MOM Takes Manhattan: The First Museum of Motherhood Opens
An increasing number of contemporary women are casting themselves while pregnant. Here, at MOM, they can have an artist paint it to their specifications. The museum also displays and sells a “pregnancy vest” that weighs 40-60 pounds, the amount of weight that many women gain while they are pregnant.
The pregnant woman has also become a source of inspiration for many photographers, painters, and sculptors. The works of Alexia Nye Jackson (who created the installation “Mother: The Job”), Deborah Putnoi, Ella Dreyfus, Jo Jayson, Elizabeth Coe Sheehan and Joy Rose, Paula Rendino Zaentz and Ronnie Komarow are on display. Artist April Bey has been acquiring and painting the mannequins that dressmakers once used to fashion dresses for pregnant women. Bey’s mannequins are vividly striking and boldly colored. They are the kind of work that may soon go on display at the MOM.
By April Bey
I’ve described visiting MOM as a “redemptive” experience. Here’s why.
Before I became pregnant, I did not “see” pregnant women. Somehow, they were mysteriously invisible to me. After I became pregnant — I saw pregnant women everywhere.
Before I became a mother, my ego knew no bounds. I thought I could overcome all obstacles through force of will, not by bending to circumstance, or trusting in forces larger than myself. For me, motherhood was something of a reverse Zen experience. Having a child was a passage from detachment to attachment.
Becoming a new-born mother changed my life. It humbled me, slowed me down, made me kinder, and infinitely more vulnerable to cruelty. I learned that life does not stand still, that it is always changing, growing, dying, being renewed. For years, when I had looked in the mirror, I always looked the “same” to myself. Time became real for me when I began to measure it by my beloved son’s obvious, visible growth. Time became more finite.
I comprehended, in my body, that one day I would die. I quickly came to understand that pregnancy and newborn motherhood was one of the greatest human rites of passage. I needed to read books — even one book — with this perspective as I was going through this experience. It was 1977, and there were no such books to be found. I decided to write the kind of book that I needed to read.
I could not easily find a publisher. One female editor literally said: “What is this bulls***? You can write a ‘real’ book, why waste your time on this non-subject?” A male editor at another publishing house, whom I’d never met, told my agent: “What could she possibly write about pregnancy or motherhood? She’s a feminist, a career woman, she’s not a ‘normal’ woman and she can’t be a ‘normal’ mother.” A third publisher said that the subject had already been “done.” Ah, by whom I asked: Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes? Proust, Hemingway?
We don’t have any museums dedicated to the opposable thumb, either. Some things are so important and so ubiquitous, calling them out for celebration would just be weird.
“For example, quality child care is still beyond the economic reach of most families.”
By what standard?
“Upon divorce, child support payments are minimal or non-existent”
That’s a joke, right?
You know, there are a lot of costs that go away or greatly decrease if one parent or the other becomes the primary caregiver; childcare of course, but also taxes, wardrobe, automotive, food (less eating out and more “making dinner with ingredients”).
Of course, not everyone is going to enjoy spending time with their children as much as I do, but the more you’re there, the more time you have to guide them into being the kind of people you want to spend time with.
Ho-LEE Smokes!
Wow!
yea!
must go get kids from school.
Wow!
Made my Day!
Brilliant!
How fabulous! Would love to visit this unique exhibit. It’s about time mothers were publicly celebrated and recognized. Love the woman who did this!!
And about time, too. This MoM should not only celebrate women and motherhood, without whom none of us would be here, but indicate clearly that those who trivialize, debase and try to control women are the enemies of civilization and humanity.
So is there a Fatherhood Museum any where?
Yeah, right. Like NOW and the feminist crowd will ever let that happen.
Hey, maybe they will create one and partner with the Motherhood Museum. OK-bad pun. Actually, one of the affiliate agencies pre-mother museum sponsored a number of Mother’s Day events throughout the country every May. And 3 years ago the one nearest me named a single Dad as Mother of the Year, beating out all the moms who had been nominated. He got a standing ovation. His kids wrote a beautiful nomination explaining just how he was both Dad and Mom to them.
I’ve visited the MOM and recommend you do too. In this pop-up space we get a window into the talent, politics, passion and creativity MOM has to offer. Thoughtful, provocative, compassionate and more.
Check it out.
I wonder if it explores all aspects of motherhood – adoption, fostering, surrogacy, teenage mothers (oh yeah, there’s a show on the country music channel for that one), grandparents raising children, etc.
Yes, it does. I’m a foster and adoptive mom and they recently asked me to write an article for their magazine: Mamazina after I blogged about fostering/adopting.
Great. Stepmothers too, hopefully. Not all of them are evil. Lots of them step up to the plate and do a great job and are positive influences on children. Glad to hear other types of females raising children are acknowledged.
Thank you Phyllis for doing a great job with sharing info about M.O.M. You know I believe in my heart that it’s relevant for so many reasons, and that we need to understand our past in order to transform the future. Currently the ONLY way to get to the planet is through a mother. Shouldn’t we do our best to elevate, educate and understand this all important role? Motherhood has been co-opted by marketers, big business, patriarchy and capitalism, none of which are interested in really respecting, paying or understanding how we do what we do – e.v.e.r.y.d.a.y. – Again, THANKS! Joy Rose
I see the usual snide comments. I think it’s great that someone is finally recognizing the huge sacrifice (often with their own life)that mothers make. Thank you!
Before this museum and this article, never heard of the topic.
We now have MOM, MOMA, and OBAMA. “Two out of three ain’t bad” (Meatloaf).
Fantastic!
A museum about what does Parenting mean: marvellous. Still men have almost no clue about the fact that Motherhood is a job, and that working at home is a job, too.
They usually have … their own mum (…), if not their (second mum) wife, taking care of everything (real children and home).
[In case of need, there are servants doing the job, being them decently paid, or not (even not at all).]
Giving birth to a child is a job itself, which requires mental and phisical energies: appearently men still do not realize that.
Who know that maybe, thank to this museum, their awareness will increase?
Several men even wish to have kids just to improve their social status: amazing how selfish they can be, or simply awarenessless can they be.
Loveliest regards, to every female and male beings, born and still to be born.
Yes, just what we need. More female narcissism. Tell us again how wonderful women are and how terrible men are; it’s so fun for you I’m sure.
I guess I stand a bit conflicted on this.
It occurs to me that there are women out there who are not parents, per se, but who contribute to the world in so many other ways.
Too often I’ve noticed a lot of pressure on women to become mothers even when they do not choose to do so. Will such a museum contribute to this pressure or the idea that mothers are superior in some way to those of us who make the choice to not be mothers?
I guess time will tell.
I love this article . . . As a mompreneur myself, I really appreciate what the Museum of Motherhood represents for ALL women. Brava Dr. Chessler and a big boo-ya! for all of us Moms!
Lovely article. Seneca Falls NY had a traveling exhibit from the museum that was a huge hit. I’m a board member of the Motherhood Foundation that has worked to make the M.O.M. a reality. I love how Joy and the staff and volunteers make this all-inclusive. Beyond celebrating and exploring “motherhood” and motherhood studies-a course of study in a number of universities now-the museum and foundation have recognized all types of mothers–and yes, single fathers who have to be both Dad and Mother. When I got involved with this concept initially–before I became a board member–I wasn’t yet an adoptive mom and did not anticipate becoming a mom. It’s interesting to explore and celebrate all the different aspects. All of us had a mother after all…
As a father of four daughters and grandfather of nine, I have spent the past 12 years creating a series of sculptures depicting pregnant women with their unborn babies visible in the womb. Artwork on this subject has rarely been seen before because for the past 2,000 years, the subject of procreation has been hidden behind a veil of superstition,taboo and religious restriction. As a result, my pregnant sculptures have been ridiculed and rejected by every art gallery owner and museun curator in America. Perhaps there is room in your marvelous new museum for my work. Check my website at: http://www.normansgardner.com for more details and photos.
No Christian religious painter has yet adequately tackled one of the most powerful and beautiful images in the book of Revelations. Chapter 12, verses 1-2: “and there appeared a great wonder [Greek semeion, 'sign'] in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: and she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered”. (Note: the English of the Authorised Version is cast in the passive voice; the Greek is active – ‘krazei oudinousa kai basanizomene tekein’ (cried out, having labour pains, and striving hard [this word is the same word used of a rower pulling hard at the oars] to give birth”. And then in the next four verses we see a terrible dragon who places himself before the woman, wanting to devour her child as soon as it is born (but he is foiled;- verses 5-6; the child is rescued by God; the woman is given an eagle’s wings to fly to a place of refuge). If one remembers that in Joseph’s dream in Genesis the sun, the moon and the stars stand for the House of Israel, then one sees that St John is representing the Birth of the Messiah; for St John, a Christian, the very ordinary, historic Jewish girl, Mary of Nazareth, is seen in cosmic terms; *this* is what was *really* happening in that stable in Bethlehem. If one is not a Christian one can still see in this tableau – the extraordinary image of the woman in the final stage of labour, with the death serpent lying in wait, an image of Life vs Death, Eros vs Thanatos. And I don’t think the woman in St John’s vision is lying down helplessly like a stranded beetle. She is giving birth either standing or semi-seated on a birth-stool; she is in command of what she is doing.
And on the ‘everyday’ level, quite apart from theology or Biblical history, having successfully given birth four times, myself, I can say that St John’s poetic phrases – to be clothed with the sun, to be crowned with stars – is not a bad representation of what any successfully labouring woman, however hard she’s working at it, feels like when it’s ‘going like a train’, the baby’s heartbeat is strong, and you *know* that all is well: life is going to win. There’s this tremendous energy of life pouring through you into the world.