Saturday 28 August 2010

Motherhood (2009) and a post dedicated to all those writing mothers out there!

Motherhood Motherhood is about a woman struggling with the realities of motherhood, coping with her children growing up, and still wanting to realise her dreams as a writer.

While this movie flopped at the box office, I suspect that is simply because the picture house wasn’t filled with writing mothers (all too busy either writing or taking care of kids to get to the cinema!). Uma Thurman plays a character completely unlike her usual glam self. She is trying to organise her daughter’s sixth birthday party while trying to meet a deadline. She is struggling with the feeling of having lost ‘herself’ when she became a mother, and is trying to fit in writing time between all of the other challenges (an incontinent dog, a husband who has the unfortunate habit of going missing whenever he is needed to most, and a car that needs to be moved every other minute to make way for LA film crews).

The movie follows her day, including her obsessive blogging. She is described as an ‘over-sharer’ and even accidently reveals some intimate secrets of her best friend (played by Minnie Driver) on her blog (haven’t we all upset someone at some point, with something we have said!!!).

Then a minor dalliance with a delivery boy makes her wonder if she should even be with her husband and she freaks out, running away from her family.  Will she make it back in time to pull off her daughter’s party?!

It’s a simple, heart-warming movie I think all writing mothers will appreciate. So much of it resonated with me. As a mother to two girls, I know what it is like to desperately try to fit as many writing hours in between all of the other challenges life throws at us.  It’s hard, but, (and I am sure I am speaking for the majority of other writing mothers out there), we do it because it is what keeps us sane.  Even though I haven’t had a full nights sleep in five months, the cleaning never ends, and I’ve not had a night out without the children in forever, I am kept sane by the knowledge that at the end of the day I can sit down in front of my laptop and lose myself in my other, imaginary worlds for a while.

So this post is dedicated to all the other writing mothers out there. And may there always be enough junk food and Nick Jnr to keep the kids happy while we write!!!!

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