"The motherhood aesthetic"
May 27, 2025 | Two years, four months
In January 2023, in Portugal, at age 42, I became a mother to my son, Sunny Jay. After only 5 hours of unmedicated natural labor, he arrived sunny side up and I became one with the inner designs of our universe.
When you become a mother, there is a hard line: life before and life after. You don’t go backwards, only forwards, one step at a time.
My vision of motherhood is far from my current reality. Growing up in the Southern United States, I dreamt of being a polished trad-wife, June Cleaver-esque: two or three kids with one on the way, not a hair out of place, a loving husband kissing me goodbye each morning as he leaves for work to win the bread. I tend to our social affairs, decorate our household, host dinner parties with exquisite table scapes, manage my personal creative pursuits and all of our lives, effortlessly.
I’m writing this from Costa Rica, where Sunny and I spend most of the year. We live in a house the size of a shoebox with no address in designated farmland - our neighbors are actual cows, planing most of our days by the tides. I’m drinking coffee in the rocking chair on the patio; it’s 5:30 A.M. We watch the colibrí enjoy the deep purple flowers of a butterfly bush that’s grown up half the height of our little casita. Sunny is in his helpful phase, naked, watering the plants as the morning sun rises over the jungle’s edge and chasing butterflies. There is not another soul in ear's distance.
A deep stillness permeates. Cicadas pulse at various decibels, leaves of the banana palms rustle, birds, howler monkeys, and wind chimes take part in the soundscape. The phone does not ring, ever. I’m frequently found in the kitchen wearing my grandmother’s teal and paisley ruffled half-apron, cooking most of our meals from scratch, just for the two of us. I am barefoot, hair salt filled, often unbrushed, kissed by the sun in desperate need of a haircut, for time for a haircut. Somehow, even with the immense pressure to provide and be a little human’s everything, I am content. I’ve been completely rewired to watch every single hair on his head grow with a kindred fascination for life.
When I feel any amount pressure to rise, I seem to fall right back down a birth portal hole into the daily natural rhythms of my son. I am returning, the last bit of honey slow to pour, waiting patiently for little more drops of this sweetness. I wish my life could fade entirely into his, ours, what’s with all this rushing and achieving, instead of sheer presence and permission to be alive?
I got my first camera at seventeen and went on to earn a degree in the field. I have worked professionally over the last twenty years as a commercial lifestyle and portrait photographer alongside a marketing career. Seven years ago, I packed up and moved from Brooklyn to Costa Rica and Portugal to find a more value aligned existence, give space for my creativity to breathe and finally come alive. I unlearned everything I thought I knew and found myself. My photography finally sustained my life. My creativity flowed once it finally had permission.
I am curious how to continue to thrive as an artist now a mother on my own. Found myself pitching children’s brands to partner as a photographer-mom-creator. Then here, to have a hub for the creative rituals Sunny and I find such deep joy and presence while doing together. Perhaps minimal, natural mom hacks I’m learning as I go, listening to nature and nurture first. Anyway, an partner application asked me to,
“Please describe and attach samples of your motherhood aesthetic.”
I snort-laughed. They might gag at my life. An un-curated, un-instagrammed, sleepless, soul-sourcing, beautiful hot mess of solo motherhood. I took a moment to quiet a negative inner dialogue of comparison and shame, berating me as if I’ve failed for not already being a successful beige beach mom-blogger. But over the next few days, this question kept hitting me in the heart. I haven’t fully curated the storybook life I imagined.
There is no loving, providing husband, father, or co-parent in our constellation yet. There is no social life, no hosting of gatherings in a big, beautiful home, no home art studio to disappear within for hours, no date nights, no six-figure income, I have yet to “bounce back” - though I appreciate how my body and soul are softer, supple, forgiving, and more understanding now.
People always say, “I don’t know how you do it alone!” I reply with, “I’m really good at it.”
I find mothering so natural, I never once doubted myself, and with the right resources, I would do it ten times over. Don’t get me wrong, there are difficult times, in postpartum I was devastatingly, life altering tired. Surviving the hormonal ride in general, followed by toddler parenting, being the sole provider and raising a child alone — are all their own special sauce. I constantly remind myself that I’m evolving, learning, and growing, taking it a day at a time, but underneath it all, really good at this, even if it looks far different than I imagined.
It’s comforting to know that I’m not alone in this labyrinth of motherhood and self-discovery. I grieved the loss of the woman I thought I’d be and forgave myself for the perceived failures. It’s crystal clear who I am and what I’m capable of.
Motherhood is an awakening, not an aesthetic unless it’s authentic, capturing life as it is: as a beautiful becoming. My motherhood aesthetic is arriving real, honest, and yes, well-photographed - just like the life of the woman I was before .. and then some.
Motherhood, revised. Here we go.
P.S. If you want to check out my photography, visit jennaduffy.com and nosaraphotography.co + the instagram.