Is Your Dream Making You Miserable?
Creating art is supposed to be fulfilling. But after kids, balancing a creative practice and life’s responsibilities can make it feel like another impossible burden.
Image via Libby Haines
A few months ago I ran into a friend who I hadn’t seen in almost a decade. Back then she was a fine artist, broke but acclaimed. Her life always seemed so romantic to me. She was poor, like we all were, but one of those magical people who seemed to be standing in the right place. Her friends, her practice, her work were so aligned.
Catching up in a crowded coffee shop, tripping over words, rushing to fit 10 years of news, I was surprised to hear that not only did she have a young daughter, but was now a teacher. Without a hint of regret she proclaimed: “I don’t make art anymore”. Reflexively I replied, “You’re not making art right now, you’ll always be an artist.”
“No,” she pushed back. “I’m not an artist anymore.”
Whether they paint, write or play, most creative people will tell you the work is a compulsion. Not something they choose to do, but a requirement for their body and mind. To not partake is to not be totally themselves. It’s a nice image, just not the whole picture. What they don’t mention is that art is hell.
A lot of the time making things feels horrible. It’s an exhausting public slog that takes more time and money than you’ll ever be able to spare. The process requires taking the most personal parts of yourself and offering them for judgement. But to not create isn’t an option. You literally can not stop.
Then you have a baby and everything stops: work, sleep, regular meals, showers, relationships, clean clothes, clear thoughts. Then after a while, pieces of your old life return. You shower daily, eat breakfast, return calls, go back to work. But what about your art? What was hard to make before, now feels impossible.
A New World
That’s the reality for Anu, a documentary producer and mum of a one-year-old daughter Esen. Before having a child she was transitioning into directing and developing her own feature film. When she fell pregnant, she hoped art and motherhood could merge. “I thought [maternity leave] was going to be the time I made my feature documentary directorial debut…Absolutely not…I didn’t open the project once.”
Instead she encountered the curse that meets so many of us. Kids are the ultimate muse, literally expanding your brain to allow a more empathetic understanding of the world. But they’re also a complete distraction. Rendering you unable to ever creatively respond to any new stimuli.
Now Anu admits: “I feel like I’m barely, not even, staying afloat with life responsibilities. My house is a mess. The laundry pile is always a huge mountain. In terms of how I balance motherhood with my art, I haven’t been able to.”
“At this time in my life I’m prioritising other things over my personal work and goals. This dream that I have to make really meaningful feature films…in my hierarchy, it’s at the bottom.”
While the burden of childcare is particularly crushing for birth parents, the struggle to balance art and life isn’t always one-sided. Before becoming a dad three months ago, George was working on an album. He had a committed schedule that allowed him to fit music around a full time job. Like Anu, he thought this commitment would serve him well post birth. But while he knew an infant would rearrange his life, he didn’t know how much they would erase. “Before having a child I wasn’t expecting to have lots of free time, but I didn't realise I could go weeks with only doing any [music] at all.”
Even when he has a moment, the pleasure he gets from creating is tainted by the sense he should be doing something more “constructive”. “I feel like the time I use for creative pursuits is self-serving and I feel bad for doing them. I could be helping my wife with parenting, cleaning and spending time with my son. As much as I love being a father, I mourn the ability to be able to create music each day. It feels like a silly thing to get upset over, so it’s not something I've talked about with others generally.”
George might feel isolated, but he’s not alone. Researching this piece I was flooded with reflections from parents who were tormented by trying to find space to create. And amid all this pain was always a creeping question, one too tender to say out loud: What if I quit? Would the time, money, liberation from stress and guilt make up for abandoning a core part of myself?
The Promise of an Impossible Choice
“When I'm in the midst of [making art], it feels like the hardest thing. I’m always scowling, asking myself: ‘Why am I doing this? It’s too much pressure. My ego is getting bruised. I’m feeling guilty because I’m taking this time to myself, what’s the point of it all?”’ confesses Anu.
“But when I was on mat leave, not going to work, not doing my creative endeavours, I’d wake up feeling really good. Now I'm always thinking about work, what I'm doing, looking at my emails. If I didn't have that mental load I'd be liberated.”
It’s a choice that feels impossible, but one that people do make. Libby is an artist with two young kids. She was running a jewellery business when she had her first child, but the stress of balancing life, kids, finances and a creative output led her to give it up after her second was born.
Reflecting on the choice she remembers: “I found it really hard taking time away from the kids to work on something that wasn’t making money. And I wasn’t actually getting joy from it anymore, but I was so tied to it. My identity was tied to it. I felt like I couldn't give up on it. I wanted to have that thing that was mine outside of parenting.”
Cleaving apart these pieces of her identity was agonising, but the relief was real. “My motivation was getting lower and lower…I just needed to not be doing it anymore. And it felt good to give up and have space to focus on parenting and not have something hanging over me that I felt guilty about spending money on or guilty that it wasn’t succeeding.”
What Is Lost and What is Found
Libby’s realisation touches on something unsaid in all these debates: Is being a parent enough? Could I be fulfilled by the rest of my life? Could the other pieces of me expand to fill this void?
“I feel like at this point I need to let go of this idea that I'm going to be the person who's going to make this stuff, that part of my identity. Because if I can let go of that, maybe I can live with some peace…but I just don’t know if I can. If I can live with myself,” adds Anu.
For many, reducing a creative practice doesn’t end up feeling like a tragic loss. My friend in the cafe wasn’t heartbroken, honestly she seemed great. Yes, she was tired from work and family, but also lacking that shadow of existential distress that’s following so many of us. When I asked if she missed it she explained that she still considered herself a creative person, she just gets satisfaction in other ways: cooking, gardening, work and maybe most surprisingly, parenting.
Kashi is creative director, producer and “general creative” who works across art, TV, events, institutions, brands and advertising. Before she had her daughter Ocean two years ago, she was one of those mythical people who found their profession creatively fulfilling. But after becoming a mono-parent by choice, and continuing to live between Australia and the US (making childcare somewhat temperamental), some elements of the “be on set for six 13-hour-days” had to change. She was no longer able to take on as many of the exciting jobs she used to.
Now she works steadily for a more restrained roster of clients and is selective about what big projects can fit into her life as a parent. That has meant somewhat settling for consistency over the hustle of new things all the time. While her career is less freely creatively fulfilling, she knows: “A flexible, stable client is allowing me to work when I can and still have money to have fun and live the life that we want to live for now while she is so young.”
“Those big jobs still happen, but the behind the scenes production of nannies, time zones naps, finding activities for the kid and guilt-buying five giant aquarium plushies is sometimes not worth the time or money.”
Those adjustments have opened up new experiences though. “For me, having money makes me feel freer. Not just safer. I can travel overseas with my kid, and spend time in amazing places that make me feel connected to creativity.”
In short, she finds beauty and expression in her life, not just her art. “I found a lot of that happiness in the artform of being a parent, finding creative ways to experience parenthood and approaching it like it is an artform.”
“That presence with a child is amazing if you can sit down and just be drawing, or doing collage or going outside to make something…that’s another way to create and get viewpoints on your own artform, and also share that value with a child. To hopefully let them grow up to be a creative person.”
Reframing Art
If you asked me a year ago why I make art, I’d give that familiar answer. Because I have to.
Although there was more to it. When I was a kid, and I knew my parents were having friends over, I’d make a point of practising ballet in the kitchen. I said it was because the hard floors were easier to dance on. The truth was that while I wanted to be a ballerina, I also wanted to be seen as one. A version of that is still true.
I liked how creating made me feel. I also liked how it makes me look. I liked the attention and being thought of as a creative person. After all, if this wasn’t all tied to how we’re perceived the question of balance wouldn’t be so hard to strike. If writing was purely a compulsion, wouldn’t keeping a diary be enough? Wouldn’t Anu be satisfied videoing her kid? Or George singing nursery rhymes?
I don’t say any of this with judgement. It’s natural to ask for more than pleasure in return for our efforts. We exist in a capitalist system driven by attention economies that teach us value is driven by outcomes. We’re only worthy if we’re working, creating, delivering. To labour for something simpler is to waste time, energy, money. No wonder we’re all so guilty when we try to make something for ourselves.
That feels grim. But there is something lighter at play here too. In the past, we created to solidify a fantasy of ourselves, who we wanted to be and how we wanted to be seen. But speaking to people for this article, a new motivation emerged. We also make art to hold onto who we were.
For Chrissy, the founder and creative director of label Suku, making things is a way to look after herself. “To be honest, yes, it is stressful. But it’s important that I do it. When I’m doing art, I’m doing it for myself...I need time for myself to be able to keep giving to and serving my family.”
While she sometimes considers quitting or slowing down, she believes the balance she’d find wouldn’t be worth what she’d lose. “I look at the things I do as a remedy, especially to my anxiety and depression…When I feel like I want to give up I ask myself, ‘Well what are you going to do after that? Just service other people?’”
“I love being a mum, but the joy that comes with it is not the same as the joy that comes with creating something.”
That personal understanding eventually led Libby back to art–this time as a painter. Her new practice started during lockdown as an outlet not an income. “The happiness of making art definitely balances out the stress of trying to fit it all in. Sometimes it’s harder than others. When things go wrong with kids, you just have to have a level of flexibility to toss it aside…[but] I know it makes me a better parent when I have something creative on the go, I’m more present and happy in general.”
Creating art can be a painful process. And creating it with kids can feel impossible. But if we allow ourselves to let go of expectation, ego and the myth of a balanced life, new pleasures can emerge. It can be an act of preservation.
“[If I gave up] a piece of my identity would be gone,” says Anu. “The [creative] focus in my 20s had a lot to do with ego…but as I got older it became about making change, advocating for things, trying to find meaning and asking: ‘What’s my voice in this world?”
Despite my adolescent protests, of course I could live without creating things. My life would still be my own, sometimes frustrating, other times beautiful. Like Chrissy though, I have a feeling that by stopping to spend more time with my kid, I’d ultimately be taking something away from her. Not just a parent who feels whole, but also a dialogue.
When I was a child I danced in the kitchen to be witnessed. In a way, I’m still doing that. I make art to communicate with her. To express who I am, who I was, what I want to be, what I deserve. This work is a history for her to revisit, to understand me as a creature beyond her mother.
Yes, it’s still hard to take the time or break with the idea that my labour should always be rewarded through attention and commerce. But I hope that putting up with the stress and pain of making something shows her that it’s enough to exist for yourself.
Thank you for reading all the way to the bottom! I’d love to hear how you’re navigating all of this. Leave a comment, or catch me on Instagram (or Threads?) Also, if you enjoyed this article, give it a share.