Elise Peterson

For a long time, I really worried about what long-term success would look like for me, because I do so many things and have so many hyphens. But there are a few people who I think are doing something similar to what I want to do. Like Faith Ringgold. She's a visual artist, but she also illustrates and writes children's books. She paints and quilts. Her outlets for creativity are limitless, and so those kinds of things affirm for me that I can also do all of these things. Maybe not all at once. Right now I’m funneling everything through the lens of motherhood, because that’s what's at the forefront of my life—and probably will be forever.

I haven't done anything for forever, so that’s helped me be a bit more discerning in terms of what I take on and how I move forward. For instance, Cool Moms as a brand: what does that look like three, five, 10, 15 years from now? I'm really interested in making work that lives beyond me. Which is why I really love children's literature.

It was actually my dream to illustrate a book—a children's book—for a long time. Probably my whole life. I wasn’t pregnant when I started illustrating How Mamas Love Their Babies; I had no intentions of being a mom anytime soon. But then it happened. You gotta be careful what kind of energy you take on!

I had previously illustrated the book cover for The Crunk Feminist Collection, and Jennifer Baumgardner, the former executive director of the Feminist Press, asked me to do How Mamas Love Their Babies. It’s the first children’s book to depict a sex worker parent, so that was really important. The author, Juniper Fitzgerald—who’s a mom and a professor—used to be a dancer, and I used to work as a professional dominatrix, so Jennifer thought the project would align with the stuff that I had done and the life that I had lived.

I just finished my second one, The Nightlife of Jacuzzi Gaskett, which comes out in January. It's a story about this kid, John, but they call him “Jacuzzi” because that's where he was conceived. He has a single mom, but instead of it being this tragic “single mom tale,” it’s the story of how she had a life. She would go out at night and hang out with her boyfriend and that became his favorite time: taking care of his baby brother. They would create this alternate universe, and imagine who lives there. Do boys have dads there? That kind of thing. Yeah, it's cool.

It was actually my dream to illustrate a book—a children's book—for a long time. Probably my whole life. I wasn’t pregnant when I started illustrating How Mamas Love Their Babies; I had no intentions of being a mom anytime soon. But then it happened. You gotta be careful what kind of energy you take on!

I had previously illustrated the book cover for The Crunk Feminist Collection, and Jennifer Baumgardner, the former executive director of the Feminist Press, asked me to do How Mamas Love Their Babies. It’s the first children’s book to depict a sex worker parent, so that was really important. The author, Juniper Fitzgerald—who’s a mom and a professor—used to be a dancer, and I used to work as a professional dominatrix, so Jennifer thought the project would align with the stuff that I had done and the life that I had lived.

I just finished my second one, The Nightlife of Jacuzzi Gaskett, which comes out in January. It's a story about this kid, John, but they call him “Jacuzzi” because that's where he was conceived. He has a single mom, but instead of it being this tragic “single mom tale,” it’s the story of how she had a life. She would go out at night and hang out with her boyfriend and that became his favorite time: taking care of his baby brother. They would create this alternate universe, and imagine who lives there. Do boys have dads there? That kind of thing. Yeah, it's cool.

A lot of us are right on the precipice of parenthood. You’re one sexual experience away from having a child. It’s very easy to make a kid, not so easy to raise them. So when I had the idea to do Cool Moms, I was like, "Oh, this is it." I was kind of the first of my friends to have a kid, and when I was pregnant everyone was asking me all these mommy questions. I was like, “I have no idea. I'm just doing it. I just started.”

I thought, if all these people have questions, someone has to have answers, so I should figure that out—home in on this community of mothers and the evolving image of what millennial motherhood looks like. It felt like the right time and people have totally come along on the ride. I have three friends who are pregnant now.

What I like about the podcast is that at no point are Lizzy Okpo, my co-host, and I like, “We are the talking heads of parenting.” No. We just want to give women a platform to talk about their experiences: real, good, bad, and otherwise. Real life shit: I'm starting a business. I'm an artist. I'm a curator. I'm a fucking investment banker. Whatever it is that you do is important, and so is being a good mom. But not, “How do you both?” because men never get asked that question.

I think I'm fortunate in that a lot of people have ridden the wave with me. The thing is, if your evolution and your change are authentic, the people who fuck with you are going to grow with you. I'm always really surprised by the people who are like, “I remember when you used to write a sex column. I loved that, and now I listen to your mom podcast.” That's amazing. I'm still all of those people, but it’s just that my priorities have tightened a bit. I still talk about my sex life, I still talk about cannabis or CBD or whatever. I think there’s a huge misconception when you get into a phase like motherhood where you're like, “Now you're an adult. You're definitely a different person.” And it's like, “Oh, shit, no.” I had a kid and I literally feel the same—for the most part—in terms of who I am, but now I just have more responsibility.

Smoking, for me, is a way to relax. I used to just do it because it was a habitual thing. Then I became pregnant, and had no interest in it. I smoked for the first time again when he was three or four months old. My good friend who has her own business focused on women and weed came into town, and was like, “We should smoke.” So we go in the bathroom and I get high for the first time after having him, and when I came out, I was like, oh shit, I have a baby. It was just the most surreal, existential moment. How did this happen? I have a whole human. He's here.

I cried. It was so beautiful. I was like, man, there’s nothing that I think is a greater privilege than getting to intimately watch someone become themselves. And I was just so grateful and so happy, and because I’d had that experience, I was like, oh, it's nice to smoke every now and again.

I’ve smoked when I’ve gone to a couple of Mommy and Me classes. It feels a lot less silly doing hand clapping and singing about the rain. You enjoy it more. Usually I’m in there with a lot of the older nannies, so I don’t do a lot of chitchatting. 

The racial dynamics can be especially jarring because a lot of the time it’s Black women—West Indian women—with white babies. I used to be a nanny so I’ve been on both sides of it. I’m very aware of how I dress, how we present. I’m like, gotta look cute when we leave the house, and do this thing where you kind of like, puff up, so when people look at you and they look at your kid, they’re like, “Oh, that’s your kid. You’re not the nanny.”

I also started using CBD oil for anxiety and because I was having a hard time getting to sleep. So that's become a go-to.

I think there’s a privilege to being a “cool mom” because it’s someone who is able to continue to make their identity and their passions a priority, while still prioritizing parenting. But it doesn’t work like that every day. I have days where I feel like I really killed motherhood, and we had an amazing day. And then there are days where I'm like, “I want you to sit in the playpen, and I want you to watch Sesame Streetfor like five hours so I can do all of this stuff.” I think I'm a much better artist or writer or host on those days.

Elise Peterson photographed by Meredith Jenks at her home in Brooklyn, New York. This Conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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