The Mother Load: Owning Motherhood and Offloading Burden

the mother load: OWNING MOTHERHOOD AND OFFLOADING BURDEN

A THESIS BY CARLY SIMMONS

The Mother Load: OWNING MOTHERHOOD & OFFLOADING BURDEN

Carly Simmons MFA Products of Design at School of Visual Arts Thesis Book

“To walk away, you have to leave something behind.� -Hedwig and the Angry Inch

The Mother Lode: Owning Motherhood and Ofloading Burden Copyright, 2019 Carly Simmons All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, noted in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing from the author. All images property of Carly Simmons unless otherwise noted. To see more visit www.carly-simmons.com For inquiries, contact carlyjsimmons@gmail.com School of Visual Arts MFA Products of Design 136 West 21st Street New York, NY 10011-3213 www.productsofdesign.sva.edu

Carly Simmons Author

Allan Chochinov Andrew Schloss Thesis I Advisor

Jennifer Rittner Thesis II Advisor

Samantha Grindell Editor

Table of Contents Preface

6

Taxonomy

8

Introduction

10

Thesis Statement Audience Literature Review Methods

Pre-Pregnancy/Early Pregnancy 32 BabyTalk Experience Design

Pregnancy

54

Kindred UX Design & Design Research Velli Industrial Design

Early Motherhood

88

Overt Industrial Design Hiatus Product & Service Design

Conclusion

118

Acknowledgements

120

Bibliography

122

Preface

My mom and I with my second cousin, 8 days old.

My tenth grade psychology teacher had a habit of illing dead air with spontaneous talking points. One morning in particular, he asked everyone to tell the class something about ourselves our classmates didn’t know. When the snake of answers lung its way to me, I said, “I don’t want to be a mom.” My comment visibly startled him, little to my surprise. I was “I don’t want always a student who gave him a irm handshake before class started each day (something he insisted on with every student), and sat still, smiled, and nodded at everything he said. I don’t quite remember how my classmates reacted, but I suppose that’s the consequence of picking a seat in the front row. But my teacher’s response was clear: “why not?”

to be a mom.”

This wasn’t a tough question for me to answer, and I shared a list of reasons which included my selish tendencies and how enjoyed spending any free time I had with myself. He told me, “Well, I think you’d be a great mother,” he told me, his face showing assurance that my personality would not hinder my skill as a mother. Since then, I’ve received the same hypothetical compliment more times than I can count. In all honesty, the sentiment is completely lost on me. For me, the difference between becoming a mother and not is the same as choosing between complete discovery of myself and solitary coninement. I realize the harshness of this comparison, but I feel as strongly about not wanting to be a mom as mothers do about loving their children. Although I do “Well, I think you’d appreciate the intended kindness a great mother.” behind the compliments, I could not be more sure of my stance. Instead of telling those of us choosing a childless lifestyle that we could make great moms someday, tell an actual mom she’s already doing a great job at the mom thing. If we can all agree to do this, mothers can begin to receive credit where credit is due.

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be

Taxonomy

New Mother

Support

When I use the phrase “new mother” throughout this thesis, I am referring to mothers who are irst-time mothers with a child and experience the postpartum phase of early motherhood. For the purposes of this research and the users I spoke to during this process, I include mothers with a irst child under the age of three. The length of postpartum varies between cultures, and can be considered to last as short a couple weeks, or as long as few months. I decided to extend this period based on user research, as many new mothers I spoke with expressed feeling physical and emotional effects of birth after a number of months as a mother.

This thesis comments of the current state of maternal support and the options new mothers have for learning and receiving afirmation. Whether a resource of support takes the form of a doctor, a book, or a product, their primary functions, to teach or instruct, counterintuitively increase the amount of work in a new mother’s life and add societal pressure to achieve more maternal tasks. Through the set of work proposed in this book, I aim to build connections of support that relieve new mothers of burden they are already coping with. The term “support” in this text speaks to creating stronger relationships between moms and their families, friends, neighbors, and strangers to decrease feelings of isolation, increase investment in moms, and take on child-rearing responsibilities.

Burden There is no clear deinition of “burden” because the concept varies between individuals. For the purpose of this book, burden refers to any emotional or physical struggle a new mom faces during early motherhood. For example, any stress as a direct result of feeling like expectations on new moms are too high, not being able to participate in an event because of childcare, or feeling like they just need to nap for 20 minutes.

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Introduction

With this thesis, I aim to liberate women from the burdens of motherhood by using design to inluence individuals in a mother’s social network to own a portion of the emotional and physical strains caused by being a mom.

Thesis Statement In 2019, women still have to ight to demand fair wages, rights to comprehensive reproductive health, and the decency to just be heard. One right we never had to ight for is being considered the primary caretaker of our children. Men have never been assumed to be primary caretakers, and despite an estimated 214,000 stay-athome dads in the year 2011, the majority of society and women refrain from asking, how could we give the responsibility and burden to someone else?1 Motherhood is perceived as a right, and one that should be protected. However, one could argue holding onto this gendered right restricts moms from maintaining identities outside their mom identity and creates ways for partners, employers, and strangers to treat women differently than if they do not have children. Motherhood is not interrogated by women the same way we question shortcomings, like the right to vote. However, our complete ownership of motherhood is something we have refused to question. Motherhood has given women a place to be proud, but also has held women back from occupying other placed where they could thrive (and in many cases) while being mothers. With this thesis, I aim to liberate women from the burdens of motherhood by using design to inluence individuals in a mother’s social network to own a portion of the emotional and physical strains caused by being a mom. Furthermore, this thesis asks, how can expanding social networks as distant as complete strangers decrease the burden of early motherhood. Is it possible to redistribute the ultimate responsibilities of raising a child and move from a, “great burden for one” model to “small burden for all”?

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Redeining “Support” At the start of this thesis, I set out to develop a series of products and services for new mothers that better connected them with resources they need to make them feel more prepared postpartum. Over the course of my research, dozens of mothers expressed their isolation directly after birth and felt alone in igure everything out themselves about how to parent, despite being a irst-time parent. Similarly, their partners were even less prepared for the arrival of their child. In this book, I designed under a redeined meaning of “support”. I hope for a future where individuals in a mother’s social circle will not only afirm them in their ability to succeed as mothers, but where loved ones, acquaintances, and strangers spend time and energy assisting with tasks necessary to succeed as a mother. Emotional support is crucial for a mom’s mental health, and I believe we can help cultivate positive emotional health for mothers by claiming a piece of motherhood of our own, across a webbed network of people. If moms could worry less about illing societal expectations of motherhood, we could increase the odds that these unrealistic expectations be challenged. If moms can expect more from others because their network collaborates in childcare, driving them to appointments, and assist with other burdensome acts, we can liberate mothers from the heaviest, most important, but undervalued job in the world -- being a mother.

The Village Has Migrated For modern-day mothers, child rearing is done by an intimate group of adults. In most cases, a mother plays the role of primary caretaker in a family, with a partner/spouse taking second place. If she’s lucky, a mother’s family lives within driving distance, but in 2019, proximity to extended family members is becoming increasingly less common. Young women are moving to metropolitan areas in pursuit of careers; they settle far from their families, sometimes stationing themselves on the other side of the country. After a few years, when they have settled with a partner/

spouse and have children, these new mothers realize their families are too far away to help with childcare and emotional support, and they are very much alone in navigating their new identity. For some women, social media has successfully funneled advice that ordinarily would be sourced by their intimate support network. Its endless source of content is problematic because Facebook, Instagram, and Mommy Blogs can take on the dangerous disguises as doctors, psychologists, therapists, and parenting coaches. In some ways, social media makes inding the top ten foods for breastfeeding with #breastfeedingtips, some posts can create friction between mothers, exacerbating pressure and intensifying anxiety. Social media is a mirage of a village that cannot hold up to the positive effects of real, living people. If mothers are willing to seek advice from strangers on the internet, why couldn’t they consider getting advice and support from strangers in real life?

The “Old” and “New” Village Using design as my medium, I challenge mothers to distribute their maternal labor across many rather than few, including strangers. Families have changed, but the concept of “the village” has stagnated. The village, said to be needed to raise a child is gone, because its people do not live and stay together like they have in the past. In the modern-day familial structure, family members move away from their families and start their own families away from one another. I see a great opportunity to reinvent the village to catch up with modern-day motherhood, just as the way family’s settling has changed. We can no longer allow mothers to approach motherhood head-on in isolation, carrying all of the burden themselves. If we want mothers to be healthy and fulilled, we must call on others to own some of the responsibilities of motherhood. And perhaps meaningful relationships could be cultivated in the process.

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Audience

The suite of interventions I propose are created for people in a mother’s life, loved-one to stranger. Assembling a team who can assist mothers in the early days of postpartum life is crucial for liberation. My designs exist to expand the deinition our deinition of motherhood - to connect moms to someone in their social network so they can relieve moms from the burdens of motherhood.

I must acknowledge that this work is based on the personal anecdotes of a fairly homogenous group of women and new mothers, with very few outliers, who are mostly white, straight, and from a middle to upper class economic status. While I did interview a handful of women who deviate from the bulk of this group, their experiences in early motherhood were more or less the same as the larger group. My ability to access women was limited irst to my hometown, where the majority of the population is white and from the middle class. Women from this area connected me to their networks, where women did not depart from this demographic. As I continued to connect with other new moms through my original network, my user base grew geographically, but not in socio-economic diversity. Positive research opportunities within New York City allowed me to co-create with my core user, moms living in large metropolitan areas to gain insights about how the city impacts their experience of motherhood. Further research and inancial opportunities should focus on subgroups of mothers to examine implications of race and inancial status, but my research provides a starting point for uncovering the ways moms are impacted by urban environments. Throughout my work, I address some key partnerships between mothers, including their relationships with partners, other moms, close friends and family, surrogates, colleagues, and strangers. My work doesn’t not place a limit on who can participate in alliances with mothers, but gives a comprehensive proposal on how any non-mother can service a mom. I imagine different partnerships will provide mothers with varying degrees of help based on intimacy. I view all these users on a spectrum, where a mother’s partner lives on one end, and strangers live on the opposite end. Following this course of logic, my design solutions begin with interactions between mothers and their partners, the most intimate person in their life, and ends with interactions between mothers and strangers, the most foreign relationship. For example, a close friend may be willing to care for an infant once a week for a few hours, while a touchpoint with a traditional caretaker may only occur six times a year (or every two months). Nonetheless, at every relational degree, an opportunity for an alliance exists. Allowing and accepting relationships outside one’s irst degree of trust utilizes one’s network to its full potential.

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Literature Review

A compilation of maternal theory, feminism, and ictional text on the topic of motherhood.

The New Momism Susan J. Douglass and Meredith Michaels, in their book The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How it Undermines Women, describe “New Momism” as the United States’ primary catalyst of pressure and unrealistic expectations for mothers. From their perspective, political and media forces are responsible for delivering an ultimatum between womanhood and motherhood. “No woman is truly complete or fulilled unless she has kids, that women remain the best primary caretakers of children, and that to be a remotely decent mother, a woman has to devote her entire physical, psychological, emotional, and intellectual being, 24/7, to her children,”2 they wrote at the start of the millennium.

Douglass and Michaels

Throughout the book, describe “New Momism” as a Douglass and Michaels take their readers through political and media force that time, beginning in the creates an ultimatum between 1970’s, and explain how womanhood and motherhood, policy and media had great inluence over a and that choosing motherhood woman’s choice to work is always the right answer in or stay at home, and society’s eyes. how that personal choice connected them with some mothers and pitted them against others. Policy and technology has certainly changed since 2004, but the New Momism is more alive than ever. In some ways, technology has eased a mother’s transitions back into the workforce. Electric breast pumps are portable and make pumping breastmilk more eficient, but at the same time, accompanied mobile apps help moms document feeding schedules, but do so in ways that can could moms paranoid about their ability to “perform”. Data visualization documents how much baby is eating and length of feedings, but can be disturbing for a mom who maybe missed a session, or whose baby latches for short periods of time. Dare I ask where this data may be sold, and how it’s being used to sell more product that makes moms more stressed? If we follow the New Momism up to the modern day, we see a number of examples where the ease of technology and social media both inform and create more expectations for what a mother shouldbe able to achieve within a 24-hour day.

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Reformist vs. Revolutionary Approaches In bell hooks’ Feminism Is For Everybody, she explains two routes of feminism: reformist feminism and revolutionary feminism. In this context, the difference between the two modes of thinking is clear. A reformist approach towards feminism prioritizes gender equality as a metric for success, while a revolutionary approach seeks to dismantle patriarchal systems that create sexism in the irst place.3 When using her comparison as a lens to look at how A reformist approach towards design has aimed to feminism prioritizes gender assist mothers in the equality as a metric for success, past, it becomes clear that many prominent while a revolutionary approach mobile applications like seeks to dismantle patriarchal Cozi, a family managsystems that create sexism in ement and task tool, do not actually help liberate the irst place. mothers from any responsibility — the responsibilities are only organized into a pretty list, reminding mothers how much is expected of them. Similarly, breast pumps that come with their own apps allow mothers to track their baby’s growth and feeding cycles but cansimultaneously discourage new mothers from feeling adequate if their baby is not eating the standardized amount of milk determined by the app. These two examples help brands line mothers up to a homogenous bar that does not relect most mothers. Current design for motherhood compares mothers to one another, which adds pressure and competition among women. I am with bell hooks and her proposal for a revolutionary approach to feminism, and in this case, a revolutionary approach to motherhood through design. Design that rids mother of pressures to perform and compete with one another are methods that will liberate women from the burdens of motherhood.

Privileges in White Motherhood Feminism mucks with motherhood because women’s fear of losing something classiied as “theirs” gets in the way of achieving the equity they may actually want. Looking at

feminism in terms of winning and losing does not move the treatment of women any further forward. In their essay “revolutionary parenting,” hooks says, “Even feminist theorists who have emphasized the need for men to share equally in childrearing are reluctant to cease attaching special value to mothering. This illustrates feminists’ willingness to glorify the physiological experience of motherhood as well as unwillingness to concede motherhood as an arena of social life in which women can exert power and control.” hooks identiies a clear dichotomy in motherhood that keeps women from exploring their potential. Groups of mothers who do feel afirmed and appreciated in that role do not see motherhood as an obstacle to liberation. According to hooks, ”Had black women voiced their views on motherhood, it would not have been named a serious obstacle to our freedom as women,”4 because employment, education, and racism surpass motherhood as primary obstacles to liberation. Although white women of privilege have spearheaded the ultimate pursuit of freedom from motherhood, I would argue that less maternal responsibility for black mothers will lead to an increase in employment educational opportunities, because less time mothering means more time can be spent on furthering oneself and one’s dreams. Patricia Hill Collins also pushes back on white, middle-class women’s theory on motherhood for similar reasons. Like hooks, differences in prioritizing struggles is huge for Collins. As she explains, labeling motherhood as the next big hurdle to jump is easier for white women because they as a subgroup of moms have more privilege. She summarizes her point in two parts: “The irst is that a relative degree of economic security exists for mothers and their children. The second is that all women enjoy the racial privilege that allows them to see themselves primarily as individuals in search of personal autonomy, instead of members of racial ethnic groups struggling for power.”5

Ownership of Motherhood Motherhood is the one thing all women have in common. Yes, race, education, and socioeconomic status have divided women among the sphere of feminism, but despite these attributes that are tangled in messy systems of prejudice

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and patriarchy, all women can agree that as mothers, they want and will do whatever is best for their child. As a fundamental similarity between women, who’s to say leveraging motherhood cannot lead to the freedoms we all desire and deserve? My intentions here are to show how letting go of responsibility as a mother can help women make more strides toward gender equality. I do understand, however, that motherhood fulills many women, and redistributing labor could lead to less happiness for some. In these cases, giving up parts of motherhood would cause more damage that beneit, in which case, my proposal would be ineffective. I do, however, encourage mothers to contemplate the ways motherhood may be oppressing them in their careers, in their relationships, and their identities no matter how fulilled they may feel. To make the progress women aim for, motherhood needs dilution.

The Value of Mothers Ann Crittenden writes in her 2001 book, The Price of Motherhood, “two thirds of all wealth is created by human skill, creativity, and enterprise —what is known as ‘human capital.’”6 She goes on to express that despite this statistic recognized by distinguished economists, a mother’s work rearing children goes in large part unnoticed. Through her own accounts of motherhood and those of friends, she argues, “if human abilities are the ultimate fount of economic progress, as many economists now agree, and if those abilities are nurtured (or stunted) in the early years, then mother and other caregivers of the young are the most important producers in the economy. They do have, literally, the most important job in the world.”7 In this book, Crittenden shares one shocking statistic about a mother's worth. She quotes Ric Edelman, founder of Edelman Financial Services, who expresses, “No one's crazy enough to work for free but moms,” who estimated a mother’s worth at $508,700 per year by adding up median salaries of seventeen different occupations mothers are expected to perform including, cook, cleaner, psychologist, accountant, and many more. Although an unrealistic number, Crittenden says the job of being a mother could easily earn them $100,000 annually.8

An ideal version of motherhood, where moms and the public and burden is distributed.

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Methods

Literature To understand motherhood, I needed to understand the foundations of feminism. Feminism in the 20th century shows us success was measured by the number of gains for women, in which our earliest metrics include the right to vote and rights to birth control. Intertwined in our strides are implications of race, culture, and economic status, making womanhood different for each of us. As expected, freedom looks different for white women than women of color. White women have had a more privileged experience of feminism, where they could stand linked to men, and white men speciically. They have had more opportunity to pursue university and strip themselves from traditional womanly duties, like keeping a home. For white feminists, freedom from motherhood has been an obvious next step. Black women, on the other hand, do not recognize responsibilities of motherhood in the same way as white women. For example, they are still working toward equity in employment, so they do not have the privilege of examining the impacts of having children on their freedom Maternal theory inluences this thesis by clearly deining my target user group as mothers who acknowledge motherhood as a source of stress.

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Figure 1. An NYC Mommas Give Back volunteer, unloading baby products from a truck illed with donations.

Volunteering As a childless individual, I encountered many obstacles during the research portion of the thesis. My discomfort with speaking to mothers and asking them to share their lives with me felt rude at irst. I was surprised (and honored) by how intimately new mothers spoke to me about their transition into early motherhood. I volunteered at NYC Mommas Give Back, an organization dedicated to organizing donations for maternal equipment and baby supplies, like formula, diapers, and clothes to low income mothers in New York City. One striking aspect of my conversations with new mothers is that they thanked me for exploring motherhood as a thesis topic. Their gratitude proved that there is a general lack of platforms that allow mothers to speak and be heard. In one way or another, my most valuable strength as a design researcher was not being a mother, as I was able to give them a space to speak. I am forever thankful for the women who felt safe with me. I could not make this work had they not been honest with me about their miseries and obstacles.

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Mining the Mother Lode at Babies Project, November 2018. I hosted a co-creation workshop with moms in NYC to learn about their experiences postpartum.

User Research & Co-Creation My access to mothers began in my hometown of Canandaigua, NY. In my network at home, I knew a few new mothers I could interview, and from there, I asked them to connect me with other mothers. From those phone calls, my mom network expanded to new mothers who were college friends of those initial mothers, and I started to gain connections to mothers in larger cities like Boston and Philadelphia. In addition, classmates introduced me to their friends who are new mothers, giving me a geographically diverse pool of users in New England. Across the entire duration of the thesis, I interfaced with dozens of mothers, most ofthem new mothers. Each have contributed to outputs I’ve produced, and each have contributed a different lens. In the context of my work, location, age of children, and occupation have been clear deiners of motherhood. Variations in theses factors change the ways mothers work, hire caretakers, and ind support. Based on the mothers I worked with in New York City, moms in major metropolitan areas seemed to be a clear user because their geographic location deines systems of support, and many times they live far distances from their core network. Designing with users is a crucial approach to user-centered design. Arguably more important than interviews, involving users into the design process grounds ideas and grounds perceptions of reality. For this reason, I gathered mothers living in Brooklyn together so they could show me how motherhood works in the city. In this session, they challenged my assumptions and what I thought they needed. They helped me understand personal obstacles to moments of freedom and taught me the ways sign sessions surfaced as foundational principles for the body of work I share in this book.

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Experts/Mothers Whom I Interviewed

Kristy Zadrozny

Meghan Nichols

Noelle Ferragonio

Sara Sahagian

Founder & Director Expecting(nyc)

Mother

Mother

Ph.D. Candidate York University

Carly Roberts

Martha Lewitt

Mychelle Wade

Dr. Vivian Greenberg

Mother

Mother

Mother

OBGYN Mother

Sandi Simmons

RenĂŠe Pizzuto

Katie Dormans

Amanda Behr

Mother

Doula Mother

Future Mother

Mother

Highlights of the women and mother I interviewed throughout the thesis.

Sylvia Martin

Alyce Chan

Jaime Jin Lewis

Natalie Gruppuso

Maternal Nurse Richmond Hospital, BC Mother

Comedian Mother

Co Founder & CEO Wiggle Room

Program Manager NYC Mommas Give Back Mother

Chief Development Oficer NYC Mommas Give Back Mother

Amy Sullivan

Sunnie Abou Bakar

Jessica Rich

Rachel Abrams

Author of African Boheme, Motherhood Gone Global Mother

LCSW Owner of The Great Room, BK Mother

Associate Principal, ARUP

Teresa Tuan

Kahla Skonberg

Allison Hayes Conroy

Alanna Phelan

Assistant Professor, Pediatrics UCSF

Postpartum Doula Mother

Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, Geography & Urban Studies Mother

Mother

Jaclyn Napier

Jessica Hayes Conroy

Erica Lawrence Doula Mother

Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist Professor of Women’s Studies, Mother Hobart & William Smith Mother

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Kelly Smith RN, OB Manager Mother

A irst prototype for Overt, a breastfeeding shirt for mothers in the workplace.

Prototyping Designers can talk all day, and many days, we do. Making artifacts changes the discussion. Prototypes provide visual languages that help facilitate action to make our sense of concepts more real. They can be used as demonstrative props and tools to help designers pinpoint successes within their concepts and where things do not work effectively. Making artifacts also facilitates dialogue. These designs probably will not exist in the world and see use by people, but they let us imagine a world where they could exist. Also known a provotypes, because they provoke, invite criticism and commentary on critical issues in society, and offer either humor or seriousness. I like to believe this thesis offers both. All the products shown in this book are somewhat speculative because they do not exist on the market. Despite this, each product, service, and experience has the potential to take on the life of a consumer good in the near future. I believe that they blend elements of today and tomorrow, and perhaps if mothers and their networks can relate to the elements of today, they can make through the long haul to liberate mothers.

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Pre-Pregnancy

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BabyTalk, The Great Room, Brooklyn, Setup before the game started.

BabyTalk Experience Design

BabyTalk is a game for couples who plan to have children in the future. The exercise mimics a game of basketball, where players are prompted with questions about the upsides and downsides of their relationship. Using play as a catalyst for extraversion and distraction, BabyTalk aims to create a safe and casual space for couples to discuss dificult aspects of their relationships.

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Context In over two dozen interviews with “My partner doesn’t do his part mothers, a number of them expressed in researching precautions we unbalanced stress compared to their partners in regards to caring for their should take when it comes to child(ren). Stress manifested in different our son, because inding all the ways for different couples, but left negative things that can happen mothers feeling blame for seeking incorrect advice or not making time to stresses him out. We’ve had many seek out parenting advice at all. For talks about this, where I’ve said, example, one mother of just over two let’s stress about this together.” years expressed, “My partner doesn’t -Mother of 1 do his part in researchingprecautions we should take when it comes to our son, because inding all the negative things that can happen stresses him out. We’ve had many talks about this, where I’ve said, let’s stress about this together. I have to reassure him that our parents raised us with much less information.” When I asked a new mother of nine months about the divide of labor between her and her partner she said, “Women hold the mental and emotional burden of everything.

Problem Statements

1

Traditionally, mothers take on most child rearing responsibilities, while partners take on other tasks like providing household incomes for families. There is rarely an equal divide of tasks between two parents.

2

High expectations for women to commit their whole selves to motherhood leaves little room for “failure,” which includes asking for help when motherhood becomes too overwhelming.

3

There is a general lack of preparedness for becoming a parent, including how different people plan to approach parenting. Starting discussions about parenting skills, efforts, and values during early parenthood is too late.

Outcome The outcome of the personalized experience was positive. The exercise heavily depended on player participation, of which all were answered. Each answer to the questions were used to ill a relationship themed Mad Lib, which were read aloud after the game inished. This method of documentation was successful because its mood contrasted with the emotional nature of the questions.

Participants: John & Kristin Length of Relationship: 2 years Exercise Duration: 20 min

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Referee writes completes a Mad Lib based on participant answers.

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Participants show off their Relationship Mad Lib, illed based on answers given in the game.

Overview BabyTalk’s creates an experience for partners who may become parents together to voice personal struggles they could face in early parenthood. Certainly, parents can learn how to prevent catastrophes from harming their child and couples therapy can help partners cope with new stresses and ways to work with one another, but ultimately, expressing concerns and initiating conversation around uncomfortable topics, vulnerabilities, and resentment will remain a tough ask. The purpose of BabyTalk’s game component is to create a positive connection between myself asking a dificult question and them answering the dificult question through the act of play. I’ve said, let’s stress about this together. I have to reassure him that our parents raised us with much less information.” When I asked a new mother of nine months about the divide of labor between her and her partner she said, “Women hold the mental and emotional burden of everything.

The Gottman Method For nearly two and a half decades, Drs. John and Julie Gottman led the Gottman Institute. Created in the mid1990’s, the Gottman Institute is founded on forty years of research on couples, marriage stability, and divorce. Interventions of the Gottman Method are designed to help couples strengthen their relationships in three primary areas: friendship, conlict management, and creation of shared meaning. Couples learn to replace negative conlict patterns with positive interactions to repair past hurts. Interventions designed to increase closeness and intimacy are used to improve friendship, deepen emotional connection, and create changes which enhance the couples shared goals.9

Figure 2: The Gottman Method, conlict resolution framework created by Drs John and Julie Gottman.

Studies completed with parents show that conlict decreased when couples stopped speaking and read magazines for 20 minutes while their heart rates returned to baseline. When conversation resumed, they had more access to their own sense of humor and affection.10 “Much of today’s popular advice to parents ignores emotion,” says Dr. John Gottman. “Instead it relies on child-rearing theories that address children’s misbehavior, but disregards the feelings that underlie that misbehavior. The ultimate goal of raising children should not be simply to have an obedient and compliant child. Most parents hope for much more for their children.”11 While Dr. Gottman shows us the importance of the emotional relationship between parents and their children, he also understands the importance of fostering safe emotional connections between parents themselves, and that strong ties and shared goals between parents are at the core of more productive emotional relationships with their children.

Mood board, an exploration of material, concept, and form.

BabyTalk imitates Gottman’s tactic by replacing magazine reading with play as a way to break the ice about dificult conversations to increase a couple’s likelihood of continuing the discussion after the experience. Instead of functioning as therapy, BabyTalk uses play to make discussion more accessible. Therapy-like questions are sandwiched throughout a game to create a casual atmosphere of teamwork and distraction from heavy emotional topics.

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Mood Exploration Combining materials for this mood board required intention. Rather than ixing the components beside one another, I explored how they worked together. For example, a two-dimensional black netted-knit fabric contrasted well with three-dimensional phone cord, but when woven together, spoke much more to complexity, rather than contrast. As I imagined the dificulty my participants may face when opening their gates to some heavy and perhaps dark conversational spaces, I used that headspace to create motifs through material, texture, and color. Vibrant funnels and balloons combined to create more literal interpretations of a woman’s igure; in this case, their fusion resembled breasts and perhaps a method for expelling breastmilk. Through material exploration, bringing levity to an otherwise serious conversation seemed possible and practical. Feedback from designers directed me to explore carnivals and carnival games as typologies for my research questions. Moving forward with this concept, I developed a series of example games I could perform with parents. Using the language of classic carnival games such as the high striker, a water race, and a ring toss, infant products would replace primary components of those games. In the example of a ring toss, the “parents edition” would use baby bottles versus the iconic soda/beer bottle featured at carnivals and amusement parks. In terms of establishing fundamental principles for the exercise, levity and safety, I recognized one aspect of carnival games that departed from my mission: competition. When teased out a bit more, the realization that carnival games are designed for players to “win” and in many cases compete against each other, the typology didn’t seem to it anymore. If I wanted parents to communicate with one another, I needed them to work as a team to build incentive for completing the exercise, not divide their motives and increase competitiveness. While brainstorming again, I identiied one classic carnival game that could facilitate teamwork, the basketball freethrow challenge. Removing the game from its original carnival context, I created a two-person version of the game. BabyTalk diverts from standard methods of shooting freethrows by requiring players to each wear

a basketball hoop and shoot baskets at each other and replaces standard basketballs with ones constructed from diapers. The sheer ridiculousness of wearing a stretchy poncho-like hoop and throwing diapers across a room to your partner breaks the ice for increasingly intimate questions concerning parenting strengths and weaknesses, as well as conidences and vulnerabilities.

Placemaking

A participant prepares to play.

When searching for a location to host BabyTalk, many variables required careful consideration, including geography, time of day, and inancial barriers, as well as less obvious concerns related to whether or not the space was comfortable and familiar to parents and acceptablefor young children to occupy with supervision. After speaking to a friend and parent, he clearly communicated his hesitation to share personal information in a public space. However, he did express much more willingness to participate in the event if he received an invitation. When a spaced called The Great Room was recommended to me by a new mother herself, the community center for parents in Brooklyn, NY, became the obvious choice.

Construction The basketball hoop required the most care to build.

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A plan drawing of The Great Room and how BabyTalk would use the space.

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(Opposite) First scale model for a wearable basketball hoop. (Inset) Fabric pattern. (Below) Process images, progression of form. Game rules/instructions for playing BabyTalk.

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Moving quickly with the right materials was crucial to improving a series of prototypes. A simple foam core prototype helped deine the action of tossing basketballs. Testing at low idelity allowed me to assess an appropriate size for the hoop, a basketball equivalent, and comfort of wearing the hoop. This irst prototype used suspenders as the method for wearing the hoop, but straps easily slipped off the shoulders of wearers. Furthermore, scoring baskets proved to be quite easy, which was problematic. A challenge would be necessary to keep motivations high. Considering both of these problems, the form took on that of a poncho, allowing the hoop to be worn by the player and function as a bouncy backboard for diaper balls hurled their way.

Arrival A basketball-like court greeted participants upon arrival. Two basketball hoop apparatuses laid on the loor, facing one another in the form of a face-off with three diaper basketballs in a line between the hoops. I welcomed the players and briefed them on the game rules, listed below.

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Game Rules 1.Gear up both partners in their hoops 2. Players have two free throws to sink a basket and will receive one point for each basket scored. 3. After 2 shots are taken, players are prompted with a question about parenthood. 4. Referees use each player’s answers to ill in the blanks into a partly constructed Mad Lib. 5. After each round, players take one large step away from each other and begin the next round of free throws. 6. When the Mad Lib is complete, referees call time and stop the game. They give players their personalized Mad Libs as a souvenir.

(Left) Mad Libs, created for three different use cases to be used between couples, parents, and between baby and mom. (Opposite) User journey and sample questions used throughout the game.

Participant Journey

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Conclusions When BabyTalk debuted, zero parents participated. Only a small number of identiiable parents walked by the space and my sandwich board advertisement, but they ultimately did not feel compelled to join us. Although individuals itting my intended audience could not participate, other individuals did engage in the experience. These participants are not parents, but they are partners who may anticipate children in their futures. With a few minor adjustments to the narrative and language to the questions posed, I was able to bring value to them as well.

General Insights The basketball game distracted players in a way that diffused tension and created a casual and silly mood around questions posed about a couple’s relationship. Both the hoop and the Mad Lib were motivators for participants to continue playing and answering questions. Sharing the takeaway element before the game started opened the door to curiosity and inluencing the Mad Lib.

Insights from Couples Some but not all of their answers to the questions were related to one another. Instances when overlap happened sparked more dialogue between partners versus instances where answers diverged. Furthermore, depending on which partner spoke irst, their answer seemed to inluence the partners answer in regards to topic. For example, when asked about something they gave up when starting their relationship, both answers were related to diet. In their particular case, one partner gave up bread, while the other gave up dairy. As hoped, but not expected, partners gave more intimate answers later in the game versus the beginning.

(Opposite). Sample Mad Libs, versions for mom and baby, and between partners.

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Anticipating the course of questions could reveal intimate personal thoughts and feelings, I orchestrated the series of questions from most supericial to most intimate. Although it is tough to judge the perceptions of participants, each seemed to grow more comfortable as time passed.

Insights from Absence Parents The most important learnings throughout this experience came directly from the attendance issue. First, I conirmed that there is no great time for parents to push pause on parenthood. Parents’ lives are chocked full without much time to spare for anything else. Due to the level of dificulty in inding time for themselves, asking them to sacriice time for you is out of the question. For instance, the owner of the space didn’t even stay, as my renting the space meant she could go home and rest before picking up her daughter from school. Can you blame her?

Face off, a set of participants getting ready to start the game

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Pregnancy

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Campaign for Kindred, a dating app for pregnant women that makes matches based on due date

Kindred UX/UI Design Kindred is the app women use when they become pregnant to start building community early. Just like a dating app, matches individuals based potential for romance, Kindred matches women based on interests, location, and stage of pregnancy. Mothersto-be meet in person throughout their pregnancy to establish bonds that will carry their friendship through postpartum, where friendships between moms and non-moms struggle. Kindred helps you ind your mom tribe before you give birth and can’t leave the house for months.

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Find your Mom Tribe Kindred is just like a dating app, but for mothers-to-be looking for a proactive way to establish a network of women similar to them before giving birth. A ‘mom-tribe,’ as one participant called it, ‘is absolutely essential. Finding new-mom friends is like dating all over again.” Kindred fully embraces this concept and makes connecting and reaching out to women easy. Women can use the service throughout their pregnancy, and mothers can use the service in early motherhood. Preferences are catered to details that matter to moms like scheduling around nap time and being within a 1 mile radius.

Features Nap Time During my conversations with participants, one mom expressed how her children’s schedule dictates her schedule. For her, the only away she can make time to see her friends or get out of house is when her children are napping. As a direct effect, moms learn to coordinate plans around nap times to the point where she knows when her friends’ children sleep. Insights like this seemed so obvious once shared, but until I talked to mothers, I could never have guessed making plans to get coffee depends on these

circumstances. In a Kindred proile, mothers have the option to set their child’s nap time for other women on the app to “see” their availability.

(Opposite) Wireframes for new moms using the app, where moms can plan around their child’s nap times and tighten their match radius. (Below) UX journey prototypes with sticky notes.

Distance When women become mothers, their bodies are in complete distress. In some cases, new mothers are forced to bedrest and have dificulty walking even six weeks into motherhood. Kindred matches individuals who are less than a mile away because of the physical toll motherhood takes on their bodies. Additionally, for new mothers living in cities, jumping on the subway with a 10 week old infant is highly unlikely —there’s no way you’d risk the germs. Although a one-mile area does not seem like a fruitful way to connect mothers, keeping the radius small focuses on strengthening community, as nearly all women and mothers will be able to ind others like them in their neighborhoods. Is there a feature for widening it if you want?

Experience Rather than asking mothers their age, they are able to select their experience level in motherhood. The age of their child(ren) represents the experience they have.

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Alyce & Maria Alyce and Maria met through Kindred because their due dates were within one month of eachother. In the months leading to birth, Alyce and Maria were abe to meet and form a friendship based on their interest in painting. When Maria went into labor, they both knew they wouldn’t be able to paint together for a few months. Kindred kept them in contact through the start of Maria’s postpartum experience. She could set her mood through the app, and Alyce could connect with Maria when she saw her moods were set to “frustrated” or “panicked”. Alyce could start a video chat with Maria to give her emotional support, even though they couldn’t be in the same place.

Two-sided user journey with two women. Wireframes are to be read across the page. Red connection points represent signiicant points of connection between users.

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Participate shares her postpartum experienece, participant writes what she wish she was told before giving birth.

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Relating to one another plays a monumental factor in women and their new networks because having a child changes their relationships with everyone in their social circle. So, matching with other women who are in the same stages of pregnancy or motherhood will likely lead to stronger bonds because their journeys are likely similar.

Co-Design with New Mothers When completing a thesis in the domain of motherhood without being a mother yourself, one must call on mothers for help. Around the 10-week mark of my research process, substantial amounts of of secondary research had been completed to understand the landscape and history of motherhood along with about 25 phone interviews with new mothers, medical professionals, and doulas. Both methods of research are completely valid, but they are quite different than being in the same room, face-to-face, with the user. A co-creation workshop let users confront me about their realities. Because of my point of view as a childless woman, their willingness to share postpartum experiences was crucial to pushing my research and deining my scope.

I pin insights from participants during the workshop.

Intentions In the workshop, I aimed to create a space where new moms could participate in an open conversation about their postpartum experiences in effort to uncover whether or not they felt prepared for life with a baby and their methods in preparing for this unknown period. To guide the conversation, I asked them three questions:

1 2 3 Collateral cards that guided conversation.

What advice were you given before postpartum?

What did you wish you were told while experiencing postpartum?

What would you tell a new mom to prepare them for postpartum?

These prompts were broad enough to facilitate conversation around certain topics, but focused enough to point out speciic

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areas within their experiences where they felt under prepared. Our conversation ranged from coworkers telling moms-to-be they will never return to work after having a child, the hurdles one must jump when every relationship you have starts from zero again, and the importance of cultivating new friendships for support, which they agreed needs to happen before giving birth. In a inal prompt, they were asked to imagine how one person who gave them advice could act as a facilitator for helping new moms overcome obstacles in early motherhood. Their choices or combining speciic individuals in their network with particular actions helped me see new connections between resources.

Insights from the group about how they were prepared for postpartum

Insights One huge insight from the co-creation workshop was that new moms, in hindsight, wished they put more effort forward to make new friends before they gave birth — friends who would also become moms. They expressed dificulty in “ putting yourself out there” postpartum because their energy was low, their bodies were healing, and they didn’t often leave the house. Ironically, postpartum is the time in a women’s life where she needs more support than ever before. Consequently, new moms are forced to igure out their support system and establish a new one all while they are isolated.

The Digital Village As women continue to move into cities for work and other opportunities, they are left unsupported when they decide to start a family. In addition, for new families in large cities, it’s dificult to have foresight about the ways your relationships change once you have a child. Despite having built relationships in a new place, life after having a child changes your connection to your friends, especially when they do not have children. With family a great distance away, foundational support and trustworthy childcare is not an option. Kindred is designed to ill a social gap where family used to live. The village who used to raise a child vanished decades ago. The rise of social media has replaced a previous village made up of people and has made accessing information quick and easy. Facebook and Instagram lend themselves for sharing tips and tricks across geographic boundaries, but fail to create strong emotional support relationships between women. For the foreseeable future, social media will continue to function as a kind of village. But Kindred cultivates a separate village — one that is physical and one that can hold you while you cry.

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Figure 24. A user sits in Madison Square Park and holds Velli after a vibration.

Velli Product Design Velli is a wearable device for family and friends to experience special moments of pregnancy of a family member, close friend, like the baby’s irst kick. Velli requires two individual’s participation: one pregnant person and any other person in mom’s network. The pregnant individual wears a sensor patch on their belly, which tracks the fetus’s movements. When the baby kicks, the device sends a strong vibration to Velli, the device worn by a loved one.

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This haptic response opens a door for family and close friends to develop a greater sense of attachment with an unborn child by experiencing fetal changes in real-time. In effort to create stronger relationships between mothers-to-be and those who live great distances away, Velli presents an opportunity for family and friends to become more invested in pregnancies and, therefore, more invested in moms and children on their way.

Tools for Empathy vs Tools for Investment While allowing a non-pregnant person to experience characteristics of pregnancy has its value, Velli’s irst priority is not to simulate the act of being pregnant for a person who cannot relate. Products and experiences that augment the pain of contractions exist, but they do not create a positive experience around pregnancy when they leverage pain as a tool for empathy. While I agree there is a time and place for pregnant people to show their strength, in this particular case, men, who will not experience pregnancy in their lifetimes, using discomfort to involve non-mothers in conversations and support seems counterintuitive. Engaging non-mothers in painful ordeals carries the potential to create aversion to the act of delivery when labor begins, when mothers need encouragement to access their strongest selves.

First concept sketches inspired by cradles, lamps, and furniture.

Velli uses sensory activation to build personal connection and investment through its wearable design. There is no mobile app component to Velli, so users must engage with the object as long as they want to experience special moments like a irst kick. Users are going to be curious about each vibration, and they’ll need their pregnant family member or friend to uncover the mystery. Each data point sent to Velli encourages a moment of contact between a mother-to-be and the Velli user in their network. Experiencing moments of joy during a pregnancy builds anticipation throughout the journey of pregnancy before the arrival of a baby. Velli possesses the potential to cultivate bonds with mothers-to-be in their life, which lead to stronger relationships in early motherhood when new mothers need other adults to ease postpartum burdens.

Bloomlife: Contraction Monitoring The method of information transfer, between sensor and wearable device, is inspired by conventional technology used by Bloomlife, a contraction tracker for pregnancies typically worn throughout weeks 31-34 of gestation. Bloomlife is a two part product, where users attach a bandaid-like sensor patch on the side of their belly and

Figure 3.

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Bloomlife: Smart Pregnancy Tracker & Contraction Monitoring App

Velli in the home, held by a user.

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Velli in the home, being picked up from its charging cradle.

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Velli, resting in charging cradle.

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A Velli user shares a irst kick with another, they wait for more vibrations.

click a small Bloomlife counterpart into the sensor. When contractions occur, the sensor outputs data from fetal movement into a visual log for users. Through a mobile platform, contractions are timed in length, and time between contractions is documented to display frequency of contractions.12 This device eases anxieties around beginning labor for pregnant people because their experience and pain is objectively shared, leaving them feeling more prepared for labor. One tremendous consequences of this device is the amount of premature hospital visits it prevents. Bloomlife empowers pregnant people with knowledge of their individual body function and removes some of the guess work associated with the anticipation of labor.

A Speculative Future: Velli & Surrogacy In an imaginary distopian future,where fertility rates decrease due to environmental, food, and health crises, having a child naturally will become too dificult. As a result, surrogates and other alternative modes of gestation will be more viable methods for reproducing. As a direct effect of shifting pregnancy from an intended parent to a surrogate, the number of intended parents unable to experience the journey of pregnancy increases. The loss of the biological choice to nurture a child in our wombs will be an impossible wish for many. In this dismal but realistic future, Velli offers opportunities to involve intended parents with the pregnancy journey in a new way. With their intended child under close observation, Velli users may never stop wearing the device. From this unknown future, we can make a few predictions about how parenting roles may shift from their current state into one with more equity between parents. For example, if we imagine both parents have this device and are experiencing crucial moments of a pregnancy, in real time together, their investment in the child likely grows at the same degree and pace. In the absence of natural pregnancy and delivery, Velli can create a more seamless route to co-parenting, where each parent involved with a child contributes to childcare responsibilities in an agreed upon, equitable manner.

(Opposite) Foam models for Velli using the bandsaw and rasps to ind form.

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Form & Function Velli’s purpose is manifold the device has application in the present and the future, making its physical form a challenge to reconcile. The most obvious compromise was establishing the level of idelity within the fetal shape. Upon series of drawings, rough gestural prototypes, and reined scaled models, critics expressed mixed emotions when Velli looked too much like a fetus and when models looked too abstract. Humans, and especially adult humans, have a concrete concept of how a baby looks, feels, and makes them feel. Experimenting with unwavering construct of a baby seems to tear at everyone’s heartstrings, so settling on one form to move forward with was challenging. Velli’s inal form translates language we use to describe babies into an abstract, blank slate for how a baby should look. Borrowing from expressions like “my little peanut” and concepts of a “bean” to describe babies and the visual contents of ultrasounds lend Velli its form. The decision to leave Velli’s main form white builds on its abbreviated image as a newborn. Conversely, the manner in which Velli is worn takes on a literal form. When users wear Velli, they use a sling modeled after the infamous, ubiquitous BabyBjorn carriers. The carrier is made from leather to evoke luxury, an attention-grabbing quality. For parents who use a BabyBjorn, function is their top priority in purchasing the product. They want to feel conident their baby will be safe when they strap their newborn to their chest. If given the choice to invest in an “ugly” baby carrier promising safety versus a “stylish” carrier with repeated cases of malfunction, a parent will choose the ugly carrier. For them, the act of carrying a child is “style.” When parents wear their children, they want to show off the child, not the pouch securing their child. Individuals wearing Velli do not have children, meaning physical style is much more important. Velli’s luxurious leather casing and sling is a signal for passersby to look, communicating that this person is invested in a pregnancy because they wear Velli. Being abstract in form and literal in practice makes Velli feel like a baby. Wearing Velli on the torso or close to the breast creates a natural reaction to hold and embrace Velli as you would a newborn child. When you aren’t wearing Velli, the device lives in a cradle, where it charges for the next day of use. Cradles are portable, making them easy to transport Velli around the home when cooking, reading, or sleeping.

(Opposite & p.82-83) Using plastic wrap and masking tape, I created a custom pattern for Velli’s soft good cover.

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Velli, resembles well-known BabyBjorn products and is worn by a sling.

Early Motherhood

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Figure 32. An Overt prototype made from a sweatshirt and spandex breast pockets

Overt Product Design Overt is a breastfeeding garment for new mothers returning back to their workplace after birth. The shirt functions as an easy way to access the breast for pumping breastmilk at work, as well as a visual reminder for coworkers of the long-term bodily changes new mothers face after birth. Coworkers must support new mothers in taking care of themselves for a stronger workplace to exist. Overt’s brightly colored breast pockets are tough to ignore and, in effect, could encourage advocacy for new mothers in the workplace.

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Maternity Wear Through the Years Women have conceived children since the beginning of time, but in 1595, the Baroque period coined the irst maternity gown called “Adrienne.” It was styled with an empire waistband sitting just beneath the bust, and functioned through several pleats and folds that allowed the form to expand as a women’s belly grew. During the mid 17th century, a bib-like component was incorporated into the original Adrienne design to give women convenient access to their breasts for breastfeeding. The Victorian era style of dress introduced the maternity corset, an extremely constraining and therefore uncomfortable wear with the sole intention of hiding the pregnant belly. What’s even more cringe-worthy is the fact that doctors endorsed and encouraged women to wear these. The general shift in style that occurred in the United States in the 1920s, like lapper dresses, made maternity wear look and feel much more casual. Women wore more loose-itting clothing and oversized dresses with buttons running down the front to increase ease of breastfeeding, and by the 1950’s — pants.13 The 1960s brought us the maternity Victorian era doctors endorsed suit, which incorporated a second “maternity corsets”, extremely elastic panel about the standard waistband. This addition instrumentally constraining garments with the helped professional women extend the sole purpose of hiding a women’s length of time in which they were able pregnant belly. to hide their pregnancies in the workplace. The maternity suit did not deviate stylistically from typical skirt suits, making the switch seamless and kept women’s’ conidence high, assuring them they could remain professional and productive at work. Maternity wear for working mothersto-be continued to consist of more masculine styled clothing that was mostly dark colored and boxy like men’s suits.14 This style sent a signal to the professional world that pregnant women did not have a carved space for them in the working environment. For centuries, clothing has played a large role in attitudes towards pregnant women and attitudes toward themselves. History shows us that both outside and inside the workplace mother’s to be had been encouraged to hide their pregnant

bodies from the public and from their colleagues. One crucial thing to remember about the pregnant body is that its changes linger well into the irst year of being a mother. When a women delivers her child, her body does not spring back to the way she looked before her pregnancy. Women’s wardrobes are inluenced by the postpartum period in which the act of returning to work overlaps. To challenge maternity fashion’s foundational purpose to hide pregnant bodies, how can clothing accentuate the changing body when returning to work after birth?

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Overt concept being applied to a white blouse, typically worn in the workplace.

Make Your Own Breastfeeding Shirt Primary Shirt: This shirt will be the main component and the shirt which you pull over your head. Stylistically, this component should be selected most carefully, as it will dictate the style and comfort for the user. Secondary Shirt: This shirt will be used only for its sleeves and should be chosen according to that principle only. For this reason, the shirt should have long sleeves, preferably a loose it, and have a generous stretch.

Step 1: Mark on your primary piece where the breast pockets will be located. Make sure the circles you mark are as large, if not larger, than your breasts. This will be important for how the garment is able to function later on. Tip: If you are having trouble locating the ideal placement for the breast pockets to hang from, you can put on your primary garment and mark the location with a grease marker safe for fabric.

Step 2: Cut out the circles you have made for the breast pockets using the guides you have just made. Fabric scissors are ideal, but any scissors will do the job. Tip: Before you move on to the next step, take this opportunity to try on your primary piece again to make sure your positioning is correct. You’ll feel like Regina George from Mean Girls, and it will be worth not having to retrace your steps later.

Step 3: Before you put the primary garment to the side, do a little math to igure out the circumference of the circles you’ve just cut (C = πd, if you’ve forgotten!). Save this number for the next step in which you will start making your breast pockets.

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Step 4: Now, you are going to make a simple rectangle pattern for your breast pockets. Use your circumference calculation to establish the width of the pattern. The height of the pattern is up to you.

Tip: For a casually hanging pocket, you can add a slight arc to the top edge of your pattern.

Step 5: Sew the width edges of the pattern together make a tube or sleeve.

Tip: If you’d like to add a drawstring to the end of each pocket, apply the string to the edge of the pattern, about 1 inch from the edge. Fold the inch of fabric over the string and sew to make a channel for the drawstring.

Step 6: Once you have your sleeves, you can begin to attach them to the holes you’ve cut in your primary garment. I recommend using a ladder stitch so your thread does not show. Apply the ladder stitch around the circumference of the breast pocket and tie a knot at the end.

Tip: If you have trouble holding your fabric in place, use pins to keep the pieces steady while you sew.

Step 7:

Once you’ve attached your irst sleeve, repeat Step 6 with the second sleeve.

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Why So Conspicuous? Because The Law Isn’t. As of March 23rd, 2010, the Wage and Hour Division under the United States Department of Labor requires employers to provide adequate break time for nursing mothers to pump breastmilk in the workplace. Under this provision, a concealed space other than a bathroom must be accessible to employees who it under the category of nursing. However, there are exceptions to the rule, which include small businesses of less than ifty employees, who are exempt from the law if supplying such a space causes great inancial strain to provide.15 A general lack of maternity leave, paid vacation, and sick days available for new mothers prevents them from spending adequate time at home healing their bodies from birth and its aftermath. When new mothers return to work after giving birth, they are expected to return to “normal” and perform in their positions as they did before they give birth. For new mothers returning to work after just 6 weeks, the expectation of performance is that more outrageous as a new mother returning to work after 12 weeks or more time away. No matter the amount of time away, when a new mother returns to work, coworkers assume things are as they were before she had a child again. This just isn’t the case.

Orange breast pockets are meant to signify “caution”.

In an interview with a new mother who is a physical therapist, she shared her experience back at work and the conlict she faced with her coworkers about using time at work to pump breastmilk. She explained, “I am currently nursing and legally allowed time [at work] to pump, but coworkers are telling me I’m am not seeing enough patients, and they want me to see more patients even though I am allowed that time.” Her new needs were invisible to coworkers.

Coworkers Creating Impact Overt is meant to ease the transition into the workplace by providing an obvious cue for coworkers that new mothers’ bodies have gone through incredible changes and have a new set of needs to address in the workplace. New mothers shouldn’t have have to feel awkward about addressing their need and right to pump at work. Instead, what if coworkers initiated that conversation? The nature of Overt as an external garment could help start dialog between coworkers and new mothers about their health in the workplace and whether or not they’d like to excuse themselves for a pumping break.

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Push Pause on Motherhood

Figure 36. One wireframe from Hiatus as a social venure (more on p. 86)

Hiatus Product Design Hiatus is a short-term, on-demand childcare service for mothers who need a break from motherhood, immediately. The app sends a caretaker to their home within 30 minutes of their request, to let moms push pause and do whatever she wants for a hour. Hiatus’ purpose it to create short-term connections with mothers on an as-needed basis. Moms can think of Hiatus as their Emergency Medical Service to relieve them from their cranky infant.

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Last Minute Childcare Planning for sitters can take weeks, and cancellations cause extreme frustration for parents attempting to have alone time or complete simple errands like going grocery shopping or to a doctor’s appointment. A mother of two explained to me, “Right now, the most challenging thing is having two full time parents and the price of childcare – its really challenging without a large income and family to assist. At some point one parent has to take a step back, or both parents for that matter. It’s the reason I chose physical therapy because it is lexible. Last min child care doesn’t always work out.” A short-term, on-demand service model living inside a growing gig economy could completely change the way parents hire child care professionals because shorter sessions requires less budget for parents and saves days of time waiting for potential “At some point one parent has to caretakers to respond to requests for take a step back, or both parents care and cancelling. Hiatus eliminates scheduling with sitters because the for that matter. It’s the reason I agreement between parent and chose physical therapy because it is caretaker happens within seconds, lexible. Last min child care doesn’t and they meet within minutes.

always work out.” -Mother of 2

What is a Gig-Economy? The National Association of Counties, an agency in Washington DC representing counties across the United States, summarized the concept of a gig economy in an online case study in November 2017. The case study compiles insights from their Annual Conference and Exposition, where Hon. Rich Fitzgerald, Dr. Trevor Brown of Ohio State University, and Molly Turner of University of California Berkeley shared their thoughts on the growing gig economy trends in the United States.16 There are three components that work together in a gig economy: the technology facilitating a service, workers who provide the service, and customers who request a service. In the example of Uber, its app interface serves as a mediator between workers and customers, drivers are providers, and passengers are customers requesting a service. Gig economies are enticing for individuals who need part-time

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Brainstorming sessions to expand large research questions regarding identity and postpartum.

work because they can control their ability to make money using openings in their schedules. Molly Turner, former Director of Public Policy for Airbnb, reminds us, “The gig economy is not new - people have always worked gigs… but today when most people refer to the ‘gig economy,’ they’re speciically talking about new technology-enabled kinds of work.”17 It should be noted that technology enabled nearly one out of every four people to earn money from some form of digital platform within the year 2015.18 With growth at this rate, policy makers must keep up with shifting labor arrangements. Despite gig economies giving workers more freedom about when they work and how much they work, gig workers are still freelance workers, meaning they are not contracted with healthcare and other beneits. With over 9 million workers projected to work under the umbrella of gig economies,19 government oficials must begin seeking ways to protect workers whose only option for work is through the means of gig economies. In large metropolitan areas like New York City, I cross paths with hundreds of food delivery and drivers every day. But what if the babysitting industry took on a gig economy model? What are the consequences of that model on both caretakers and customers? Prototyping on-demand care taking app using existing examples like Uber and Lyft is easy. In fact, it should actually frighten you how easy making this product look real, and it didn’t frighten me until one mother, rightly so, expressed her deep concerns about giving her child to a stranger.

Stranger Danger? Nobody thought homeowners would let strangers stay in their homes, let alone let strangers capitalize on the opportunity to stay in a stranger’s home when Airbnb started its empire. Similarly, getting in a car to have a stranger drive you around seemed ridiculous, even though passengers had hired cabs before Uber and Lyft. Next, who would have thought pet owners would be comfortable with hiring a stranger online to come into

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The reality is we hire complete strangers to help us throughout the day. In some cases, one individual uses a car, food, and home service in one day.But, there’s something very different about handing over your child.

Identifying goals for postpartum moms using directional wording and potential metrics.

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As a Social Venture

Hiatus as a social venture, where freelancers are able to access health beneits by working through the service.

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As a Consumer Product

Hiatus as a consumer product, where moms request caretakers just like requesting a ride.

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their home, walk their dog, and then return to their daily lives. The reality is we hire complete strangers to help us achieve many of our goals all the time, and in many cases, a single person uses these services each day. But, there is something very different about handing over your dog to a stranger for a walk and handing over your child to be watched and cared for. Despite being childless, critics of the work quickly addressed a blatant trust issue with the arrangement of caretakers and parents. This was obvious. Although I had already incorporated a vetting process for caretakers, extensive caretaker biographies, and the ability to write reviews and rate caretakers, a huge barrier still existed for moms to even explore a care-taking option that could dramatically change the way they are able to spend their time alone.

What Could Gig-Economy Childcare Actually Look Like? As mentioned above, gig-economies consist of three major groups. In this case, a mobile app would exists as the foundational technology, enabling both work for caretakers and service for customers to happen. The app would allow for payment between parties to occur, locations to be monitored, and reviews to be recorded. Caretakers would exist as freelancers on the platform who would sign into the app when they have free time to babysit. Since care sessions are short, a babysitter could likely take a few jobs within a few hours and would be paid directly through the app by parents. Reviews of their care sessions could be viewed by prospective parents and would function as the greatest potential for wages on the app. Without solid reviews, parents would not select them for care. Essentially, parents could indirectly push a bad caretaker off the app without having to take drastic actions. Reviews would self police caretakers to go above and beyond for clients. Parents, speciically stay at home parents would reap the most beneit form an on demand childcare app like Hiatus. Short childcare sessions provide means to complete small but important tasks like grocery shopping with the

presence of an infant. Because care can arrive within minutes, charges will relect the convenience of the service. Subjectively speaking, a service like Hiatus probably could not exist. With good reason, parents are extremely protective of their children. And, why wouldn’t they be? There is no world where a parent would risk the well being of their child on purpose, and I cannot argue with that. Now, I want to make clear here, that I am in no way married to the emersion of Hiatus as a service in the real world. I am, however, because of my perspective as a childless individual, able to see more objective beneits in the potential existence of the gig economy model for childcare.

Short Term Beneits There is undoubtedly a need for postpartum women to spend some time away from their children. An hour to nap, eat a full meal, or take a walk are invaluable instances that happen rarely during a time when mom is required to rest and breastfeed. A convenient way to take frequent breaks from motherhood could allow self-care to become a normal part of the week for parents.

Long Term Goals In order to provide care for new parents, caretakers are arguably more important than clients. For this reason, caretakers need incentive to work on the platform. As previously mentioned, freelancers working as part of the gig economy do not receive beneits. I propose Hiatus could lead the pursuit of beneits for freelancers through features in the app. For caretakers whose work on Hiatus ills the majority of their working time, they would be able to apply for beneits within the app’s interface. For example, if a caretaker is working for the app more than 20 hours a week, they could become eligible for health insurance. In her work at NACo (National Association of Counties), Molly Turner encourages counties to rethink policies role in non-traditional work

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Matrix of the current landscape of online caretaking services

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positions, and I agree with her that a huge opportunity sits for services functioning with the gig economy to provide assistance for freelance workers.20 For Hiatus as a startup company, partnerships could dramatically change the game of gig work for caretakers and encourage participation in the cause to liberate women from motherhood.

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Conclusion

This thesis is special to me because doing this work afforded me an opportunity to share my thoughts about motherhood, a phase of life I am expected to take part in with no other reason than my gender. Overlaying my rather bold views on how women fulill their destiny onto motherhood itself is a conversation I could not have casually without feeling vulnerable and judged by others. Despite motherhood being a people’s issue, an academic framework objectively removed an emotional layer from the topic, where I was able to create a clear, idealogical path to liberating women from the burdens of motherhood. This thesis gave me permission to defend my choice to refrain from becoming a mother, while simultaneously offering an alternative to motherhood for moms, where they can opt to give up some of their assumed responsibilities. Most importantly, this work allowed me to further explore a world I wanted no part in myself. As I expected, completing this thesis did not change my mind about staying childless, but it opened up space to imagine a world in which I would be a mother, under other circumstances. In other words, what would a world look like for me to consider motherhood as a clear path in life? In what would might I enjoy being a mother? I hope my opportunity to share these viewpoints will change how moms think about their own positions on the most important, valuable job they’ll ever have. This sets out to challenge their everyday and to ask more of others and less of themselves. I hope for a future where all mothers seeking some liberation from motherhood will be empowered to ask for help, and in some cases, tell people in their lives to take action toward alleviating their burdens as a mom — because whoever you ask, they just might be willing to assist.

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Acknowledgments This thesis book is the aggregation of a two full years dedicated to enriching myself through design. I’ve been fortunate to have the time and resources to expand myself personally and professionally during this time. I am grateful to everyone I have met in New York City since I started my journey in September 2017, and most of all to the MFA Products of Design department for molding me into a new person every single day. Thank you to my hard-working classmates to pushing me to think about design in new ways, and for disagreeing with me. You have all made me a better designer, more thoughtful, and more conident in myself and my abilities. Thank you to Allan, MFA Products of Design Chair, for creating a program that truly speaks to what I dream design can be and bring to the world. This program was the only place I could see myself, and it’s still my irst choice. Thank you to Alisha, Marko, Krithi, and Kristina for supporting me and the Class of 2019 , literally through everything these past two years. I am constantly amazed by what is able to be accomplished with a fourperson team. Thank you to the Visible Futures Lab for coaching me through each and every project, no matter what time of day. There’s no way this book could have happened withoutdepartment, for always making extra time for us. Thank you to their families for letting us have 3 hours of their time each week, even when it meant missing bedtimes and family moments. I hope we were able to give you a fraction of the inspiration you gave us. Thank you for the opportunities you have brought to our class through studio visits, guest lecturers, guest panels, and more.

Thank you to all the mothers who were honest with meabout their experiences, and who trusted me with that. I learned so much from you, and I have so much admiration for you. There’s no way I could do what you do. Thank you to my family for letting me spend two years in the last place I thought I’d ever live, New York City. Thank you for your love, and always trusting ine arts and design as a ield Icould make my life about. I am so fortunate to have a family who has supported me in discovering myself, and who has accepted me for who I want to be. Finally, thank you for cultivating my sense of humor, one you don’t even believe is funny, at all. Thank you to New York City, for being such a strange and wonderful place to spend two years. I hope to see you soon.

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Endnotes 1 “Dad Stats.” National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse, www.fatherhood.gov/content/dad-stats. 2 Douglas, Susan J., and Meredith W. Michaels. The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women. Free Press, 2004. 3Hooks, Bell. Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics. Taylor & Francis, 2014. 4 Hooks, Bell. “Revolutionary Parenting.” Maternal Theory: Essential Readings, edited by Andrea O’Reilly, Demeter Press, 2007. Digital. 5 Hill Collins, Patricia. “Shifting the Center: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing About Motherhood.” Maternal Theory: Essential Readings, edited by Andrea O’Reilly, Demeter Press, 2007. Digital. 6 Crittenden, Ann. The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued. Picador, 2010. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 9 “The Gottman Method.” The Gottman Institute, The Gottman Institute, www.gottman.com/about/research/the-gottman-method/. 10 “Research.” The Gottman Institute, The Gottman Institute, www.gottman. com/about/research/. 11 “Parenting - Research.” The Gottman Institute, The Gottman Institute, www.gottman.com/about/research/parenting/. 12 “How the Bloomlife Contraction Monitor Works.” Bloomlife, bloomlife.com/ how-it-works/. 13 Lindig, Sarah. “The Evolution of Maternity Style.” ELLE, ELLE, 11 Oct. 2017, www.elle.com/fashion/personal-style/g28423/maternity-styleevolution/?slide=8. 14 W, Ger. “100 Years Of Maternity Trends In 20 Pics.” BabyGaga, BabyGaga, 16 Apr. 2017, www.babygaga.com/100-years-of-maternity-trends-in20-pics/. 15 “Wage and Hour Division.” Faqs - Break Time for Nursing Mothers - Wage

and Hour Division (WHD) - U.S. Department of Labor, Department of Labor, www.dol.gov/whd/nursingmothers/faqbtnm.htm. 16 Istrate, Emilia, and Jonathan Harris. “The Future of Work: The Rise of the Gig Economy.” NACo, Nov. 2017, www.naco.org/featured-resources/futurework-rise-gig-economy. 17 Ibid. 18 Aaron Smith, “Gig Work, Online Selling and Home Sharing,” Pew Research Center, November 2016. 19 Intuit and Emergent Research, “Dispatches from the New Economy: The On-Demand Economy Worker Study,” June 2017. 20 Istrate, Emilia, and Jonathan Harris. “The Future of Work: The Rise of the Gig Economy.” NACo, Nov. 2017, www.naco.org/featured-resources/futurework-rise-gig-economy.

Figures 1. “NYC Mammas Give Back.” NYC Mommas Give Back, www.nycmammasgiveback.org/what-we-do. 2. “Bloomlife.” Bloomlife, bloomlife.com/. 3. “The Gottman Method.” The Gottman Method, https://www.gottman.com/ about/the-gottman-method/.

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