By Arabella Peterson and Isabella Manfredi Entertainment 11.05.2025

“Losing Yourself Is Nothing to Be Scared Of” – The Preatures’ Isabella Manfredi on Identity and the Creative Power of Motherhood

How the singer-songwriter redefined success – and herself – after becoming a mother.

Every time Mother’s Day rolls around, we’re met with loving, well-meaning sentiments about mothers being endlessly self-sacrificing. The moms in our lives are praised for their boundless giving and unconditional devotion, and selflessness is exalted – as if a lessening of the self is a condition of motherhood. Naturally, parenting means releasing some parts of yourself and gaining others, but there’s a particular expectation of erasure that rests on women. We spend years carving out our identities, forging careers, and honing passions, yet with the arrival of a child, the mantle of “mother” often takes up a disproportionate share.

Given the siloed ways we tend to perceive creative, independent people and mothers – as though they exist in separate worlds – being a solo musician and front-woman in one of Australia’s most lauded modern bands might seem at odds with the stories we tell about womanhood. But Isabella Manfredi has lived – and thrived – in both roles, experiencing how creativity and caregiving can fuel one another.

Before she had her daughter, Isabella’s mind followed familiar paths that many soon-to-be mothers do – fears of losing creative momentum, shedding parts of her identity, and the unknowns that lay ahead. The second and third trimesters of her pregnancy were creative and productive periods, which brought its own kind of uneasiness while staring down the reality of impending change. But as she explains, “I had no concrete understanding of what my day-to-day life as a mother would actually be.”

Reflecting on the complexity of motherhood, Isabella draws a parallel between becoming a parent and entering the public eye. “I think we tend to equivocate the desire to become a parent with an ability to move gracefully through what it demands from you,” she says. It’s a misconception she recognizes not just in motherhood, but in her years as a touring artist. “I see similarities in that with the experience of being in a band or becoming famous or being on tour. The public eye will turn around and offer little sympathy for the hardships you are suddenly experiencing because you chose it.” Yet for her, these kinds of life-altering shifts – whether creative or personal – are ultimately part of a shared human instinct: “I think these great transitional leaps are also human, and part of our desire to seek new frontiers.”

In the lead up to her daughter being born in June 2021, Isabella had a flurry of creative output, not least of which her first solo album. But the arrival of her daughter coincided with the second Sydney COVID lockdown, which had a serious impact on the music industry. “The truth is I did lose creative momentum, in an industry where traction and success are dependent on it.”

For Isabella, the transition into parenthood was jarring. “Birth totally shocked me, and that shock stayed with me for many months to be honest,” she says. Many of the rituals she had once relied on for self-regulation – meditation, yoga, visualizations, solitude – no longer felt accessible in the same way. “It opened up new questions about how the f**k do I parent myself and this kid too?” she reflects. Still, in the midst of that disruption, she uncovered a new strength. “I discovered I was pretty good at being present with my daughter as she went through her great leaps. Everything about being a parent was about ‘being with’ mundanity.”

Parts of motherhood, Isabella reflects, felt unexpectedly familiar. The exhaustion, the strange hours, the disorientation of it all – it echoed her early years of touring. “There would be nights where I’d be up feeding my daughter, sitting there in the dark with nothing to do while she nursed, absolutely legless with fatigue, and think, 'Oh, I've been here before,'" she says. The loss of autonomy, the confinement, the unpredictable rhythm – all mirrored life on the road. Years spent travelling and performing had taught her to surrender control, to withstand physical discomfort, and to endure the kind of tiredness that “makes you afraid.” It also gave her a long view: just as she’d once transitioned from amateur to seasoned artist, she trusted that the chaos of new parenthood would eventually give way to a more integrated flow.

Despite knowing better, humans have a tendency to strive for linear, ever-upward progression. This mindset doesn’t leave much room for pauses – which, as Isabella reminds us, “are natural and happen whether you’re a parent or not.” It’s often in these lulls that creativity gathers, and she treats them as periods for “collecting experiences.” “I make lots of voice notes, listen to music, live my life and do ordinary things, and take mental screenshots of things I want to write about,” she explains.

Isabella describes her drive for creativity before becoming a mom as being like a tree growing upward toward the sun, with all her energy and focus concentrated in a single direction. Motherhood, as she puts it, “redirected and distributed that energy in what felt like every other possible direction.” For a while, with her metaphorical branches stretched thin, she felt as though her “capacity to become a tall tree was contracting.” But, she reflects, “in that time I was growing, it was toward a deepening, expansive system of roots as far and wide as the tree itself, so that now in the underground of my psyche I have an entire, mirrored-tree version of myself. I’m not sure how exactly it will impact my work yet, but it’s given me a sense of resilience and self respect I didn’t have before. And I find I ask different questions about my work that I didn’t before.”

Whether she’s in a season of rest or momentum, a creatively fulfilling day now looks different. ‘This year I leaned into the idea of iterations,’ she shares, pointing to her newsletter, izzi club, as a current outlet. ‘I create time’ is my new mantra – a way to protect spaciousness and shield from overwhelm.”

“This process of juggling does in and of itself feel creative and when I hit my marks during the day and get my work in…I do feel great satisfaction. But nothing - nothing - fills my cup like performance. Everything I do, including songwriting, is a vehicle to get myself on that stage. That’s my north star.”

Becoming a mother has inevitably reshaped the way Isabella approaches her career – not just logistically, but philosophically. “I’m invested in but not attached to anything that’s happening in my career,” she says. It’s a mindset shift that’s helped her navigate the demands of long-term breastfeeding (she nursed until her daughter was three), new parenthood, and relocating overseas. With less capacity than before, the old metrics of success no longer hold the same weight. Instead, she finds herself asking different, more expansive questions: "Even if I can’t give my all to art, is that a good enough reason to give it up entirely? Am I able to be half-good at this, or will my ego not survive it? And what is good art, anyway? More questions than answers,” she says – but for an artist, that might just be the point.

For mothers struggling to give themselves permission to create, Isabella offers a powerful metaphor: think of motherhood as a constant juggling act – and learn to distinguish between the balls that are glass and those that are plastic. “It’s about prioritizing and understanding there are certain times when you need to let the plastic balls bounce – you can always pick them up again,” she explains. Sometimes, that plastic ball might be an idea or song that can wait. Other times, it’s the creative frustration itself that demands to be heard – the glass ball you can’t drop. For women especially, who are often conditioned to defer their own needs, she believes a little selfishness can be a radical act of self-preservation. “Whenever I ask myself, how can I be more unreasonable? I find I am on the right track.”

If becoming a parent rouses a fear of losing your sense of self or creative spark entirely, Isabella’s reassurance is simple: “Losing yourself is nothing to be scared of.” It’s something that happens throughout life, not just in parenthood – and it can offer valuable perspective. “You tell yourself, 'I’ll never write / perform / sing again', and then you do,” she says. “There’s beauty and intelligence in that, too.” For many, the first sign that something needs attention is burnout – the body raising its own SOS flag. “You need to figure out how to make that repair with yourself in order to feed the natural creative urge and self-expression, in whatever form that takes for you.”

Isabella’s future plans are as exciting, fluid, and expansive as her journey of motherhood. There’s a reunion tour for The Preatures running from June to August this year, a memoir in the works, and a solo album on the horizon. With characteristic candor, she adds, “I also want to have another baby and f**k all of this up again!”