Like most three year olds, Curly Girl does not like to go to bed. Her most recent attempt to avoid sleep involved starting an art project five minutes before she was supposed to be changing into her PJs. When I told her that said project would need to wait until the next day, her response was:
“People who like art very much need to be able to do their own thing.”
I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. But motherhood has complicated “doing my own thing.” At any given time I am wearing multiple hats, trying to balance the roles of mother, artist, friend and wife, just to name a few. I find myself torn between trying to remain true to my professional goals, and being as present as possible for Curly Girl. My head knows that taking the time and space for myself is important and sets a good example, but it’s awfully hard to feel good about going to rehearsal when I leave a sobbing three year old behind who just doesn’t understand why I won’t be there to put her to sleep that night.
Here are a few methods that I’ve been exploring in the attempt to find balance.
1. ART IN SMALL BATCHES
Whether you have an infant who snoozes for an hour or a preschooler whom you allow 20 minutes of video watching, these small chunks of time represent opportunities for work on your craft. Instead of trolling Facebook or Twitter when you have down time, use these short windows of breathing space to incorporate a bit of your art into your life.
- If you’re working on an audition, have your sides printed out and ready to go or loaded onto your tablet so that you can work on whenever an opportunity presents itself.
- Invest in cloud storage so that you can review video segments from any location, such as the waiting room at your kiddo’s ballet school (just don’t forget the headphones!).
- Identify small tasks that can be accomplished without a marathon writing session, such as researching just one idea for the current article or script you’re working on. Keep this list of ideas on your smart phone so that it’s always accessible. Find an app, such as Evernote, that allows you to easily keep track of what you find so that you can incorporate it into your work at a later point. This way, if your infant falls asleep on your chest on the couch, you can actually get something done while he or she snoozes. You’d be amazed how much can be accomplished with one-handed typing!
2. CREATIVITY SIDE BY SIDE
As Curly Girl has gotten older, she’s become more interested in what I’m doing. One of the most satisfying solutions to the work/life balance conundrum occurs when I can encourage her own creative pursuits while I’m doing the things my work requires. There are many ways to do this; here are two examples.
- I recently needed to send a graphic designer some examples of logos so that he could get a sense of what I wanted for a project we were working on together. While I scoured the Internet, Curly Girl sat in my lap and commented on the logos that she liked. She had a fun time identifying the colors and shapes on the screen; I looked over her should with a more critical eye, copying and pasting what I needed into a document to send along to the designer. I then printed out the favorites and gave them to Curly Girl with some markers so that she could color while I typed up my notes.
- Getting dressed for auditions is always a challenge with an attention demanding preschooler. Instead of fighting it and getting frazzled, I now invite Curly Girl into the bathroom while doing my hair and make up. As I primp, she does her own version of “pat pat,” using face paint crayons to turn herself into various jungle animals, and then makes up dances for each of them (we’ve been reading a lot of Giraffes Can’t Dance lately).
3. FIND A BABYSITTER YOU TRUST
Invest in yourself. If parenting is getting in the way of your work, make a commitment for a specified period of time to something that will activate you as an artist. Acting class. Writing workshop. Open mic night. Or simply a writing date with yourself at a local coffeehouse. But by booking the babysitter, you’ll accomplish two goals at the same time: accountability and a brief artistic oasis for yourself. The accountability comes from the fact that you are actually paying someone to free up time for your work. Or if a family member is doing you a favor, you don’t want to abuse their generous donation of time. Sometimes this type of external pressure is just what we need to jumpstart our work.
If you don’t have a regular sitter already, check out a service such as Sitter City, see if your synagogue or church has a teen babysitting pool or find a local Mom’s Club and post a request asking for referrals on their online message board.
4. YOUR FAMILY WILL UNDERSTAND MORE THAN YOU GIVE THEM CREDIT FOR
In this interview with Rice Freeman-Zachary (Creative Time and Space: Making Room for Art) from Kate Harper’s Greeting Card Designer blog, the artist and author talks about the idea that we often use the excuse that our families would fall apart if we quit cooking dinner or reneged on carpool duty. While obviously there are certain basic needs that must be met, I have found it empowering to consider her words when in the process of prioritizing the items on my To Do List.
What you need to think about is what you want to remember as you’re lying on your deathbed. Do you want to remember mounds of snowy, neatly folded sheets, or do you want to remember painting a tree? And how do you think your family wants to remember you? As someone who always had shiny tableware, or as someone who was joyously mixing pigments and singing at the easel? Your family loves you; they want you to be happy. If you’re an artist, you can’t be really happy unless you’re creating.
5. DON’T FLAGELLATE YOURSELF
Sometimes you’re just not going to be able to do it all. Your child will get sick and you will miss an audition. He’ll wake up in the middle of the night and keep you up for hours when you need to look camera ready the next day. She’ll refuse to nap just at the time you’ve scheduled a production conference call.
I have personally experienced all of these situations, and the results are not pretty. I get frustrated with my kiddo for not behaving the way I need in a given moment. Then I feel like a bad parent because I am frustrated – after all, she’s just being a three year old. Cue: wave of guilt. Which then sets off a lovely dose of rebellious resentment – why am I feeling guilty about trying to get work done? I’m an independent, strong female, damn it! Which leads back to more frustration, and the whole cycle begins again.
Bottom line, by choosing parenthood, you’ve chosen a more chaotic path. But beating yourself up when things don’t go as planned doesn’t help anyone. It takes you out of the moment, rendering you incapable of being either a good parent or a productive artist. Instead, take a deep breath, make alternate arrangements if possible and enjoy the opportunity to snuggle with your sick kid and watch The Muppets.
If you’ve found effective ways to find the time for your work while trying to balance all of your other commitments, please share them in the comments below!