Musings on Creativity Through Motherhood

[velvetpage]

I'm reading an excellent book, recommended to me by musickat, called "Big Purple Mommy." It's about balancing motherhood with creative work of whatever type, and the conflicts inherent in that balancing act. It's made me think.



I stopped writing creatively after high school, and kind of settled into a school-career-family mode. I went into teaching because it was secure and easy (that is, I had the marks and experience, and I was entering the profession at a time when doors were open a bit wider than they had been a few years previously, so there was no real struggle involved in getting into the profession.) I liked the idea of using my creativity in the classroom, and every time I thought about teaching, I was imagining classrooms full of kids engaged in writing wonderful stories or performing wonderful plays in French. I let other aspects of my creativity slide, because they weren't important enough at the time.

Well, then along came the Classes from Hell. I spent the first four years of my teaching career thinking, "This isn't what I wanted or expected!" with varying degrees of anger, hurt, and frustration. By the time I finally changed schools, I was pretty sure I wanted out, or at least out of the total classroom-teacher experience. I had several experiences over those years that were what I had dreamed they would be, but they were few and far between compared to the boring, nitty-gritty, disrespectful and depressing stuff that made up everyday teaching.

While I was still immersed in the process of giving up on the teaching dream, I became a mother.

And the world shifted.

For months, I could see the clear break of "before and after Elizabeth." I looked at her and nearly cried with how perfect she was and how much I loved her. I agonized over food choices, sleep choices, toy choices. She was absolutely everything.

Gradually, of course, the world shifted back a bit, but never all the way back to who I had been before her. I realized that I was going nuts because I was so completely focused on my baby. My world contained exactly one important person, and the view was far too narrow to be sustainable. I started to expand my focus again. I roleplayed, I had friends over, I read non-kiddy books, I started teaching again. I had people at my work who gave each other snide little grins whenever I told an Elizabeth story. There was even one person who told me that it would be nice to hear about something besides my baby once in a while. I told her that she had a choice whether or not she listened to it, but my choice was to continue talking about the most important person in my life. Elizabeth was still the centre of my world, but she'd ceased to be the whole world to me.

Around the same time, I started writing again. First it was a novel idea that came when I was about four months pregnant. I daydreamed about that for weeks, whenever nothing more important was going on. I talked about it to family and to complete strangers, at least one of whom later became a good friend. But I didn't actually write it. I got to about the second chapter, and realized that I hadn't planned my plot well enough. I didn't know what was supposed to happen next. Bogged down, thoroughly fatigued with pregnancy and teaching, I gave it up. It's still sitting on my hard drive, waiting to be written.

Elizabeth was born, sparking a break from reality that lasted months, and then a few things happened. I discovered lj, and started journaling in a way that involved others reading and commenting; I went back to work, to the worst class I'd had yet and the least-supportive administration; wggthegnoll came back to Hamilton and we picked up the Ironclaw campaign that had so inspired me before; and sassy_fae and etherlad joined the campaign and began writing character journals. I remembered how much fun they had been. I wrote some myself, and got deeply into the head of my character. When the game ended in September, I was at a loss for a while, until I realized that I could still write more about that setting and those people.

And thus was Dreamcarver born, in the midst of mothering a toddler and teaching full-time.

Once again, something consumed me. I stole moments in the evenings to write. I used pen and paper while Elizabeth played with blocks or watched tv. I wrote on the bus on the way to school. I "let" my in-laws and my sisters take Elizabeth for several days over Christmas holidays, and I used those days to write. In less than five months, I had a workable novel on my hard drive. I knew it was good, in its genre. I had no illusions about it being great. It was not literature or anything that was likely to lead to literary immortality. But it was good, and it was worth publishing, and other people would read it and enjoy it. That was enough for me.

Almost.

I realized that there were two categories of happy moments over the winter, which was very stressful for me on the job front. The first category were all about Elizabeth, and her progress, and the joy of family life. The second were all about the book.

And yet, the bulk of my time - upwards of fifty hours a week - was spent on the least-fulfilling of my three big endeavours. When Piet's contract, a friend's wedding, and various family and teaching obligations ganged up on me in May, my writing fell by the wayside. I just couldn't handle it all. For weeks, I felt like I'd abandoned my second child. I do not use that comparison lightly. I know what it would do to me to make that choice, and I know I never could. But what was unthinkably painful when considering a real-life baby was acceptable and natural when considering my creative work.

All of this led me to the realization that I need at least a partial career-change. I need to be mother and writer, equally important and equally fulfilling to me, first and foremost. And I need to be a teacher - but not as much. I need to seek out the teaching opportunities that will give me some of the financial security I need, and will support the things I love about teaching. And I need to do less of it. Hopefully a lot less of it.

I've given myself permission to give up on the teaching dream. I don't need it anymore, and I don't want it. It's a skill I have, something valuable that is a part of me. But during the years where teaching was all I did, I was burnt out and unhappy.

The dream of motherhood will be with me, in all its pain, frustration, fear, and glory, for my whole life. But it isn't enough. There will be times when it will be everything, and that's the way it should be. But there will be other times when my creative work will take centre stage for a while. This is who I am. I won't let anyone take it away, least of all myself. I want my children to grow up seeing a woman who follows her dreams, and makes them happen, and lets them go when they've served their purpose. The best way to be a good mother is to be a complete person.

There was one chapter in the book that didn't speak to me very much. It was about invisibility - the necessity of hiding one aspect of your life, in order to be successful in the other spheres. It talked about women who are a part of parenting groups but never mention their painting to those other parents. There were stories of women who were told not to join the baby list if they wanted to retain their professional lives, and stories of those who discovered after going back to their artistic pursuits that their workplaces were so completely unfriendly to families that they felt squeezed out by the mere fact of being mothers.

I have never felt that, other than with those few people at my last school. My work is supportive overall of family issues, and my mat leave arrangements are good. I talk about my daughter at work, with my students and colleagues, and she enriches my teaching. I talk about my writing at work, and get asked for input into story planners and plot devices that are being taught, because I've been there and done that. Having a real author for a teacher was an inspiration to several of my kids this year. My family have banded together this summer and before to provide me with time to write while they take Elizabeth and do wonderful things with her. She's still talking about the circus and Marineland, six weeks ago. Piet and I work things out so that we each get writing time, thereby balancing our creative pursuits as much as possible. And I have a journal read by friends who support me and read my rants and remind me of how wonderful my life really is.

So, those of you who have had a part in ensuring that I don't feel invisible (which is most of you, actually): Thank you. I couldn't do it without you.

Comments

[pyat.livejournal.com]

You rock, Erin. :)

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I love you too, dear. :)

[kesmun.livejournal.com]

You are an inspiration in so many ways.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :)

[lousy-timing.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the smiles. :)

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. :)