![]() ![]() Even before the pandemic, I was spending my days as the primary caregiver for my two children, then writing and editing over late nights. Reading about these women of the last century brought me back to my own experience. That the attempt to do both still feels like driving without a map is a testament to how slow and difficult social change really is. ![]() Phillips moves deftly through key moments in the lives of her subjects - Alice Neel, Doris Lessing, Susan Sontag, Louise Bourgeois, Shirley Jackson, Elizabeth Smart, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker and several others - and asks of them (and us): How do you make time for, much less nurture, creativity in the face of parenting? Ostensibly liberated, women artists aspire to make space for the imagination and the domestic. “The Baby on the Fire Escape,” Julie Phillips’ tremendous group biography and exploration of what she identifies as a “mind-baby problem,” focuses on women of the mid-20th century onward, when “motherhood went from being an accident and obligation to being a choice.” Juggling motherhood and creative work can leave one feeling like an iconoclast and a failure all at once. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores. ![]() 'The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Baby Problem' ![]()
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