Christine Han: On the difficulty of accepting motherhood and the amazingness of children
Advice from a food and lifestyle photographer
Meet our next creator, Christine Han:
Christine Han
Age: 43
Child: Coro, 3
Location: Currently Brooklyn, but soon L.A.
Vocation: Photographer
Links: Christine Han, Instagram
You’re most likely already familiar with Christine’s work. She focuses on food, portrait, and lifestyle photography, including being the staff photographer for Cup of Jo and shooting for Food52 and some of my favorite cookbooks, like Weekday Vegetarians. No matter her subject, Christine’s work is filled with color and joie de vivre. Looking at her work just makes me happy. She had some amazing insights on how observing her daughter changed how she looks at her subjects, even though it took her a long time to accept motherhood.
I understand that hesitancy of acceptance. I’ve always described myself as a reluctant mother. I was certain I didn’t want children. When my now-husband proposed, I said yes, waited a week, and then sat him down to make sure he knew what he was getting into: most likely a childless life. He was still on board, god help him. But time passed, hormones happened, a series of small, seemingly insignificant decisions piled up into big, life-changing moments, and here I am with two children. And I am still a reluctant mother, despite adoring my children and knowing that they are making me a better person and exposing me to a wider, richer, more meaningful life experience. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that I’m reluctant to be forced into the role of a mother.
Perhaps the resistance stems from being raised too well in the American ethos of individualism and capitalism to be able to glean self-worth and satisfaction from raising children—because I need something for me, something that gives me meaning in and connection to the world outside of childrearing—or perhaps it’s simply a distaste for the unrealistic role of the modern mother, one ingrained in sexist tropes and social media perfectionism.
But, when I’m honest with myself, I suspect, or maybe even know, that as much as I want a silent house to work in and as much as I want to read the stack of books on my nightstand and as much as I want to focus on a thought without my brain screaming Research summer camps! They’re going to fill up! I know that these challenges and constraints are actually feeding my creativity. In Julie Phillips’s incredible book The Baby on the Fire Escape, she quotes Ursula K. Le Guin on this topic: “The degree to which some male writers protect themselves from other people always amazes me. It seems all wrong to me. Yes, you want time to get your work done, and that time is precious and somehow it’s very hard to come by, but to achieve it by isolating yourself from commitment to other people—it just does not make sense.” And I’ve heard this from many women I’ve interviewed: Being a mother has made them better artists.
Christine touched on so many of these issues. It took her a couple years to really embrace motherhood, which coincided with an increase in childcare. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. We are not meant to be doing this alone. Our role is not meant to be the provider of everything. There’s supposed to be a village to help. There’s supposed to be a village, so you can, maybe, strike the balance of being fed creatively by motherhood but not being so overwhelmed that you sometimes forget to brush your teeth. Even though, as Christine will explain, none of it is supposed to be easy.
Now, Christine, in her own words…
On no such thing as a late bloomer:
The kind of photography I do now is commercial and editorial food and portrait and lifestyle. I didn’t study photography in school. When I was a kid, it was something I really liked. My dad gave me a camera when I was 9, and I loved it. In high school I took a couple of classes, but I’m Asian, so academics were the focus, and I excelled at academics, so I didn’t even think of photography as something I could do. And then at one point, well after I graduated from college, it came to me as an epiphany while I was riding the subway one day. It was a magic message. It took me five years after that to actually do it. I don’t like to say “late bloomer” because who’s late and who’s early? It took me until my early 30s to really pursue photography.
On seeing through a child’s perspective:
I’m learning so much from watching my daughter, or maybe I should say that I’m unlearning so much. You know how everyone thinks their children are amazing? It’s because they are! They’re not brainwashed yet. They’re so natural, without all of the conditioning. Watching her has been remarkable and beautiful in that I can more consciously see what I was seeing in other people but didn’t have words for. When I photograph, I was responding to that beauty and just being present.
My daughter is just who she is all the time; she’s never trying to hide anything. There’s no self-criticism. She has an understanding of being that we, as adults, have lost. And that is what I’m responding to when I photograph people, and it always has been, but now, from watching my daughter, I know what it is that I’m trying to capture. It’s those moments when humans are just humans, beautiful and divine, really. I’ve heard people say that artists are purveyors of the divine. And I’m finally kind of getting it. That’s what I’ve always been looking for. Light and beauty and connection between everything really, but people in particular.
On surrendering to motherhood:
On social media you see all these people who are doing it all, and they’re working so much and having all this success and they have three kids, and I thought that was something that was doable. But it’s not that way.
Having a baby was so hard. I was so overwhelmed. Now I really understand why the way we live in separate houses doesn’t make any sense. It’s a new thing. People didn’t live this way for thousands and thousands of years. It was so hard to be by myself taking care of the kid. The long hours and the relentlessness. The physical exhaustion.
I didn’t surrender to being a mother early on. I was at home with my daughter for 15 months with no outside childcare. During that time I was working very little. I had been in this mode of work, work, work before she was born. And then I thought I should still be work, work, working. I didn’t truly enjoy the first two years of being a mom.
But my perspective has totally shifted now. My life is different. My job is secondary. I enjoy that it’s secondary. But it was a big fight for me. It’s happened only in the last six months. But that’s because I have a lot of childcare. I’m really grateful to my daughter for making me realize that life is not about working and producing. That shift has made being a mother easier.
On life not being easy:
I love my life, I love being a mother, and I love working. I love all of it. And it’s all really hard at the same time. And it’s not supposed to be easy. And once I dropped the expectation that life is supposed to be easy, it actually feels easier. Every single human has this experience, no matter what they look like or how much money they have. I really find that to be true. We don’t come to the planet Earth to have it easy. But embracing that has made life easier. Your mind doesn’t make everything so tortuous.
Thank you for sharing your story, Christine!
*Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
This was wonderful to read as a fellow struggling but grateful creative mama!!!! Thank you!!!!
Lovely interview with Christine! And such nuggets of wisdom. As a fellow working mom, I can totally relate and it is a stark but important reminder that life isn’t meant to be easy. Also, love that there are not late bloomers!