Elizabeth De La Piedra entered her motherhood journey with a youthful naivety, thinking a cute baby would slot right into both her career and young marriage. Instead, she found herself grappling with how to maintain balance in her creative practice, and eventually, the end of her 10 year marriage. In recalibrating her life post divorce, she discovered an unexpected perk of co-parenting: time management. “Don't waste my time on the days I have my kids!” 

Liz, who was born in Peru and raised in Australia, lives in Chicago with her sons Lex, 10, and Ryder, 7. Read on as she takes us on her journey from a bewildered new mom through divorce to present—her most empowered, productive era yet.

Having a kid—why not?

I got married young, at 26. We’re both creatives and I was just getting my start after school and interning in New York. He got really successful quite quickly and quite young and was like, we should have a kid now things are going great. And I was like, why not? I was so naive at the time, of course. I thought I could totally work with the baby at my side. And when I was 28 I had our first baby, and was such a blessing but it was tough. I had the postpartum depression stuff too and was the first of my friends so I didn’t have support. I was kind of alone, and he was on tour a lot so it was very isolating. But it’s really  such a life building journey situation, and it changes you so much. I was trying to work as much as I could, but it really was very hard. I was incredibly naive thinking it would be cute and fun.

Mourning my past life as a soul entity

My first pregnancy was so beautiful and smooth in terms of carrying. All that glowy shit. I really wanted to have a natural birth and wow, it was really fucking hard. In retrospect, I probably would have benefited from an epidural. The baby had a compound presentation, so he had his hand on his head. It was very painful and made the contractions back to back.  Healing from his birth was a shock to me. I was like, what the actual fuck? It really affected my postpartum because I hadn’t realized how hard it was going to be on my body. And he didn't latch properly for the first couple of days, so I had to pump and feed him with a little dropper like a little bird. My nipples were bleeding, and I was trying so hard. It was really intense, but it eventually smoothed out and then it was just about adjusting to this crazy new routine. When I was postpartum Ispent a lot of time with AirPods listening to Audible books and podcasts. It was really helpful during this period. I was just so overwhelmed with the lack of time for myself and was really mourning my past life as a soul entity. And that’s fine.

And then there were two

My second pregnancy was tough. I was vomiting all the time and I could barely get up. I could barely hold things down. At one point I felt like I was miscarrying. I was sure we lost the baby. But I kept vomiting and felt so sick that I went to the hospital. I told them I experienced  miscarriage a week ago, whatever. And they did blood work and came back  like, are you sure you had a miscarriage? They did an ultrasound and it turns out I had been pregnant with twins and one had passed away, and the other is my son Ryder. Overall the experience was easier the second time because we knew what to expect and we had more support. But wow, with the second, you get less time for yourself. Everyone's trying to prioritize time. Time just becomes the most valuable thing I think when you're a parent, especially getting that time to yourself just to not answer to anything and relax. There's a real lack of that. And my hot take is that I feel like maybe relationships would be stronger if each person in the relationship got to have a day or two off from everything sometimes.

Mommy and daddy have two different houses

We’re part of the wave of COVID lockdown breakups. Having kids adds so many layers to careers and to your relationship, and a lot of how we deal with those changes are based on how we grew up. My ex and I were together for over 10 years. We had two beautiful children, and the reality is that we just met so young. You grow into different people. At the time, I don't think I was really aware that big chapters end, and that's an actual healthy thing. 

Especially having the kids to that legacy—it's like even if the relationship, you're not together anymore you have beautiful children. And with the kids it was just like, guess what? Mommy and daddy have two different houses, so you have two houses to be in now and if you want to FaceTime us, just FaceTime us whenever you want. So we didn't make it like, oh my God, it's this big sad thing. We just positioned it as we're still family, but with a new setup.

Growth mode

In many many ways I felt stunted coming out of a 13 year relationship. I had so much anxiety over doing everything myself. If anything fucks up, it's on you. You're making these big life decisions, investments, whatever the next steps, making sure that you can see your future so that your kids are going to be as happy as possible. I just felt really overwhelmed with that in the beginning. But I had fucking kids, bro. I had children during that time, which literally broke me and made me able to pretty much do anything. Kids make you have to manage your time so intensely, and when you do that, you really value your time and the time of other people and the result is becoming extremely productive. I'm a Capricorn, so I very much need to work and be busy. And luckily for me, with my kids' ages and school and my arrangement, I’ve been able to really focus on work and seeing results that I'm really excited about. So it's all hard work. I went into that relationship as a kid, and we both came out of it as adults who had experienced so much personal growth and a lot of therapy. I came out with tools and discovered even though I didn't think I could handle a lot of things, I could. It felt amazing to finally experience life on my own—I’m so happy that we transitioned into this new phase of our family life. 

Don't waste my time

It was tough being a little bit younger than most people with kids, but in retrospect, it all worked out the way that it should. Now that they’re older I can work a lot more. In a way, you really have to take four to five years off when kids are little—two kids picking up, dropping off, picking up, dropping off. When you have two and they're doing half days at pre-K, your schedule is just constantly interrupted. I don't think you can ask anyone to successfully create something when they're being interrupted every 15 to 20 minutes… it's fucking impossible. This is the first year where my kids are both in school, and I can work and truly put my mind to things. Co-parenting has been so amazing for that. We do Friday to Friday, so I get a week to myself, and I can get everything sorted in our calendar and book my work during those weeks. And of course I can do stuff when the kids are at school, which is massive for me. I need all those hours as the mom. Every minute counts on the days that you have your kids. Don't waste my time on the days I have my kid… I need every 10 fucking minutes. Motherhood is relentless. You have to get up every day and do this thing. You have to keep showing up. It’s just amazing what we're capable of, because when you think about life before kids, it's like you thought you were juggling then, but you really had no idea. There have definitely been times where I’m quietly crying while I’m doing the dishes. I just am. It's not me hating my life, it’s just hard! And I’m tired. Also, both my kids are neurodiverse, so that as a whole element of constantly learning what they need to feel supported. When your parental journey begins, you don't know what that journey is going to look like. It’s a constant learning curve. 

A blended family

I feel like I got really lucky because me and my co-parent communicate so well. A lot of that is from couples therapy when we were in our long-term marriage. I also feel like I got really lucky because he picked a really wonderful person to marry and be a co-parent and stepmother to our kids. A lot of times people put this competitive spin on it. And it's really not like that—to have someone sign up to a relationship with children and who loves them and treats them so well is such a godsend. So, I just feel so lucky that I don't have to worry about my kids.

And it's okay for it to take time and to be a process, because it took two years. And then, when the dust settled and everyone's life lives were settled in it…. It’s just so nice to have that. At the end of the day, it’s your family that's going to be community for you. I really love the first drawing my kid did of us as a blended family. Honestly, it would make me really sad if I wasn't invited to their stuff. I am a single mom, so when we're all together, it just feels more like what I remember, which is from my holiday stuff, which is a lot of people together. That, to me, is community, and I want my kids to have that feeling that they're loved a lot.