Designing Motherhood on Rethinking Reproduction

Moderated by Alice Grandoit-Šutka

In 2015, design historians Michelle Millar Fisher and Amber Winick conceptualized a shape-shifting initiative that would generate conversations around the experience of motherhood and the histories, structures, customs, and objects that surround it.

Designing Motherhood arrives in varying forms, including a book with MIT, an exhibition currently on view at Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum through May 2022, and a storybanking partnership with the Maternity Care Coalition. For this issue, Alice Grandoit-Šutka reflects with the project’s co-founder, alongside collaborators Zoë Greggs and Gabriella Nelson, about the circumstances that motivated this crucial work and the daily practice of creating equity.

First image: Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births (MIT Press, 2021). Carousel: Spreads from Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births (MIT Press, 2021). Photos by Erik Gould. Images courtesy of Designing Motherhood.

ALICE GRANDOIT-ŠUTKA: Could you tell us a bit about the work and mission of Designing Motherhood? Why did you choose the word “design” to encapsulate what you do?

GABRIELLA NELSON: When I hear the word design, it makes me think about choice—people having a choice and a say, whether it’s the choice to have a child, the choice to not have a child, the choice to have ten children, the choice to wait. Even in times when we feel like we don’t have a choice, we really should. That’s what design means to me.

MICHELLE MILLAR FISHER: Design was part of the project’s title from the start. My Designing Motherhood (DM) co-founder, Amber Winick, and I are both design historians. Gabriella said design is about choice, and I also think it’s about being able to open up different opportunities. In design history textbooks, Amber and I learned about the history of “good” design and the ways in which design is a positive force in the world. Of course, we know that’s bullshit. Design is only as good as the people doing it, but who has this agency and access? I think Gabriella is also saying that design is intersec- tional, it’s contingent, and it’s not always a given.

At Designing Motherhood, we believe that design should be for everyone, even though it absolutely hasn’t always been. To understand that nuance, and to be able to think about design historically so we can do it differently today, is our mission.

Our work comes from a very simple question:“Why don’t we see design for the arc of human reproduction in spaces of culture?” Why don’t we see it in design history textbooks? Why don’t we see it in museum exhibitions or permanent collections? Why don’t we hear about it in public conversations? It started for Amber and I about six or seven years ago. This was before the #MeToo movement received mainstream exposure. It was before Time’s Up. It was before the New York Times had a “Parenting” section. At first, it was a matter of bringing this conversation, and the systems and objects that come with it, into some kind of public forum so that people could find their own relationships to it, and through those relationships, interrogate power asymmetries and taboos. The mission was to offer a platform that would shed light on an area of human life and material culture that touches absolutely everyone at least once, and often many more times than that. Our goals have since metamorphosed because, as the team has grown, everybody has brought their own experiences, expertise, and needs.

GN: Design also makes me think about imagination—and maybe this is influenced by my child—but it makes me think about creating objects, tools, and systems that are different from what we currently have. However, that’s not what design always meant to me. When I went to design school, I didn’t feel like a designer because I didn’t feel like I belonged. Being part of this project, and around other designers who aren’t just city planners, developers, and engineers, has helped me to see how expansive design can actually be, and the myriad experiences that can inform it. At the end of the day, everybody is a designer. We design our lives.

“An equitable society makes it possible for every person to have what they know they need. We are the experts of our own experiences.”

AGS: In this project, what and who do you see yourselves designing for?

MMF: As a historian, I personally don’t do much designing in the traditional sense; my role, I feel, is to bring up the sediment of history in order to look at the ways in which people have designed before, sometimes powerfully, sometimes subversively, sometimes in ways that are violent. These are contemporary parables for the present moment and for the future.

ZOË GREGGS: On this project, I also highlight folks who design, specifically the direct service staff at Maternity Care Coalition (MCC). About two years ago, when I first met Michelle and Amber and we kicked off DM’s partnership with MCC, I was working on the administrative side of MCC. I was thinking a lot about how I wanted the experts in maternal and child health—our direct service staff of advocates, doulas, lactation experts, and home visitors—to lead this project. I wanted us to be listening to the folks who are really doing the work. We created a small advisory council that allowed us to have really open conversations about the trajectory of DM, as well as our intentions and ethics. It was unlike anything I’d experienced because we were all able to be honest. Even when we weren’t sure what the end result of certain conversations or decisions would be, we could trust that it was going to be right because of who was in the room.

GN: When Zoë and I did the storybanking project titled “For the Babies,” which is a six-episode narrative portrait of the direct service staff at MCC, we hosted a town hall for the whole organization, at which we let everyone know—this project is for you. We want to honor you. We want to uplift you. But we didn’t receive the feedback we were expecting. Some folks were like, “Hey, you guys said that this project was for us, but we didn’t ask for this.” If it was up to the direct service workers, they would have instead asked for more pay, more time off, or more support. It became a lesson in understanding that even when you believe you’re designing for somebody, without their consent and input, you can’t really say that you are designing for anyone. That experience helped us take a step back, reevaluate, and have more one-on-one conversations with people about what we can realistically offer folks.

ZG: I was a little naïve at first in thinking that if you included folks in every step of a process, the final product would then be perfect, just because the process was intentional and equitable. But the reality is that not everything you create is going to receive the desired reaction, no matter how you do it, and that is okay. These growing pains helped us make better work in the end. We were very lucky to have people around us who were honest about their thoughts and feelings.

MMF: Also, we’re working within nonprofits and nobody is paid enough, including all of us on the DM team. Even the most intentional process is always going to be flawed under those conditions. One thing we found out, which was also something that we were experiencing ourselves, is that if somebody says, “What do you need?” usually it’s not, “Please, can you tell my story?” It’s “Pay me more. Give me a working environment that is fair. Then let me tell my own story.”

Right now, a lot of museums are talking about equity and inclusion, in the workplace and on the walls, but many of the issues stem from the simple fact that the employment landscape for museums is not particularly diverse, equitably paid, or intersectional. When you ask someone what they need—yes, people want to be heard, but first they need to survive and to thrive. Most people, especially in the nonprofit sphere, are struggling with chronic burnout, or just the inability to access this space in the first place.

First image: Installation view of “Designing Motherhood” at The Mütter Museum, courtesy of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Second image: Left to right: Pompeii Quatra-Valve Speculum, 19th century reproduction of a ca. AD 79 design; Lucy (Sims) Speculum, ca. mid 19th century; Yona Speculum Prototype, 2019; Exam Table Stirrups, ca. 1885; Nyssa Self Exam Mirror, 2019. Third image: Still from All My Babies: A Midwife’s Own Story (1953) against Aimee Gilmore’s Milkscape at The Mütter Museum, 2021. Photo by Constance Mensh.

AGS: Conversations about equity sometimes erroneously conflate its objectives and mechanisms with those of equality. The physical experience of birthing and motherhood will always fall onto a certain group of people, and their life experiences will never be the same, or equal to, those of non-birthing people. What does the struggle for equity look like for them?

MMF: In our project, whatever your intersection with human reproduction is, you are important, and your story is important. Within the umbrella of MCC, maternal and infant health is the focus. It’s very clear, especially in the US, that not everyone is treated the same—take, for example, systemic racism within the healthcare system, or the fact that birthing outcomes are exponentially more dire for people of color.

GN: Speaking from my very limited perspective—I’m a single mom of a Black boy living very close to Philadelphia—the biggest thing I see parents needing is, simply, support. Even basic support depends on your personal circumstances, your family, and the community that you live in, but that’s just not enough.

Thanks to the expanded child tax credit, since July, every 15th of the month parents can receive between $250-$300 per child. You get half of the total credit monthly through December 2021 and the remaining half when you file your taxes the next year. Altogether, if you have one young child, like me, you get $3,600, which is great. We need forms of support that don’t have strings attached.

I used to work for the Housing Authority. They have a ton of amazing programs and services but, still, none of those “services” are “free.” They are contingent on a family’s compliance with federal regulations, and you’re also being surveilled in all types of ways. There are restrictions. You’re not living with autonomy. There is a real lack of ways to support people that are openly accessible, whether financial, physical, professional, or emotional.

One of my neighbors had a child last month and is suffering from postpartum depression. I stopped her in the street yesterday to say “How are you?” and she just broke down. People are not doing well, especially in a pandemic, especially having a young child. I mean, even on the best of terms, when you have a child, you look at yourself and you don’t even know who you are. Even if you have a supportive partner, your family is there, the world is open, and everybody’s doing great, it’s a huge life change. You never go back.

One of the hardest things to do as a parent is to trust that you are parenting your child well, and that everything is under control. That has been the hardest thing for me—to trust myself as a mother. I’m new to this and I don’t know what’s going on. Is he learning? Is he getting enough nutrients? Am I making him smile enough? Am I spoiling him? There are so many things to figure out, but to have any type of system or institution dictate how you’re able to birth and then parent is also incredibly counterproductive, especially in the long run. What people need, instead of rules, is support.

What they need support with will vary, but they will know what it is. Nothing works for or fits everybody. People’s experiences are different. If there is an underlying intention here, in regard to equity, it is the tenet of reproductive justice and a person’s right to choose what happens to their body. An equitable society makes it possible for every person to have what they know they need. We are the experts of our own experiences.

ZG: Thinking about this has highlighted my own social location and how that comes into play. I’m queer. I identify as a lesbian, and I think that oftentimes queer and trans people are completely left out of conversations about birthing and parenting. When people hear that you’re queer, they do not ask if you’re going to have kids. As soon as I share that, nobody asks me any other questions. But when I identified as straight—rather, when I was under the assumption that I was straight—those conversations were inevitable. Something that has honestly enraged me about operating in these spaces is that even when you bring up this topic, you’re immediately shut down. Even the terminology that we use around birth and being a parent is so cisgender and heterosexual. There’s a huge swath of people who are being completely left out of the conversation.

I want to see our stories. And when I do see our stories, I don’t want it to be two white lesbians who have adopted. I need something else, because we are out here. I’m really hoping that, especially in the circles that we’re currently operating in, there will be an intentional effort to address the ways that we’re using certain words and ideas. It’s important to note that queer and trans people, particularly those of color, have already crafted and provided the language to do so. At the end of the day it is about listening—consideration and understanding are what is key here.

“We knew, before COVID, that having a child, or even having the capacity to have a child, could automatically lower your earnings over your lifetime and be the catalyst for detrimental experiences in the workforce. Anyone can tell their story, but representation is really about who listens to it and how it is given space.”

First image: Mama breastfeeding. Image courtesy of Gabriella Nelson. Second image: Linnea and Luna cuddling on a bed. Image by and courtesy of Marie Hald, Moment Agency.

AGS: This is a great entry point into the next question, as you’ve just mentioned the need for storytelling. Representation within history and imagination is a key component of equity. How have you observed that race and class factor into narratives around motherhood and care work more generally? And how has COVID shifted these conversations as women have been particularly detrimentally affected by workforce shifts? 

ZG: We thought a lot about this, especially when it comes to storybanking, because the vast majority of our direct service staff identify as Black women. If you look at the majority of people who hold positions of power at most nonprofits, locally and nationally, they are predominantly white and of an upper middle class background. This means that the bulk of people making decisions haven’t directly experienced what the rest of us go through on a daily basis. There’s this myth that by reading a few books on white saviorism and racism—such as the popular text amongst supposed white allies, White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo—systemic issues will magically disappear without any sem- blance of dismantling and resource redistribution. 

A big motive behind storybanking was to uplift and center the experiences of people who have been ignored, or simply steamrolled, often under the guise of diversity and inclusion initiatives. How can we have real conversations about, as Michelle had mentioned earlier, the need to be compensated more, in a way that folks will hear it? How can we have open conversations about the emotional and mental labor that goes into supporting birthing people and their families? This work often entails dealing with life or death situations—that is not an exaggeration. 

GN: When I think about COVID, storytelling, the Black women at MCC, and especially the direct service workers, I feel there has been a reckoning. This isn’t new. But, in the wake of COVID, a lot of people are starting to analyze and reconsider what is truly important to them. For example, I’ve seen a rise in homeschooling. People are leaving their jobs and using that energy to invest in their children full time.

I can only speak for myself, but back in the summer of 2020, when all the shit hit the fan and I was still a new mom—I mean, postpartum is forever, but I was still in the early postpartum phase—I was figuring out how to take care of and protect my child. You know when you watch a zombie apocalypse movie and think to yourself, “I would never have a kid if this was real life”? Well, there I was, with my newborn. It was really stressful. On top of that, I was dealing with constant footage of Black bodies being killed, while we also experience Black mothers dying because of maternal mortality. That put me in a fight mode. 

We’re all Pisces—me, Michelle, and Zoë. That’s why we’re like this. I felt like my son and I were up against the world. Nobody was going to protect us. There were times when I literally had dreams about sacrificing my life for him. Now I’m thinking about my will. Who’s going to take care of my son if I’m not here? Priorities change when you’re truly thinking about survival. I’ve had more conversations in the last year and a half than ever before with folks who are like,“Man, F this job for real.” People are taking care of their emotional and mental health and prioritizing their family more than I have ever, ever heard in my thirty years of living. I’m sure many others have had these conversations in different decades and generations but, for me, I feel like people are finally saying,“We’re not dealing with this shit no more.”

Now, organizations are racing to build these diversity, equity, and inclusion departments, which I think, theoretically, could do some great stuff. Theoretically. And I do think there are institutions and organizations that are taking this opportunity to really move the needle forward. But, for the most part, I think a lot of it is performative and bullshit. You create a department and you hire a Black woman to lead it, but representation isn’t everything and all skin folk ain’t kinfolk. The initiative looks good, the new mission statement looks good, now you’re getting grants, but the folks at the bottom of the pyramid are still struggling. Are they seeing and experiencing a difference? Why the fuck is there a pyramid in the first place?

MMF: There’s so much in this question. The shifts in workplace demographics really emphasize these intersections. I think it’s incredible when we can avoid placing gender within a binary, but we also know, for example, that exponentially more women-identifying people have left the workforce during COVID than have men. We knew, before COVID, that having a child, or even having the capacity to have a child, could automatically lower your earnings over your lifetime and be the catalyst for detrimental experiences in the workforce. Anyone can tell their story, but representation is really about who listens to it and how it is given space. Stories need platforms. That’s why we invited about fifty different people to be interviewed for our book. Reproduction is a universal topic in the sense that everyone has been born, but it is also unique in that every individual comes to it from a specific social location. I’m very passionate about making sure the throughline of gender is understood and contextualized in these conversations. I come from the UK, and from a very working class background; that determined my ability to live and work, and informed my choice not to do so in the UK. But I had that choice. My foremothers did not.

AGS: How do you organize Designing Motherhood’s processes and relationships internally to model the kinds of changes you’d like to see mirrored in society at large?

GN: One of the best things that we’ve designed internally is the care that we give to each other. It’s that support that I talked about, that grace. I’m not sure what other group of people I could work with that would be totally okay with my kid running around and hitting me with a pool noodle during an interview. We understand that we all have different needs. We’re all at different stages professionally and personally. Not only do we support each other through that, but there is a true proactive spirit of, “I’m going to help you go places.”

Sometimes we don’t realize that we need help, in the same way that sometimes we don’t realize our worth. Sometimes we dim our own light, but you can’t do that here. We’re like, “Actually, no, you need to shine!” There is also a sense of sharing in the limelight and accolades. It is never just about Amber and Michelle, who created the project. They are constantly speaking up and emphasizing that this project is for everyone involved in it.

We’ve gained incredible social networks from working with each other. That has been so important for me because I never experienced professional support in this way before. The support that allows me to progress professionally also means I can provide a better life for my child and my family. Networks and communities are missing from a lot of conversations about creating wealth, health, and a balanced life. So much of this is about who you know. Without relationships, it’s extremely hard. As I start to feel more secure, I hope I can provide the same for others in the future.

ZG: Gabriella said it perfectly. I had never experienced this level of mentorship and care, and talking about it gets me emotional. It was literally shocking to have someone be like, “Wait, why are you making yourself smaller in these spaces? You have skills. Let me help build upon those skills. Let me connect you to people who will want to hear from you.” We’re not used to that. We’re not used to being empowered, or to being reminded of the gifts we do have, even in moments of doubt. It’s a lot of nurturing and, in that way, a lot of mothering. It’s giving to one another without caveats or transactions, and without feeling like a favor always needs to be returned. It’s disorienting! Sometimes we joke, “Is this what white people experience? Is this what it feels like to have a built-in network of professional support and people who are willing to help you, without you having to prove that you’re worthy of being in this space at all?” I think a part of me has this fear that if Designing Motherhood for some reason ends, that experience will go away.

MMF: I love everything you both said. I come from a very small village in Scotland. It was a wonderful network of people living on farmland. I grew up with a single parent, but if you ever needed anything, you could just run to your neighbor and they would help you. I was the first person in my family to be educated past high school, so I had no model for any kind of professional career. However, I know what it is to be part of a strong network in which people are there for each other, because you never know when you will need that. At DM, we subscribe to something called Shine Theory, which was developed by Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow. It’s an imperfect model because we are imperfect humans. Everyone comes with ego and with trauma, and we’re all still figuring life out in real time. But we subscribe to the fact that if people around us don’t feel like they can shine, then positive rays are not going to be reflected back on us as individuals either. We need to empower others in order to be able to bask in the rays ourselves.

We know from history that no blueprint for a project ever fully describes its end result. A blueprint gives you a map, but it doesn’t actually give you the thing. The thing gets built by many hands, and it gets made better if people are able to work collaboratively. Zoë, you mentioned the idea of mothering. We usually think about mothering as biological, but it’s also about intentionality around care and about knowing that you are worthy of receiving care. It’s about reciprocity. Ideally, the culture we build at work will live beyond the project, so that when we’re out in the world, we know what we deserve and are not afraid to ask for it. When people come into our orbit, either for a brief encounter or for a longer-term project, they’ll often say,“Wow, this is nice!” And we’re like,“Yeah, this is how it should be, right?” We’re very proud of that.

GN: Many of the conversations Zoë and I have had around this project have set the standard for how we expect to be treated by other people, especially by white women. I have never, as a Black woman, had a relationship with a white woman that was so giving and caring. Professionally or personally, never. There have been times in this process when if Designing Motherhood hadn’t had my back, I would probably be long gone. But we do have each other’s backs. And there have been numerous times when Michelle has said that she will use her privilege as a white woman to make sure we feel safe and protected. I had never experienced that before. I had never even experienced an executive Black woman say that she would use her privilege and power to protect me. This has totally shifted how I expect to be treated and how I will be treating other people. I’m not accepting anything less because now I know what a healthy professional relationship can and should be. I’m very grateful.

Michelle Millar Fisher is a Scottish curator and educator who lives in the US and works at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Learn more about the project described in this conversation @designingmotherhood.

Gabriella Nelson is a mother and city planner, possessing a strong interest at the confluence of urban development, public health, and critical pedagogy. She currently works as the Associate Director of Policy for Maternity Care Coalition, advocating for the best policies and practices regarding maternal-child health and early learning.She believes the city is for everyone, especially for those who want to stay after bearing decades of disinvestment and devastation. Gabriella identifies as a problem-solver, an inquisitive thinker, and a creative person whose experiences and opinions are deeply rooted in her womanhood, motherhood, and Blackness.

Zoë Greggs is a queer, Black, disabled Philadelphia-based artist and nonprofit administrator who serves as the Community Outreach Coordinator at Maternity Care Coalition. Greggs is also the Curatorial Assistant for Designing Motherhood, where she brings her expertise of community engagement, project management, and art history. Through her passion for Black feminism, critical race theory, and systems change, she strives to create processes and joyful relationships that uproot systemic harm and shift mainstream narratives about our shared history and trajectory.