Suzi Banks Baum is one of the local writers performing an original monologue in ‘Motherhood Out Loud’ on March 28 + 29 at the Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge, presented as a benefit for WAM Theatre and the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers. Below is a passionate and thought-provoking blog post Suzi wrote about her own experience with Motherhood. Suzi will perform her monologue on March 28 and will participate on the panel on both March 28 following the 7pm performance and March 29 following the 2pm performance.

There is so much to say about this topic.

For me, igniting women’s voices is a necessity for us to continue forward if the “new paradigm” is to emerge- that of valuing the contributions of every person, not solely based on income or visibility.

Mothers tend to be invisible. While the work women do in the home, mothers or not, is fueled by our innate wiring to offer care, we still, as a culture like to cluster success toward all that looks like progress. Women who mother- either organizations or ideas or babies, all contribute to the development of ideas and thought, plant seeds of change in the way we conduct ourselves in our daily lives. The choices we make are impacted by those basic instincts.

I have been reading a lot about creativity and the feminine psyche. It astounds me how little we as women do not see what we do as valuable.

Reading the monologues in Motherhood Out Loud over the past month and seeing how much is revealed about human nature from the vantage point of relating to children gives me a greater perspective on what being human means. The show is not instructional about parenting; it is illuminating the region of human intercourse that has been sanctioned as dull, mundane and not worthy of value of any sort other than the obvious.

I too have been having conversations about the Mommy Club- that group that was never cool and hardly recognized as a group until recently. For my part, I have struggled to see it as a Club. I see it rather as a group attracted to mutual support because we recognize the lines under the eyes, the stained shirt under a well-placed scarf and incomplete sentences. In Out of the Mouths of Babes: An Evening of Mothers Reading to Others this year we had such a diverse audience that offered curious responses.  We got feedback from high school aged girls, from men, from women who don’t have kids, who were all touched on the universality of the stories. Additionally, we all HAVE mothers. Seeing the people who raised us through a clearer lens with full on vocabulary describing experience is important for everyone. Not just other mothers.

Read more of Suzi’s writing here.

Suzi and her daughter Catherine and her son Ben:

Suzi Banks Baum makes community wherever she goes. Passionate about stirring up jam, authentic writing voices, artist books, and FeMail mail art, she created Out of the Mouths of Babes; An Evening of Mothers Reading to Others for the March 2012 Berkshire Festival of Women Writers. In it’s third year, over 75 women’s voices have been engaged in this project. She published An Anthology of Babes: 36 Women Give Motherhood a Voice and leads the Powder Keg Sessions writing workshops. Suzi is writing Laundry Line Divine: A Wild Soul Book for Mothers and developing Rampant Sisterhood, workshops on marrying authentic voice and online presence for authors and artists. She will appear before Norman Rockwell’s painting “Freedom From Fear” speaking about the courage of mothers for BFWW. Suzi has led social media, writing and art workshops from Saratoga Springs to New York City. She will be on a book tour with the Anthology in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in late August 2014. Read all about it at LaundryLineDivine.com.