Sara Petersen > Quotes

“And if I take a picture, then what? Even if someone does care in a passing “Oh that’s pretty” type of way, how will that translate into me having a better/easier experience of motherhood?”
― Sara Petersen

“The performance is never for my kids… They’re kids, after all, and by nature completely self-obsessed. I only exist as a background to the foreground of their own experiences. The performance is for me… Trained to perform for the male gaze and whose primary value as a sex object no longer holds so much currency.”
― Sara Petersen

“Consumption was rooted in a misguided idea of self-care... A nice bath will not give you the peace of mind created through affordable quality, childcare, for example. Soft skin will not replace equal employment opportunities. Pumiced heels cannot make up for having to go back to work while still bleeding from childbirth. A bath is not enough.”
― Sara Petersen

“Motherhood enacted by white trad momfluencers is a smoke screen, often proclaiming apoliticism, when in fact the romanticization of a time and place in which only white cis het non-disabled women of a certain class could access privileges by their proximity to white patriarchy is inherently political. How can anyone say their priorities are in the wrong place if they’re elevating motherhood? But it’s a particular motherhood, one whose politics are rooted and keeping things as they are rather than working to make the world less hostile for more people.”
― Sara Petersen

“The more we understand about the culturally dominant voices telling us what an aesthetically ideal home/wardrobe/life should look like, and wear the inspiration for perfection comes from in the first place, the more we can learn to trust ourselves instead of falling pray to the culturally constructed need to buy our way into happiness.”
― Sara Petersen

“The performance (mothering online) is never for my kids. They’re kids after all and by nature completely self obsessed. I only exist as a background to the foreground of their own experiences. The performance is for me. The performance is for us, who were trained to perform for the male gaze and whose primary value as sex objects no longer holds as much currency. We perform mothering online as a way of accessing meaning when most days the work of motherhood doesn’t seem to mean much according to the many men legislating against family leave, universal preschool, and childcare subsidies.”
― Sara Petersen

“Minimalism, both as a practice and anesthetic, gives consumers the illusion of control, if not at the world, at least our domestic spaces. It’s often an internal, individualized process rather than an external one. Your bedroom might be cleaner, but the world stays bad… fixing one’s immediate space/life versus attempting to fix larger society problems”
― Sara Petersen