I've started reading A QUESTION OF BALANCE: ARTIST AND WRITERS ON MOTHERHOOD. Even though it was published in 1995, the issues surrounding being a mother while being a writer are artist are pretty much the same. There are issues with guilt, worry, frustration, balance-- so much with balance. These essays and interviews could have been done last week, each woman seems to be coming up against the same challenge--how to mix writing with motherhood or how to be a good mother and a good writer/artist. It's sort of annoying how in the 21st century, there are still these same issues.
In the introduction, Judith Pierce Rosenberg wrote about how she had a career crisis after they moved and she lost her home office. She writes, "We had just moved out a cramped two-bedroom cottage into a ranch house with a fenced yard, and a room for each child--but no office. My husband quickly nixed my idea of converting the dining alcove into a workspace, saying that it would look too messy. And I believed the childrearing experts who insisted that my son and daughter were too old to share a bedroom. . .
Why didn't I insist on taking my old desk to our new home and using the dining alcove as an office? Why were the perceived needs of my children more important than the demands of my work? In retrospect, I think the reason lies in the fact that I was earning very little money as a freelance writer. In fact, my work was a financial drain on the family since I did not make enough money to cover my work-related expenses, especially child care. It was difficult for either my husband or for me to consider my work as important as his."
The end result is that Rosenberg takes on the life as a "traditional mom" and feels frustrated and resentful. She began read articles by artists and writers who were also mothers on how they integrated the maternal and artistic aspects of their lives.
Alicia Ostriker made time for her writing, and had this to say about writing poetry when her children were at home:
"Poetry was always in the interstices of everything else, the nooks and crannies. It was always time stolen from other responsibilities. Everything else in my life was being done for someone or something else: someone needed me to do it or I was being paid to do it. Poetry was the one thing that I did for myself alone with the sense that no one on earth except myself gave a damn whether I did it or not. In my early years, I didn't make other things move over very much for it; it was always on the run."
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The book inspires me and reminds me that creating this so-called "balance" is not something that just happens, but something that these women have worked at. Their writing time did not just wander up to them and invite them in, they lassoed the time each individually and in their own way.
As a mother & writer, I continually do my best, rebalance and try again. I juggle guilt sometimes. I wonder if I am being the best mom/writer/wife/poet/person I can be, which is insanity. That phrase, "always do your best," should be replaced with something that will not cause anyone to have a nervous breakdown. Who came up with that? What about "just show up," or "try pretty hard?" I swear, "Always do your best" was invented by someone at my old corporate job just as "There's no 'I' in 'team.'" But there are two "I"'s in "idiot," which is usually how I feel if I follow what the group is doing.
I have to be careful how I talk about my writing life. Sometimes I catch myself saying, "I stole some time for writing today" then wonder why I use words that make it a crime. A criminal mother. My language reflects my worst fears--what am I taking away from others by writing?
Honestly, I could be more like a guy about this. My husband does not wander in the house after being at the a) fire station b) gym c) grocery store d) insert home project here _________ and think, "I wonder if I'm being the best dad I can be." He does not "work on balancing his time." He doesn't sit at the fire station with all the other working dads and wonder, "How well am I raising my child? Am I still leaving time for me? Troy, how do you balance your time between work and fatherhood, between rebuilding your motorcycle and raising your child?" No, they are not asking a thousand unanswerable questions, they are watching the cooking channel and talking about the Mariners. In fatherhood, there is no guilt for working out in the gym, for spending the entire weekend reading Harry Potter.
This preoccupation with perfection seems to be a mom thang... and I think it needs to stop.
I'll go first... So, how 'bout those M's?
