The intersection of writing and parenting

On a writers forum to which I belong, there is a discussion about how being a parent affects being a writer. The thread was begun by a writer who is not yet a parent and who is worried that becoming a parent will be detrimental to the writing. She was particularly concerned about becoming a mother while also being a writer, since current societal norms place far more parenting pressure on women than on men.

She is right to be concerned. During the years when my children were babies and toddlers, I did not write. Since I have four kids spaced two to three years apart, that meant I did not write for about a decade. In fact during the middle of those years there were a couple of times when I looked at my life and decided to completely abandon the dream of becoming a published writer. I simply could not see any way that I could ever make writing fit with parenting. Interestingly, each decision to quit was immediately followed by a surge of creativity that made me renounce my decision to quit. But the surges were small and short lived, while parenting was a long haul. I really picked up writing again about the time my youngest learned to walk.

I’ve often thought about that 10 year hiatus. It was like all my writing thoughts and dreams went into a winter dormancy just as a plant does. A dormant plant often appears dead, but it is just waiting. In the past I wondered if that dormancy was an inevitable result of becoming a parent. I’ve decided that it is not. It was a result of my choice. I’d always dreamed of becoming a writer, but I’d also always dreamed of becoming a parent. I was at a stage in my life where I’d only just begun to achieve both of those huge tasks. I only had enough emotional time/energy to master one at a time. I chose parenting. But then I reached a point where parenting was not new anymore. Oh, it still had new things in it, but mostly it was refining systems that I had already put into place. I was ready for a new challenge, and writing was waiting patiently with buds ready to leaf out. Even better, some of the skills I learned while parenting have been applicable to writing. I believe I could have done things the other way around. I could have become a practiced writer first and then taken on parenting. It makes me wonder what new thing I’ll take on a decade from now when melding writing with parenting has become routine.

My answer to the forum thread was less introspective than this post. The core of my answer was this: Any large project in which you have to invest emotional energy will affect any other large project in which you have to invest emotional energy. Of course being a parent will affect your writing. Of course being a writer will affect your parenting. That writing/writer could be replaced with any career or pursuit you could name. This point was excellently made by another forum respondent (quotes used with permission):

Admittedly, when one is writing there is a desire (and sometimes an absolute need) to tell anyone who tries to get your attention “Go away!I am unavailable! Not now!” But then, the same reaction can come from people who are doing crossword puzzles or making ships in bottles or watching TV or playing video games or talking with a friend on the phone.

My belief that I could have become a practiced writer first is supported by another mother/writer who also responded in the thread:

Two data points. (1) I wrote four hours a day before I had children,and I wrote one book a year. (2) I write one hour a day (maaaaybe), now that I have children, and I still write one book a year.

Will having a children affect your devotion to writing, your time available, the ease at which you can write? YES. It will make it much,much harder.

Can you learn to deal with it and write anyway? YES. Time management,using slivers of time, writing through distractions, doing more in less, etc are all skills that can be learned.

If I had four hours (and I will, as they get older) to write a day now,what could I accomplish with it, given the skills I now have?

She has been there and knows what she is talking about.

I’m tempted to squint back through time at my new mother self and tell her not to give up the writing quite so easily. After all, where would my writing be now if I’d spent those ten years sneaking writing practice in between the diaper changes? But then I realize that she never truly gave it up. I never gave it up. I just let it lay dormant in the corner until the time came to grow again. Some plants require a period of dormancy before they can truly thrive. Other plants never go dormant at all. The world needs all kinds of plants to be truly beautiful. I just need to be the kind of writer I am, even if I grow and bloom differently than other writers I know.