a working mom's morning. Then they profiled me on their site along with my morning timeline, complete with photos.
The photos are truly beautiful.
So beautiful, that when I posted about the feature on my facebook page, a lot of people said (politely and respectfully) that I was painting an unrealistic picture of what a working mom's morning actually looks like.
For example:
"I mean no offense, but I think your life is not typical of a working mom. I get up at 5:30am. My daughters get up at 6. By 8 they are at school and daycare and I and my husband are at work… I am not sure [leaving for work at 9am] is representative of the majority of working moms." -Amanda
That's fair. I think my morning is typical of a working mom from NYC. What we lack in square footage, we make up for with our lack of commute.
"Is your house always that neat or was that a photo-cleaning day? My house looks like the Toys-R-Us elves threw up in every corner and the laundry fairy forgot her shift." -Heather
The piles of crap littering my apartment appear to be artfully cropped out. And yes, I cleaned up before the photographer came over. Wouldn't everybody?
"I only have one kid, but in the morning you will find me in a bathrobe making coffee with paper towel handmade filters, because we forgot to buy real ones AGAIN. My daughter in her underpants checking out her butt in the mirror and then running away giggling. My husband, half awake, mixing half and half and water in our cereal because (you guessed it) we forgot to buy the milk…AGAIN. Your pictures are what I WANT my life to look like." -Ilona
Honestly, if I saw my pictures, I would feel the same way. The pictures don't reflect what I think my life looks like either.
Here's the thing. When Well Rounded NY told me they were sending over Raquel Bianca to document my morning, I was really nervous about it. In my mind, my mornings are not beautiful. They are hectic and stressful and very often unpleasant.
The kids wake us up too early, my husband and I pawn off the kids on eachother as we negotiate who gets to take a shower, Mazzy screams for unacceptable breakfast foods, Harlow cries for someone to hold her, and I snap at someone at least twice.
Did I mention the hair brushing tantrums? BECAUSE THEY HAPPEN EVERY MORNING.
Besides the fact that I had everyone dressed and ready for the photographer when she came over (as I think most people would), the morning went pretty much as always.
Mazzy climbed all over us, argued over her shoe options, threw a soccer ball at my face, begged for dessert at breakfast and ripped toys away from Harlow. Harlow pooped, squirmed out of my grasp during a diaper change and cried every time I tried to put her down to check my email.
Yes, I know, I am lucky to have a nice apartment, two cute kids, a decent looking husband and a nanny who relieves the stress of dropping kids off at daycare. But I was convinced these candid photos would come out horribly, proving once and for all that I have no idea what I'm doing.
Raquel insisted they would be beautiful. I thought Raquel was full of shit.
When she finally sent me the photos, I was shocked. I looked through them over and over again. I showed them to anyone who would look. I realize now that I am so proud of them because they reveal something about my mornings I did not know.
They are, in fact, beautiful.
Whatever chaos is going on in my home or in my head is not reflected in a still shot. You can't hear whining kids or impatient parents. It's almost like putting an opera song over a car chase. Everything slows down and you see things completely different.
Then I started thinking— it's probably not just me. I bet most moms have mornings that are beautiful. They've just never had someone come over to document so they can see them in that light.
So. Today, I'm announcing a photo project— a collaboration with Raquel Bianca, the photographer who took these pictures.
We are willing to bet that we can select three moms at random (having no idea what your home or your family looks like), come over to photograph your morning, and then surprise you with its beauty.
If you are interested (and live in or around NYC), please leave a comment below describing your morning with your general location.
We are going to photograph four moms total. The fourth mom will be Ilona (who happens to hail from Queens), who left the comment below:
"I know it's hard to show the 'grey' moments. God knows, nobody wants to pick up the camera when the baby is screaming for an hour. With that said, there is 5% of women in the world that can relate to your photos. The rest might be thinking 'What the fuck am I doing wrong?' I just wish the visual expectations were not so high."
Raquel and I would like to prove that JUST MAYBE— it's not the visual expectation that is set too high, but instead, the self-visualization that is way too low.
That's the goal, anyway.
UPDATE: Congrats to our winners— Ilona from Queens, J from Brooklyn, Annie from Maplewood NJ, Teresa from the Upper West Side and Borami from Hoboken. Look for an email from me shortly!
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Thank you to WellRounded NY for writing such a glowing profile. For more photos and to read the full feature, click here. Thank you to Raquel Bianca— your photos are a gift.
To join the Mommy Shorts facebook page, click here.
Dawn, I totally understand where you are coming from and I would like to see that photo shoot too- although I think it would probably be hard to get for all the reasons you stated.
I went back and reread what I wrote on facebook and what WRNY wrote in their profile. Their goal was not to publish a “typical” working mom’s morning- in fact I couldn’t find any use of the word “typical” except in the comment I quoted.
Their goal was to photograph MY morning. I might have sold it wrong in the link I posted on facebook which is why everyone reacted accordingly. I said, “document a working mom’s morning” when I probably just should have said “document my morning”.
That being said, they are a New York focused site so my morning probably does seem much more typical to the moms who live here. Maybe “document the morning of a working mom from NYC” would have been better received too.
Honestly, it never even occurred to me to open the door for the photographer in no make-up with my bathrobe on. I’ve seen the profiles WRNY have done on other people in the past and the people always look aspirational and fabulous. I was nervous because I didn’t think my morning would live up to the high-profile look of their regular features.
That was my main takeaway- that you can make anybody’s life look beautiful and I shouldn’t look at those mothers lives as better than my own.
I think if they had said “we want to photograph the real raw morning of a working mom- naked crying kids, in your bathrobe, before coffee, etc, etc. I would have presented myself differently. Sadly though (and I know this is the problem), I’m not sure I would have agreed to it. I look like a hot mess without make-up on.
I am comfortable putting myself out there in my writing. But in photos, I don’t know if I’m there yet.
Those photos do reflect the second half of our morning though. We do play a bit and sit together in the living room. Mazzy has helped Mike make smoothies every morning for almost two years. When I look at the photos on the WRNY site, the one that sticks out to me as the most unrealistic is the one where Mazzy is tossing me the soccer ball. But that did happen and it wasn’t planned. In fact, it caught me by surprise and I think I laughed because WRNY was trying to ask me questions and Mazzy was busy throwing a soccer ball at my head, making it hard to come up with an eloquent answer.
That’s my whole point with this project- that moment was a lot different in my head than it was in the picture. Ditto for the pic of me holding Harlow in the nursery. I’m sure I wasn’t just giving her a random hug. I was probably trying to stop her from crying. So there you go- the most beautiful one of the bunch, that’s your crying kid shot.
I’m betting our mornings trying to get out of the apt with our 13 month old between 7:30-8:00 don’t look quite so graceful, but I’m willing to be proven wrong 😉
We are a hop away in Hoboken, I never win anything but crossing fingers!
I’m torn between trying to defend myself as relatable and admitting that I do have it pretty good. Although, I assure you, if you were ever actually in my apartment, it’s way less impressive than it appears in photos.
I guess I’m curious what exactly you find unrelatable. Because if its just the photos, look at them again. Compare them to your own photos on instagram- which are also beautiful. No matter what we write about, we usually present ourselves visually in the most aspirational way that we can. It’s human nature to post the pictures where you, your home, your kids look best.
What surprised me about the Well Rounded shoot is that I thought it would reveal a side of myself that I don’t usually let people see, and instead it was ten times more beautiful than what I usually put out there.
But obviously, it is not exactly reality. Reality would have been the photographer shooting what happened before the photographer came. But it is me, my home, my kids, my husband doing the things we do every day.
If it’s more the schedule you find unrelatable, that’s just a function of two parents living and working in NYC. Additionally, I’ve worked for my current bosses for 15 years. I followed them after they left to start their own company two years ago. I work as a freelancer, so this all allows me a certain amount of flexibility.
It hadn’t occurred to me that having my husband tackle the mornings with me was anything special. But I can see why that would make our lives very different. Although, I usually get home a couple hours before Mike and often tackle the evenings by myself.
I hope I don’t sound defensive. I just know my life in NYC is nothing remarkable. Certainly not to my fellow Manhattanites. And even if it was, there is so much about parenting that is universal no matter who we are or where we live.
I also know, I have always related to YOU:)
What a great idea! I can totally relate and would love to see the beauty in my mornings although most mornings I think I’m downright scary :)I’m an an (over) working mom of two lovely little boys (read: two rambunctious little monsters), almost 2 and almost 4, and the wife to a hard-working husband. We try to get out the door by 8 (which means we struggle to get out much before 9) and cereal bars are a sad reality on more days than I care to admit. I’m not sure there is anything beautiful about our mornings but we get through them day after day and occasionally stop to smell the roses (err, the dirty socks – in the middle of the floor). Shots I can guarantee – at least one wrestling match, probably a quasi-food fight, a tantrum about why we can’t do bubbles (maybe even some bubbles depending on his persistence) and two of the cutest boys you’ll ever meet (I may be a bit partial). Sound fun?? We live in north jersey (clifton) – come on, show NJ some love!
My Maryland mess and chaos are better now that my little one is almost a year old, but the first 4 months or so could have used some beautifying photography! Ha! I don’t even remember straight most of that time, but I’ll see if I can extrapolate…
Husband would have been getting up at 4, as he always does, to possibly work out and to definitely scan the Internet news and CNN at the same time, and to be in uniform and out the door about 5:15, give or take a few. If the stars had aligned, I’d packed him a lunch to take the night before. The moment the car is out of the drive, the dogs were trying to get me up — still true — or, half the time, to get me out of the nursery where I was with the baby, nursing him. He ate every hour for the first many weeks; he slowed to every 9o minutes, then 2 hours. I don’t remember how old he was before I got more than 2 hours sleep at a time myself. So, imagine me on either side of the nursery door in my nursing bra and boxers and maybe a robe, crying baby and whining, scratching, barking dogs. My own breakfast I don’t remember. When did I eat or shower? I know I did, but can’t recall when or how. The best were Thursday mornings, trash days, when I needed to tend to dogs and baby and get the trash, recycling, and lawn bags out to the curb before 6. I do remember often letting the dogs out with baby attached to a breast, but I never mastered the stooping and double-handed job of scooping food and climbing stairs with bowls (I love this floor plan) with baby. Even in the Bjorn, that was too difficult. …Trying to manage the 5-7:30 evening meals for all 5 of us was much the same all over again, adding back the now-home-from-stupidly-long-workday hungry husband.
Beautiful? Sigh.
Now I suppose the differences are that the little one doesn’t put me into a panic if I can’t get to him immediately, and the floors get swept and mopped or vacuumed more often because he’s all over them now. The mess is just higher off the floor, except in his room, where it’s all over the floor. The laundry is still a mountain in the guest bedroom. The dishes still pile up next to the sink. The dogs still get up at 5:15am to eat and bark at me crazily by 4pm if we haven’t been for a walk yet.
Beautiful, yes, and loud.
When I saw that you had liked a bunch of my Instagram pics last night, I had a feeling you’d read this comment. 🙂 I didn’t mean to put you on the defensive. I’m sorry. I was just trying to put into perspective why you may have gotten a little bit of a backlash on that profile piece. And yes, for me, it was mostly the schedule that didn’t ring completely realistic – the actual pictures in the piece were gorgeous. But I also understand that you and Mike’s schedules are a result of living in NYC, as is your amazing Instagram feed and many of the opportunities you receive as a blogger. For that reason, I can’t – and don’t – compare my life to yours.
That said, thank you for telling me you’ve always found me relatable. As a writer, that’s a big compliment. 🙂 And it makes it sort of hard to say what I’m going to say next: I’ve actually decided to stop blogging. Just trying to figure out how to “officially” sign off and say goodbye. But I’m done and I’m at peace with my decision. It’s just run its course for me. (I’ll still be in IG, though – I love following you there.)
Where are you located in California?
Is 3.5 hours from NYC too far?!? Southern VT is beautiful and totally worth your drive 😉 I LOVE THIS IDEA!!! It is way too easy to get caught up in the “mundane” and forget to look for/ at the real beauty in our lives. I am a Stay at home mom to two beautiful and wild little girls (almost 2 and 3.5). Between the arguing, creative (read destructive and messy) play, and lack of adult interaction, it is far too easy for me to get caught up in the mundane. Either way, I might need to figure out how to make this happen for us!
This is a wonderful idea! Will you be posting the results? I love to peek into peoples’ lives 😉
We live in Somerset County, NJ. About a 45 minute ride from Manhattan.
I sleep until my daughter knocks on her door around 7 am and screams “I HAVE TO PEEP!!!” After the bathroom, we have breakfast, I distract her to brush her hair, and she gets dressed. She will usually undress herself while I get myself together, which is always fun and maybe not a good photo op. We have pretty tame mornings, I’d just love some cool pro pics.
Hi
I have just read this from top to bottom! And although i live in England ( prob the most stressed out country on the planet! ) I think this is the most honest piece of writing that I’ve read in ages! I clean my house from top to bottom even when the boiler man comes round to check my boiler! including family and friends who decide to visit. And it’s a constant battle with my 2 kids (ages 7months & 4 years) every morning! So routine is essential to me as I’m at the end of my university degree and running a business.
I do believe that your beautiful photos are REAL and they signify just a pure moment of bliss before the chaos continues. Photos are like that. They only capture 1 second of a rare moment. I also love taking pictures of my kids who are screaming, crying and throwing tantrums. Because it’s part of life!
Your site is amazing! A wonderful family 🙂
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