When my two children were small I felt an almost vibrational urgency to write about my experience as a mom. My life had changed in a way that was difficult to wrap my head around, and I needed a creative outlet. In addition, I felt like my kids’ goofy little lives and antics were worth preserving both for me and for them. But my background was in archaeology and sitting down to write about my feelings seemed beyond my skill set.
Then I came across the “Ben and Birdy” blog written by well-known parent-writer Catherine Newman. She wrote about her life as a mother with refreshing humor, sensitivity and honesty. Day after day I read her posts and thought, “I could do this.”
So I did.
My first blog (long erased from the internet!) was a place where I could share it all without filter. I made connections with other parenting bloggers, and soon we had a community that stretched around the world. The support they offered gave me the confidence to continue writing about my children and motherhood. Today I have several published pieces that first originated on that old blog. I’ve written about my life as a mom for the local paper and performed an essay about my daughter for the 2017 Rochester Listen To your Mother show.
What I’ve learned over the years is that I am not alone. So many parents have this same inner voice urging them to write about their parenting experience, yet they don’t feel confident in their own writing or wonder about how to get started.
If you’d like to join my 4 session class about parent-writing please contact Writers & Books to reserve your spot. No writing experience is necessary at all. We’ll read creative works by current parent-writers and discuss how to craft stories about our own parenting experiences in a comfortable, private, and fun setting.
Christine Green is a freelance writer in Brockport, NY and writes a Literary Arts column for Rochester’s Democrat and Chronicle. Green hosts a monthly literary reading, “Words on the Verge,” at A Different Path Gallery. She grew up in San Jose, CA and holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from UC Berkeley and a master’s degree in historical archaeology from the College of William and Mary. She is also a 2016 Pink Door Literary Fellow.
Learn more about her upcoming working, Writing About Parenthood, by clicking here.