Hey all, Joe here and you are listening to Under the Influence.

One of the things that I get asked by young women at a lot of my book events was how creative

were you before you had kids and how did that change after you had kids?

And I got to say, I mean, what I tell them all the time is that, frankly, I think that I'm even more creative post-having kids. I think my brain

has changed in different ways. But more importantly, I'm definitely, definitely more efficient

with my creativity.

There's a lot of myths out there. I mean, it's no wonder that young women think this,

because a lot of people will tell women that having kids will kill your creativity,

that you'll never write, that you'll never paint again, maybe even that you'll never shower again.

That part is true. I shower less.

I do. I do. But the creativity part, that is massive BS. It is. And it's not just me. It is for

every mother that I know. Today I'm talking to M.M. DeVoe. She is a writer who I met at the

Adriatic Writers Conference, and she's the founder

of Penn Parenthis. Pen Parenthes is a nonprofit that she built to help writers stay creative

after they have kids. And we're going to get into all of it today. We are going to talk about

that feeling of panic that you're never going to get another word on the page,

but then also the strange productivity that happens during both pregnancy and, and I promise,

during the postpartum period. But all of this doesn't come without a price. There's also a lot of

guilt that follows you around, whether you are with your kids or you're at your desk.

Even still, if I'm with my kids, I still kind of feel like I should be writing.

And if I'm writing, I still feel like I should be with my kids.

And that is something that I work on every day because I'm like, get rid of this show.

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