Convo #15: Joanna Bean Martin

How the founder, creative director and mother of four approaches care

Tell me about your family.

I live in Portland with my husband and our four kids!

Who are you other than a mom? What do you do for work, what do you do for pleasure? 

I run a small brand agency/production company and post-production company with my husband (Afterall Studio & Piñata Post). My background is in brand design and photo art direction and his is in tv commercial production. 

For pleasure, I run a very niche restaurant. We serve 3+ meals a day depending on how busy we are. The menu changes daily and occasionally we have things that are off menu for some of our more challenging customers...I kid but this is what brings me lots of joy, especially when it’s a “you hit it out of the park mom” meal. Lately I’ve been making more bread (I’ve got a couple sure-bet and easy-to-throw together recipes that came from my mother-in-law if anyone wants them.)

I’m in the beginning stages of launching a product myself which is an entirely new, scary and exciting experience so a lot of my free time has been spent on bringing that to life. 

I also love to move my body every day, either something mellow or something more intense or even a chore that makes me sweat…. This helps keep me sane.

Do you currently have regular childcare? If so, what does it look like? 

We have an amazing woman that has worked with us for over 10 years. We met her because she was our eldest’s preschool teacher, then she came to work with us when our 2nd was 9 months old. Minus a 2-year stint in Spain, she has worked with us in some capacity since then. Right now she works 2-3 afternoons/week and helps the kids with homework and helps us with some driving duties, as all the kids have sports/activities. She’s a part of our family—like a cool aunt to our kids and I feel very lucky to have someone that’s both reliable and flexible and that our lives and needs have synced up in this way. I know it won’t last and am prepared for her to move on, which will likely come next school year. And now that our kids are in 4th, 5th, 7th the needs really are more about being a present for their emotional shifts and/or being a chauffeur. I keep holding out hope that my mom will move up to help out but until that happens (it won’t) her support has been a very necessary part of our life.

What about it is working, and what isn’t? 

It’s expensive and is a luxury but having four very high-energy kids, it also feels very necessary for my sanity. I know I can, and will, get by when she moves on, but for now she’s so in-tune with them, a great teacher, super patient and knows us all so well. She and I talk through challenges and strategies so in so many ways she’s a third co-parent. When she was gone for two years (during the height of Covid), I learned a lot about what I was good at/not good at and one thing I am really NOT good at is homework help. I know it’s always harder to teach your own children and that I often have two or three needing help at once so I get overwhelmed, they get impatient, we all end up yelling. But again, as they age and the expectations get more ingrained, they’re getting better, I’m getting better…we’re all evolving.

How did you handle childcare before they were 5? 

Julian started pre-school at 1 and went 3-days a week until Kindergarten. Asa started at 18 months and went 4-5 days. This is when work got heavier for me. I didn’t take maternity leave when the twins were born. My in-laws moved from Connecticut to Portland for 8 months to support us, plus we had our nanny. And my mom would fly up every 6-weeks or so to relieve my mother in law. It was really all hands on deck for awhile. I kept working because I was afraid of stopping. But then I was running some huge projects, had a big staff and had a bit of a meltdown. I was totally depleted and I realized I was missing so much of my kids because I wasn’t being present with them enough. So in 2019, when my older two were in 2nd and Kinder I scaled everything back. I kept the twins home with me one day a week and took on less work and I slowly unraveled the idea that I needed to achieve some level of success and instead leaned into understanding each of my kids individual needs.  This was a huge blessing because once Covid hit, I was already working so much less that the transition to being at home with them wasn’t so hard and I realized the more my needs were just about me, the less patience I had for my children. The more the expectation didn’t mesh with the outcome. But embracing, letting go, easing in and being in sync with them became very fulfilling….for the first 6 months. Once remote school started it was pretty much chaos. Ha.

What childcare model did you grow up with? Did this inform your own decisions around childcare? 

My parents separated when I was 2. Both my parents came from wealthy dysfunctional families on the east coast and moved west to start anew. That said, they were both broke artists. My dad was a carpenter, craftsman and my mom had to work to pay the bills and wrote at night. I was in daycare pretty early. Which I have only fond memories of. Eventually I moved to a preschool and I also had teachers I loved. This definitely informed my decision, as I had such positive experiences and don’t remember missing my mom during those hours spent elsewhere. My husband, on the other hand, had a mom (and dad) who stayed home and raised her four sons. She ran a bakery out of her house and eventually went back to school for a teacher degree and his dad was a wooden sign carver/artist so his parents were pretty much always there. For me, now that my kids are in elementary and middle school I think it’s very important to be home as much as possible. Their emotional needs change daily, helping them keep up with their work and getting them organized for their activities takes a lot of mental energy!

Have you looked to other mothers as a guide when making these decisions?

Absolutely. I’m always asking for advice from friends and family. I’m so curious how other people do things…I find myself constantly observing and talking to my mom friends about little and big things—my closest girlfriends are the ones that I call on when I’m at my worst. When I feel I’ve totally fucked up and failed— they ground me and remind me that my kids are loved and I’m doing my best.

What would your ideal work & childcare arrangement look like?

Great question! I think if I could design my ideal childcare scenario it would have to be a an ideal living scenario — my kids would walk home from school in a small village on the outskirts of a small-city where I’d have space for creative/craft/art, space for work-work and our home all interconnected by a courtyard. My brothers, my parents, my in-laws or a combination thereof would be in close proximity and would help with the driving and cheering-on at activities. We’d take pleasure in being in each other’s weekly routines and our doors would always be open. We’d live in a neighborhood with kids of all ages that look after each other…..And the families would also look after each other—make extra dinner, share holidays. A teenager would watch my kids after school and help with homework and then when mine were old enough, they’d do the same for others’.....So guess I’m looking for a commune?! 

What's one thing you'd definitely get done if you had just one more hour of childcare?

Go on a run, or a bike ride, or a sauna almost always…..