ESP: What is the most rewarding part of your motherhood journey?
Laura: The most rewarding part is finding that motherhood keeps getting better and better.
ESP: How did becoming a mom impact your personal and professional life?
Laura: Becoming a mom for sure impacted every aspect of my personal and professional life. I’ll never forget having lunch with a friend who had a baby before me and wondering if we’d ever talk about anything but the baby again. Then, I had Veda and I got it.
Everything is a season, and nothing will always be like it is today. Your body, brain, free time, wants, needs, and priorities ebb and flow, and it was a lot easier for me on the days when I didn’t try to hold it all too tightly.
Professionally, I have had to scale back or even increase activity depending on our family’s needs and rhythms, but photography has been a constant since before Veda was born. I used to wear her on my back during family sessions and edit throughout sleepless nights and nap times. Now I primarily do editorial interior photography for designers, so the hours coincide with school and I am really enjoying the pace. I am learning to be content with all the ways this season has me where I am right now.
ESP: How did your relationship with your own mother impact how you have developed as one?
Laura: The thing I felt from my mom was respect. She always made me feel like she was proud of who I was without ever making me feel like I needed to be someone else.
There is this temptation as a mother to try to make your kid fit into the mold of your expectations, and what I experienced and try to pass along now, is that we aren’t actually that in control. They’re their own person and it is a privilege to get to ferry them through life.
ESP: How do you teach your daughters about self-love and self-care?
Laura: I teach my daughters about self-love and self-care by practicing it. I turned 40 this year, and with a 14 and 12-year-old, I realized we are all “in the middle”. I can guess that any uncertainty I am feeling about my own body, skin, hair, clothes, and capabilities is being felt by them about themselves too.
I read a book by Henry Nouwen called “The Life of the Beloved” and it’s a thread through my thoughts towards myself and my girls. I believe we are all beloved by the God who made us, fearfully and wonderfully, kept and adored. No thought we, or anyone else, has about us can change that.
Practically speaking, I don’t complain about my body or try to control food. We talk about exercise as a way to be strong, not skinny, and we keep a lot of dry shampoo in the house.
ESP: How do you help your children navigate social relationships and peer pressure?
Laura: It is a wild time watching my kids as a high schooler and a middle schooler. One thing is certain, there is nothing new under the sun. It’s all the same stuff that was going on when I was in school- same cliques, same drama, same excitement. I feel like we’re in a coaching role now, where we can tell them how to play, but they have to figure out how to put it into practice.
As far as relationships go, our general conversations usually include the phrases “if you can’t be kind, be quiet”, “be the kind of friend you want to have”, and “be as nice to your sister as you would to a stranger”.
ESP: What is your greatest strength as a mother?
Laura: My greatest strength as a mother is being able to apologize. It is actually a relief to not have this all figured out, and to be able to mess up, and admit it when I do.
ESP: What is the most important lesson you hope to teach your children?
Laura: That they are loved. I think if someone knows down to their bones that they are loved, it can’t help but be poured out of them onto others. And that’s sort of the whole point of all of this.
ESP: If you could go on a dream vacation with unlimited funds, where would you go and what would you do?
Laura: There is a little town in Sicily where my husband’s great-grandfather immigrated from. He was a poet and there is a library there named after him, so I dream of us taking our girls to see it. And then, you know, plinko-ing our way up the Italian coast.
Rapid Fire Questions:
- Breakfast or Dinner? Dinner
- Flats or Heels? Flats
- Arrive Early or Fashionably Late? Arrive Early
- Vacation or Staycation? Staycation
- One word to describe yourself? Curious
Laura Rowe and her college sweetheart, Eddie, have been happily married for 18 years, with two daughters: Veda (14) and Ruby (12). The girls keep them busy driving to and from dance, and then showcasing every dance in the living room afterward. The family enjoys random visits from their neighbors and Laura’s mom, who lives down the street. You can often find them walking to the bay, hoping stray cats find them, and listening to Eddie and Ruby play their guitars.
