Content Baby
It’s hard to write about how your kids won’t leave you alone when they spend most of their time at school. So what’s a well-rested, hormonally-balanced, bodily-autonomy-loving gal to do?
Liz Sarb
Some people have babies by accident. Some because they’ve always wanted to be parents or because they want their child to have a sibling. Some have babies to save their marriage. Some people have babies handed to them with exactly zero warning. On this cold fall morning, I’m contemplating having a baby so that I have something to write about.
I’ve forced myself out of bed before my children because I’m hopeful that writing in silence every morning will help break through my dense creative fog. Up until now—to use a phrase I recently heard that rings so true to my life—I’ve tried nothing and it hasn’t worked! So I’m trying some things. It’s such a cliché, the creative block: the tortured writer sitting at his desk (it’s always a man), downing bourbon and tearing his hair out as he pulls yet another sheet from the typewriter and tosses it into the fire. My experience has been a bit different.
I haven’t considered myself a writer for a long time, if ever. Artist or designer was always my chosen label. But in the decimated market of 2008, writer was the only well-paying job I could find. I was, to be more accurate, a technical writer for a software company, a string of words that now sends shivers down my spine. The job did make me a better writer. But there’s nothing that will suck the joy out of what was once a creative practice like applying it to, for example, a description of how to batch tests on a digital lab bench.
Eventually, I burnt out on the corporate life and started a graphic design and branding business with one employee (me). It was a relief to become a pixel pusher after so much time focused on the written word. I’ve been staring at those pixels for eleven years now, so I was surprised when five essays just poured out of me this past summer.
Am I a writer now??, I wondered. I liked the essays. Writing them had tapped into the sort of creativity that made me feel more like myself. I’m chasing that feeling.
My writing burst was born out of a pressure cooker of a month. My family was constantly sick, we were living in a space much too small for us while preparing for our third move in under a year, and school had let out for the summer. My work projects had dried up due to my erratic schedule [see: child home for the summer]. I found myself with a lot of *eMotiOnS* and somehow both no time to myself and also so much time on my hands. While my kids were mainlining Bluey and chugging bottles of Children’s Motrin, I hunched over my laptop like a goblin and mainlined my feelings.
Eventually, the illnesses passed, the boxes were packed, and school started back up. My writing fever lifted. And just like a bodily fever leaves you exhausted and wrung out, my brain feels barren. Nothing but cobwebs and chirping crickets up there.
I’m convinced that my creative block is happening because nothing interesting is happening. Not to brag, but this morning I spent two hours creating a GIF of a cucumber turning into a pickle (for money!). Later, I’ll pick my daughter up from school and do a crossword puzzle while she watches PJ Masks. This is not the stuff that biting essays are made of. How can I trick my brain into finding these mundane daily activities worthy of deep contemplation? The answer, of course, is to pay closer attention and write every day until inspiration strikes. But I like quick fixes. What if there’s a shortcut? Can I recreate the pressure cooker? I have this insane idea echoing in my empty brain: there’s no pressure cooker like a baby.
My latest vice is scrolling a Reddit thread that snarks on parenting influencers. This activity scratches a very particular schadenfreude itch. I’ve long suspected that the influencers who have a chokehold on my corner of Instagram are full of shit and it’s gratifying to read hundreds of comments affirming my worldview. It leaves me feeling gross, but also superior, which makes the grossness worth it.
There are many sins in the snark community. One of the most egregious is the “content baby,” or the baby conceived solely for the production of monetizable content. Now, you don’t have to tell me that a group of unhinged hate-readers just wildly guessing why a woman becomes pregnant is pure insanity. I realize this. But let’s just say that it’s based in reality, and that a prominent influencer’s fifth baby was planned specifically to bring in a few more lucrative brand partnerships. You know what? I get it. You go, mama! Secure that bag!!
I imagine she’s feeling the same creeping panic that I am. I’ve now spent so long being Mom First and Person Second that nothing resonates with me more than creating content about my area of expertise: my children. Unfortunately I’ve discovered this just as I’m emerging from the 24/7 dependence of their babyhood. It’s hard to write about how your kids won’t leave you alone when they spend most of their time at school. So what’s a well-rested, hormonally-balanced, bodily-autonomy-loving gal to do? Am I going to put in the early-morning writing hours and shrug off the patriarchy’s poisoned insistence that women’s work is uninteresting? Or am I going to step into that pressure cooker, seal the lid behind me, and set it to Nine Months on High?
No. I’m not going to do that. The thought of night feeds, nap schedules, first foods, living through a third three-year-old (which, by the way: wtf)—now that sends shivers down my spine. Another baby would shred my already precarious mental and physical health. The content would be dark. And also, when would I have time to create this content? Where would the baby sleep? Would the baby sleep? Who would watch the baby when I need 10 minutes to quietly sob in the pantry?
My husband and I always thought we’d have three children. Maybe in an alternate, pandemic-free timeline, we’d have had the capacity for it. But that’s not the hand we’ve been dealt. As I get older, I’m becoming better at saying: actually, that does not sound like fun, and I would not like to do it. So, now that the writing fever has left me, I’ll just have to mine my boring everyday life for gems and inhale deeply into my sleeping three-year-old’s hair—quickly now, before she loses that baby smell—while rethinking all my choices. It’s not a coincidence that this essay is filled with question marks. If I’m pregnant a year from now, you’ll know that I was infected by a more virulent, insidious sickness: baby fever. At least the content will be good.
