ABSTRACT
The rise of mother-identity-making and mom-made performance art has been instrumental in helping to amplify women’s voices within the motherhood movement at large as well as within the global landscape. The goals and dreams of mother musicians to live in a society that supports maternal arts and motherhood in general is a work in progress, but much progress has been made. A timeline of their groundbreaking work is recorded in this chapter, as are some of the challenges they faced. The energy, commitment, and hard work of the individual mothers who wrote songs and stories, created comedy and theater, rehearsed in their attics and garages, participated in interviews, helped to produce events and showed up to late night gigs and large-scale functions, all while raising kids, has helped a new generation of artists find their maternal expressions. This creative output is evidenced in blogs, politics, businesses, and a multitude of contemporary artistic mediums – none of which existed prior to the inception of the Mamapalooza festival and organization. Mamapalooza as well as the mom rockers and the creative women of the motherhood movement have facilitated the coalescence of a body of work that contributes to women’s stories in popular culture and to the emergence of the field of mother studies within the academy.
