Artist and Podcast Host Elise Peterson Isn't a Regular Mom, She's a Cool Mom

I was one of the first of my friends to get pregnant—[we’re entering] that time as millennials, now that we’re in our thirties. And all of my friends were like, “How are you having a kid? How do you do it?” Especially being in a nontraditional relationship—whatever that means—and choosing to put my career first versus maybe settling down and living with my partner and instead following the work. I started Cool Moms to answer all these questions that I was getting because I didn’t have the answers and I didn’t want to act like I did. And there were all of these women that I found myself surrounded by that are super encouraging and I really admire. I really started to better understand the resilience and warmth and love of women, especially mother-to-mother.

Lizzy [Okpo, her cohost] got together and just started doing it for fun. We just wanted to create community because even though both of us are super alpha women—very ‘I can do it myself’—we realized there was no way that you can raise a child alone. And by alone, I even mean just with a partner—it absolutely takes a village. We honor women who prioritize their passions even while prioritizing motherhood, which is fucking hard.

The title is definitely a Mean Girls reference! But I think there’s a deep fear for many women (including myself) that you’ll lose yourself in motherhood and become consumed by it. I made this promise to myself that I would honor myself always first, and then also honor motherhood after that because the greatest thing you can do for your child is live your truth and fully live for yourself in a lot of ways. It inspires kids to do the same for themselves. Those are the women I wanted to talk to. Women who are really passionate about something, something greater for themselves, something outside of family. Just being a mom is totally valid and enough, but it’s saluting women who chose to do even more than that because it’s a heavy load to bear.

One of the biggest things that’s changing is that there’s more accessibility to varied narratives—like Cool Moms, like Jodie Patterson and her new book, or LaTonya Yvette and her new book. Women are sharing stories that are honest and without any sort of pretense—just, “I’m doing all this and I’m a mom. And it’s okay.” And women have been doing that forever—I was just watching the Maya Angelou documentary and she was constantly traveling, sometimes with her son, sometimes not. Marrying men, divorcing men. Living her life in the most authentic way. Women have been doing this forever, now it’s just becoming more accepted because we are not letting up. We’re not letting people tell us what we can do and how we can do it.

It’s a new, really superficial pressure: How does my kid look? Are we always presenting ourselves in the best way? Kids get messy, and look crusty, and have food on the side of their face. Sometimes you don’t have a clean onesie so you put the one on from yesterday and it’s not a big deal. But then there is this underlying anxiety of, “Oh god, I hope I don’t run into someone and my kid looks a mess, or I look a mess.” There’s so much privilege in it, to be quite honest, when it becomes about what I’m feeding my kid of what clothes I’m putting on his back. We all want to do the best for our kids, but what you do is enough, and it may not always be organic and locally sourced and locally made, and that’s okay too.

Absolutely, because social media also allows us to be in control of our narrative and in control of what my story is. Especially not living in the same place as my partner… it’s important to me to be honest and share to a certain capacity. It’s very sacred to us, but it’s also important to share a look at a different kind of partnership to show that there is more than one way for a family to work and to work well.

And also in general, galvanizing community. I’ve moved to LA now, which is a huge leap, and now I get to make art with a bunch of new moms and kids and get to know a whole new group of people. And that’s all because of the internet.

Self-care is difficult. It changes [after becoming a mother]; it makes you value the small things that qualify as self-care. Sometimes, [self-care] is just when I put him to bed and I get to watch an episode of Law & Order SVU. And sometimes the best self-care because I just moved is when my friends from New York come to visit and we can just hang out, and it reminds me who I am.

To be kind and patient to myself. There’s nothing anyone can tell you to prepare you for motherhood because it is the same and different all in the same breath for everyone. But it’s about not being hard on myself, and knowing when to ask for help. That can sometimes be a scary thing to do.