Motherhood makes women more creative. So why do we chase moms out of the workplace?

Most women have heard the stereotypes about “mom brain”: According to conventional wisdom, mothers—especially new mothers—neurologically reorient around their children, leaving their minds foggy and forgetful. Never mind putting them on that big project at work. (They’ll be lucky if they can find the building.)

But while science has shown motherhood can alter brain structure, the stories we tell about those changes are often incomplete—and, if we’re being honest, sexist. They ignore the truth that all brains struggle when our cognitive load gets too high, and even worse, they focus on short-term deficits that come from carrying, delivering, and caring for a screaming infant instead of the long-term neurological gains that mothers experience for the rest of their lives—especially when it comes to creativity. 

Kelly Lambert, PhD, Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Richmond, argues that “Every mom is a scientist.” Every day, they’re running experiments and using deductive reasoning to meet the needs infants can’t verbalize. Flexible problem-solving is worth its weight in gold in organizational settings, so why have mothers and their changing brains continued to suffer such slander? 

It’s high time that workplaces give “mom brain” its due.

How motherhood boosts creativity

We know pregnancy changes brain structure. Gray matter (which helps us do everything from process information to coordinate our movement) decreases, and white matter, which helps connect various regions of our brains, temporarily increases before eventually returning to baseline. This synaptic pruning does not indicate cognitive decline, but could, instead, be interpreted as the brain rewiring itself for efficiency; teens actually go through a similar process.

As much as we all love to look at brain scans, Dr. Jodi Pawluski, Affiliated researcher with University of Rennes in France who specializes in perinatal (the period surrounding childbirth) mental health, argues that the functional changes birthing mothers experience are more significant. “Size matters,” she says, “but what you do with it is more important.” Most mothers are the default problem-solvers in their homes—women manage 71% of household tasks and scheduling, research shows—so creativity becomes a full-time job all its own. 

For example, Pawluski presents a scenario: “The baby’s screaming. What can you give them?” As someone who’s never had a child, I personally would curl into a ball, plug my ears, and wait for the noise to stop. But moms? “They’ll find this empty plastic water bottle, super entertaining for five minutes, and give it to them,” Pawluski says. Then, it’s on to the next fire.