Conceptual Photographer Jennifer Georgescu is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this photo essay. From her ‘Mother Series’. To see Jennifer’s projects click on any image.
When you are a mother you are expected to be selfless; any utterance of a challenge or obstacle will be seen as a complaint. Motherhood is a profession with no breaks or guidance, and the time and effort you put forth goes relatively unnoticed.
In 2015, through good fortune, I became a mother. I was not shocked by the meaningfulness of the experience, but at the unrealized burdens of motherhood that no one talks about. The loss of my former identity was displacing. Everything single thing about my life changed all at once and my lack of sleep in now 14 months longer than I anticipated. I grieve my former self, not because I am ungrateful but because it is hard to adjust to being a mother.
The fact is, motherhood is an ideal that cannot be accomplished. It is a hard reality, rewarding as it is, that is covered up by ideals of perfection and bliss. The ideal mother doesn’t even look like a mother and she is put together, collected, and composed. There seems to be no forgiveness.
I began taking photographs of myself in 2015 as a feminine mother ideal who I wished I could be; a goddess who is hard and unbreakable. In my real life I constantly felt like I was making excuses for not doing a better job at everything other than my baby. As time went on I began to feel more confident in my role and I began offsetting these unattainable ideals with photographs depicting the reality of motherhood through visual metaphor.
See also:
Sand, Stone, Dead Leaves & Bone
By Jennifer Georgescu
