Create Anyway: Creativity in the Margins of Motherhood: Ashlee Gadd

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Create Anyway: Creativity in the Margins of Motherhood

Guest:Ashlee Gadd

From the series:Create Anway (Day 1 of 2)

Air date:October 14, 2024

Ashlee: When we tend to the creative gifts and talents that God has planted in our hearts, and really created for His glory—when we tend to that work—it makes us better mothers.

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Dave:This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave: So we’re talking about thriving today in motherhood. I know that you have said many, many times, when we had littles, you felt like your life was sort of over.

Ann: I think I said to you, “I’ve lost my life; I don’t even know who I am,” with three little boys [who] were five and under in the house. There was a part of me that felt like, “I guess I need to take my gifts and just pack them away for a while—18 years—

20 years.” Because, as a mom, you’re overwhelmed. A lot of us are working; or we’re homeschooling; or we’re just stay-at-home moms—and maybe we’ve had some dreams; I think that word even, “dreaming” or “passions”—and it doesn’t feel like there’s time for those.

Dave:Well, we’ve got a woman in here today, who’s going to say something different. Ashlee Gadd is with us. She’s smiling because I think you’re thinking, “That’s not true!”; right?

Ashlee: Right! I’m thinking, “That’s not true.” And also I know what that feels like; that resonates.

Ann: Ashlee, you’ve written a book called Create Anyway: The Joy of Pursuing Creativity in the Margins of Motherhood. So just tell our listeners a little bit what you do, because I think this is a really interesting topic today.

Ashlee: Sure. So I’m a mother; I have three kids, ages twelve, nine, and five. And I’m also a writer, and a photographer, and just kind of a general creative. I’m really, really passionate about reminding mothers that becoming a mom does not need to be a death sentence for their creative dreams—

Ann: There it is!

Ashlee: —which that was my language, not your language—but that’s what I heard you saying.

Ann: Did you feel that, though?

Ashlee: Maybe “death sentence” would be too strong for how I felt, but I think the word I would use is “tension.” That this was probably the first tension I felt, building up inside of me, when I became a mother. And I wanted to be a mom my whole life—

Ann: Right; you love it.

Ashlee: —my whole life!

Ann: It’s a gift; a blessing.

Ashlee: —a gift; a blessing. I dreamed of having children and being a mom. And even so, when I became a mother, that first kind of tension rising up in me was: “How am I going to throw myself into motherhood the way that I want to and, also, tend to my creative spirit that God very much planted inside of me?” and “Can those two things coexist?” I think that was my first year of motherhood—was really wrestling through—“Can my art exist alongside my motherhood?”

Ann: Kind of explain—because listeners, if you’re a mom, you’re going to relate to this—what it felt like, as a young mom, of that tension: “What did you feel like, personally?”

Ashlee: It felt like a scarcity mindset. I think, where I really struggled, was I felt that every second I was spending on my art was a second being taken away from my motherhood.

Ann: Did you feel guilty?

Ashlee: I felt guilty; I felt selfish. I felt that I wasn’t doing anything well enough—that I wasn’t giving all to my art, and I wasn’t giving all to motherhood—and I was sort of suspended in midair, trying to keep up with the very real demands that motherhood had placed on me and, also, the very real desires that I wanted to cultivate in the world. And so I was sort of stretched, like Gumby, I think both ways.

Dave:And I’m just guessing—again, I’m not a mom, obviously—I mean, dads experience this a little bit, too; but it’s definitely different. I think for moms, because even the maternal instinct that dads have, but not the same way. But here’s my question: “Did you feel like that tension usually gets answered, like: ‘Got to put the creative away; put away my gifts’?” I mean, your title is Create Anyway, so I know you literally picked each word. You’re like, “No, even in that moment, I’m saying, ‘Anyway, create.’”

But was that a tension to get to that? Because I think most moms say, “Okay; for the next five, six, seven, ten years, I’m only going to do this one thing; and do it well,”—and I’m not saying that’s wrong or bad—that’s often the mindset. And you’re saying it could be a different mindset.

Ashlee: Definitely. And I think there is a very real assessment of priorities there. Obviously, you technically can put your creative dreams on a shelf for five years, ten years—you could do that—you can’t put your baby on a shelf for five or ten years. So there is a very real difference, I think, in those two roles and, even, the priority and the placement in our hearts as mothers and as creatives.

But for me, it sort of turned into this kind of expectation management of: prior to having children, what it looked like to create in my days—what it looked like to write, and to take photographs, or to do any number of creative things—it looked one way. And after I became a mother, it looked a different way. I think part of my journey into becoming such a champion and a cheerleader for mothers—not letting their creative selves fall by the wayside—is that transforming mindset that you sort of have to go through when you just recognize that creating, as a mother, does not look the same way that it did before I became a mom.

Once I kind of accepted that I might not have three straight hours to sit down and write; but I have this little pocket of time, here and there, and I can still use that—and those minutes still matter, and none of it is wasted—even though it doesn’t look like it used to look like.

Dave:I mean, you write about writing your book on note cards while you’re sitting by the bathtub.

Ashlee: That’s how I started writing this book; yeah.

Dave:I mean, can you imagine doing that?

Ann: No! Because I was yelling most of the time: “Will you stop splashing the water?!” And so I wasn’t sane enough to probably do that, but I could have thought of different ways that worked for me; because you’re saying, “Just figure out what that looks like for you.”

Ashlee: Yeah; I think I’ve had to let a lot of my own expectations shift and change. I’ve had to let go of a lot of perfectionism—creating in the margins, creating on the bathroom floor—it looks different; it feels different; it’s not perfect. I’ve had plenty of moments, where I’m yelling at my kids while I’m trying to write, or whatever the thing is. I wrote Create Anyway in the middle of the pandemic, and all of the coffee shops were closed. And there were days when I had three children in my house twenty-four hours a day; my husband was home twenty-four hours a day. And some days, I would take my laptop out into the driveway; I would just sit in my car in the driveway, and just connect to the Wi-Fi. I would just write—sitting in my car, parked in the driveway—to just tend to that part of myself, which is so essential to my own flourishing.

I think that’s why I’m so passionate about helping women figure out how to make it work, even if it’s hard and even if it’s complicated, because I just believe that—when we tend to the creative gifts and talents that God has infused in our DNA/that He has planted in our hearts and really created for us for His glory—when we tend to that work, it makes us better mothers. And that’s a permission slip I just want every woman to be able to hold.

Ann: What about for the mom [who’s] listening, and she says, “I’m not a creative; I’m a computer programmer. I don’t have that creative part you’re talking about.” Because I feel like I don’t have that in me that much. But what would you say to that person?

Dave:She’s a creative.

Ann: Are we all creative?

Dave:I mean, in some sense.

Ann: How would you define a creative?

Ashlee: I believe we’re all creative, because we were created in the image of God; and God is a creator, and God is creative. And so if we were created in the image of the same God—who created butterflies and created any number of wonderful, brilliant, amazing things in this world—we have to believe that we are, also, creative. And so I gently push back on that notion; but I also want to free women up from connecting creativity to crafting or creativity to being a painter. I think a lot of women have a lot of hangups with the word, “creative” or “creativity.” I just want to broaden the scope of what that means.

Ann: I can broaden that, because here’s what I struggled with when our kids were little. I used to think: “Man, I could craft a message,” or “I would take a walk if I had five minutes by myself.” I would dream what it would look like to bring women together to bring a ministry or to meet the needs of women in our community. I have this leadership gift—and so my creative side doesn’t sound creative; that’s why I say that—but it is. It’s part of who God made me to be, like: “How can I draw women together? How can I stir women’s hearts with the gospel?”

I don’t think of myself as a creative—but there is this stirring—it’s the dreams that God put in our hearts that—I think we think, as moms, that we have to shelve them—and God’s whispering. Do you feel like that?

Ashlee: Yeah, yeah.

Ann: He whispers to that part of us.

Ashlee: And mothers, in particular, are creating all the time. I mean, think about a mom going through one day of her life—creating meals, creating memories, creating magic, creating rhythms—like mothers are creating life! We are creating all the time. And so I think that’s such a helpful reframe for women—who have hangups with that word, or that word makes them bristle or uncomfortable—or “I can’t own that title,” or “That’s not me.” It’s like, “But it is! It’s inside of you.”

Ann: Yeah, you’re right. Even—I was thinking of the way that I used to teach Bible stories to the kids; I would come up with some way—

Dave:Her stories are epic; talk about creator.

Ashlee: —to make this relevant.

Dave: I started getting my phone out and taping them, like, “These are children’s books.”

Ashlee: That’s amazing.

Dave:I’ve never heard such epics, and they’re hanging on every word. I’m like, “You’re not a creative? Yes, you are!” It just depends how you look at that.

Ann: I like how you’re saying that God’s a creative God, so He has made that and put that into us.

Dave:But here’s my question for you two moms, because one thing I’ve noticed about Ann—I don’t know you, Ashlee; but I’m guessing from, what you’ve said, you can juggle many things at once: you’re writing a book while you’re giving your kids a bath, and your husband’s probably—whatever.

Ann: I could not do that.

Dave:She has a one-thing focus—and this, over here; it’s like—“I’ll get to that next.”

So is this partly gifting? Or can you think any woman, depending on their focus, could maybe do this?—even if they’re more of a one-focus, one-thing-at-a-time woman.

Ashlee: I think personality probably plays a really big role in that. And my personality is one that I do like to juggle a lot of things at once. I used to be a waitress, and so I’m used to having lots of plates on my arms. That’s comfortable for me to be juggling it all and making it work in the margins. I think other women: they might need a different structure for them.

I do think that all women can, and should, create in the margins of their days; because the number-one reason I hear from women, who aren’t creating, is that they don’t have time. They don’t have time, and they don’t have space. And so when I push back on that lovingly, and suggest, “Well, if you don’t have time, you don’t have space. Could you give 15 minutes on the bathroom floor with the stack of index cards?” and “Could you delete Instagram from your phone for a week?—or a month?”

Dave: “No; can’t do that.”

Ashlee: Some people can’t. But I think there are lots of different ways to make this work for you. For me, I always come back to this phrase of just—“expectation management”—when we can kind of sit down with ourselves, and really assess, “What is possible in any given season?” It’s going to look different; and it looks different for me—even from when I had babies and toddlers hanging on my body—to now, where my kids are all in school for various parts of the day. I do have different blocks of time than I had when I had a baby and a toddler. And my creativity, at that time, looked different than it looks now. I had a different method—when I wrote the index cards on the bathroom floor—I had a one-year-old. And it was writing in my car, sitting in the driveway—and part of that was the pandemic—and part of it was just the life stage I was in. It’s like I would do anything to be alone for five minutes.

And now, I have a little bit bigger blocks of time; but I don’t have the same capacity or the same time as a mother, who has full-grown children, who are totally out of the house. She has different hours in the day than I do. And so I think just assessing—in every season, “What is possible?”—is a good place to start.

Ann: Hey, I just wanted to take a quick minute to jump in, and say, “Whatever you’re going through today, listen to this: ‘You aren’t alone.’” I know that you know that God is with you; but let me add this: “Did you know that Dave and I have a team, here at FamilyLife Today, ready to pray for you?” and “It’s this incredible honor and privilege to lift your name up to God.” So if you need prayer, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Dave:And here’s the easy way to do it—you can text us, and we will pray for you—here’s how you do it: text FLT to 80542. Again, that’s FLT to 80542. And we will send you an immediate text back to let you know that we’ve connected; and then, you can respond to our text with your prayer requests. We will pray for you: text FLT at 80542.

Ann: Talk about the Target parking lot.

Ashlee: If you looked at my camera roll, right now—I’m not kidding—there would probably be 30 to 40 pictures of a sunset in the Target parking lot. I don’t know why God does this—I can’t make sense of it—but I swear to you: the sunsets in Target parking lots are more beautiful—

Dave: Target?

Ashlee: —than anywhere else in the world.

Ann: Is that before or after you spent the money?

Ashlee: I just love finding beauty in unexpected places; I think that is the mark of a true artist in this world. And for whatever reason, God tends to minister to my heart in Target parking lots. I often just sense His presence there; I don’t know why. But really, the next time you’re at Target—I just want you to go at sunset—and just check out the sky, and see what you find.

Dave: Seriously; you’re not kidding.

Ashlee: I’m not joking. I wish I had my camera roll to show you right now, but I’ll have to text it to you later.

Dave:What I’m hearing you say, though, is: “Open your eyes,”—

Ashlee: Yeah.

Dave: —that’s what I’m hearing. It could be Costco; it could be Target; it could be the gas station; it could be your backyard—but we often don’t open our eyes to see what God’s doing and creating, right around us—because we’re so myopic in our little world, especially moms with little kids, right?

Ashlee: Yes.

Ann: Ashlee, I did it yesterday. I went on a walk.

Dave:She did. I was on my bike; she’s walking.

Ann: I’m walking. But I was feeling sad yesterday; we’ve just got a lot going on with people [who] are sick, and there’s just a lot of things that are out of control. So I was walking—I was telling God, pouring out my heart to Him—like, “Lord, I’m sad about this,” or “I’m frustrated,” or “I’m mad.” And I said, “I just need You to show up in my life. I need to see You. I need something; are You here? Do You see me? Do You care? Do You hear me?” And I had my camera with me.

Dave: —phone.

Ann: This is on my camera.

Dave:Ashlee has a real camera; we have a phone.

Ashlee: I take photos on my phone all the time.

Dave:Those pictures in your book: those are not iPhone.

Ashlee: Yeah, those are from a real camera; but I—

Ann: Your book is beautiful, by the way.

Ashlee: Thank you so much.

There’s a quote—I think it’s Chase Jarvis who said this—but he always says, “The best camera is the one you have with you.” And so that is my permission to embrace your iPhone photography.

Dave: They’re pretty good cameras.

Ann: Okay, so mine is animals.

Ashlee: Okay; I love it!

Ann: So I walk out my house—there’s this tiny little bunny, so I take a picture—I felt like, “It’s nice, Lord.” It’s just a little—and some people: “It’s just the rabbit eating the grass,”—but for me, it was like, “Oh!!”

Ashlee: No, I’m a believer. See, I believe it.

Ann: And then, I cut to the pond—there’s all these baby little ducklings—I’m like, “Oh!!” But then, the most epic part of the walk is— I come down our street—and there’s the most gorgeous rainbow. And it was—I mean, I showed—you met me!

Dave:Yeah, I didn’t even see it. Isn’t that crazy?

Ashlee: That is crazy.

Dave: I’m riding my bike; she goes, “Look at the rainbow.”

Dave: —rainbow? “Oh, wow!”

Ann: But you’re right; I wouldn’t have noticed it because a lot of times, when we’re in life, and we’re just walking, our head is down, and all we see is—“This is hard,” and “This is difficult,” and “I’m sad,” or “I’m mad,” or “I’m lonely,”—but when we lift up our eyes, we see Him.

I think, sometimes, what we do, as moms—we just had this women’s group, and we were talking—I was asking: “Write down the dreams that you’ve had in your life.” And as these women are writing, tears are falling down their faces. And I asked them, “Why were tears just streaming down your face?” And they said, “Because I’ve put those dreams away.” And what you’re saying is:—

Dave: —“Create anyway.”

Ashlee: —“Create anyway.”

Ann: You’re saying, “You don’t have to put them away.”

Ashlee: Yeah; I think I want to put a caveat on that,—which is to say—“Sometimes God does ask us to put our dreams on a shelf.”

Ann: Maybe you wanted to be a ballerina, and that hurt.

Ashlee: Yeah; yes, exactly. And so I want to leave room for the sovereignty of God in this equation.

Ann: That’s good.

Ashlee: But I don’t believe that, the second we become a mother, we’re not entitled to those dreams anymore. I also think God can shape our dreams into something different.

But I truly believe that God has put gifts and talents into each of us, and He has created passions in each of us for different communities of people. And so I love really exploring with women: “What is the thing you’re really, really good at?” and “Who are the people you really, really care about?”—and finding that intersection. Because, to me, that’s where creative dreams are born: it’s born out of the natural talent that you have and the people that you have a heartbeat for. And so how that actually all pans out, I think, it varies from person to person.

For a long time, I really wrestled with that tension of balancing—and I hate that word, but I can’t think of a better one right now—but sort of balancing motherhood against the backdrop of those dreams. And where I land now is that it’s good and holy for my children to see me pursuing the dreams that God has put on my heart. And that’s something I actually really want to model for my children: that when God drops a dream in my heart, and I go out and pursue it, that that’s something they can do. And there’s no better way for me to model it than to show them what that actually looks like. It’s important to me that my children see me as a whole person, and not just the woman schlepping them from school to extracurriculars, home to quesadillas, and whatnot. I want my children to see the way I light up when I write, and when I take pictures, and when I do creative things that just make me feel alive. I want them to have a mom in touch with that side of herself.

Ann: Is that how you founded “Coffee + Crumbs”?

Ashlee: Yes.

Ann: Talk about that a little bit.

Ashlee: Yeah, very much so. [In] 2013, I had a one-year-old. I was not even pregnant, yet, with my second. And I had been writing for a really long time—writing online—writing personal stories, writing essays. And at that time, I was really inspired by motherhood—I was looking for places to write about motherhood—looking for places online to submit my writing. And at the time, all that was really out there, in 2013, there was “Huffington Post Parents,” and “Scary Mommy,” and some of these other websites that just weren’t quite a fit for my personal writing style and the types of stories that I wanted to tell.

God just dropped this dream in my head of creating a collaborative space online, where women could write stories about motherhood—not advice, not $800-diaper bag recommendations—but just stories: really honest, raw, gritty stories. I rallied up a group of friends, who were all mothers and writers; and we started “Coffee + Crumbs” officially in 2014. We just had our ten-year anniversary.

Dave:I like the title. I’m guessing this is what you were thinking as well, because it’s messy.

Ashlee: Yes; so initially, my heart for that name was—at that time, coffee and crumbs kind of defined my life—because I was home with little kids, and lukewarm coffee, and crumbs everywhere; but to me, “Coffee + Crumbs” represents the beauty and mess of motherhood. It’s the peace and the chaos.

Ann: Are these stories, that you’ve included in your book, did they come from “Coffee + Crumbs”?

Ashlee: No—so this was all original to Create Anyway—but I have been writing about motherhood, for ten years now, publicly online, through “Coffee + Crumbs.” And I would say that this book, Create Anyway, is really the embodiment of the last decade of my work and what I believe. I think the more that I’ve written, alongside other women—and I’ve really engaged in helping other women kind of harness their creative gifts into a collective good—it’s really solidified this message for me in my heart of how much this actually matters. I’ve watched the art of storytelling really transform women, as mothers; and I want other people to have access to that.

Ann: How many stories are in the book of these women?

Ashlee: I don’t know, off the top of my head, how many are in there—maybe eight to ten, I guess.

Dave: Yeah, I’d say eight to ten.

Ashlee: Yeah; I have these little kind of spotlights throughout the book. I really wanted to include that, because I wanted to showcase the fact that creativity means different things to different people. I’m a writer, and I’m a photographer—and I talk a lot about that in the book; I talk a lot about writing, and I talk a lot about photography—but I wanted to rally up women, who are painters, and who are sculptors, and who make different kinds of art; because I want to expand that definition of what it means to be an artist and what it means to be creative. So that was kind of my heart in including other perspectives in the book.

Ann: It’s beautiful.

Ashlee: Thank you!

Ann: And then, my last question is: as a mom, I remember struggling with: “I don’t even have time to read my Bible. How do I develop my walk with God?” I know you would say that’s pivotal, as a mom, to not forget the importance of our walk with God. Do they go hand in hand?—can they? Because I’m like, “Do I draw? Do I create? Where do I spend time with God?” Do you know?

Ashlee: Yeah; absolutely.

Ann: How do we balance that? And there’s that word, “balance,” again.

Ashlee: I know; I know. Well, I really love that question; because I think spending time with God is spending time with God. You can spend time with God while you’re painting. You can go outside—and see a bunny, or see a sunset in Target—

Ann: —and worship.

Ashlee: —and worship, and spend a moment just relishing in the extravagance of God’s creation. I believe that is part of making art, and that’s part of spending time with God. So I don’t even think of those things as necessarily separate. I think, sometimes, I will be struck over the head with a story or something that I’m just dying to sit down and write—and it feels like Holy Spirit commissioned—and so I think, when we’re walking with the Lord, the Lord walks with us in our art. They don’t have to be two different things, I guess.

Dave:You are the blending of the “and”; you know what I mean? I always think: “and/or”; you’re saying, “No, there’s a genius of the and.”

Ashlee: —“both/and” is where I land.

Dave: —“both”; yeah!

Ann: I like that; because I tend to go one or the other—but to include both—we’re worshiping the Creator Himself in His creation and how He’s created us, as well. That’s good!

Shelby: It can be difficult to think about creativity as a form of connection with God and even worship; but our God is a creative God, as we’ve been hearing about today. So I love this perspective about embracing the both/and-ness when it comes to creativity; it’s really great stuff.

I’m Shelby Abbott; and you’ve been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson, with Ashlee Gadd, on FamilyLife Today. Ashlee has written a book called Create Anyway: The Joy of Pursuing Creativity in the Margins of Motherhood. And I know that you, listening right now, might be a mother; and you feel like, “I am living my life in the margins. How can I pursue creativity?” Well, this book is going to help you do that: to unlock a deeper sense of fulfillment in your role that God has called you to, as a mom. You can get your copy, right now, of Ashlee’s book by going online to FamilyLifeToday.com; or you can find a link in the show notes. Or feel free to give us a call at 800-358-6329 to request your copy. Again, that number is 800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word, TODAY.

We’re right here smack dab in the middle of October, and that means that Halloween is coming up. Regardless of how you may feel about the holiday of Halloween, we want to give you an opportunity to be able to communicate the gospel to your family in this moment. Family Life has created a free resource for you, that’s a downloadable family activity for you and your kids to do; so basically, it includes pumpkin face stencil sheets, a guided script to help your kids talk about and learn about the gospel as you’re going through carving your pumpkin into a Jack-o-Lantern this year. You can find this free resource at FamilyLife.com/Pumpkin, or you could look for it in the show notes. Again, the website is FamilyLife.com/Pumpkin so you can learn how to share the gospel, proactively, with your kids as you’re carving out your pumpkin in just a couple of weeks.

Now, tomorrow, Ashlee Gadd is back to talk about balancing creativity and motherhood. She’s going to talk about guilt and the role of play in pursuing creative passions with your kids. That’s coming up tomorrow; we hope you’ll join us. On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Shelby Abbott. We’ll see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

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