The Writer is a Mother

There are enough posts, articles, and books about women balancing “home” and “career” to create a significant mass of space junk in low earth orbit. But it all may as well amalgamate as a black hole, because the topic is something each mother must dissect for herself. Others’ thoughts help somewhat, but there is a googleplex of paths and journeys, ways of thriving and ways of just “making it work.” What is my role in the home? Should I be making money, and if so, where? Should I feel guilty for wanting time away from my children? Should I feel stupid for not wanting time away from them? The answers to all of these questions are different for everyone, and everyone stumbles upon their answers at different moments in time. I’m realizing those answers change as seasons do.

Thanks to a conglomeration of sources, I have been thinking a lot about creativity, my dream to be a career author one day, and how that fits into my life currently as an (unpublished) wife and mom. All I have ever wanted is to become a published author, and by 2020, I’d written at least five novels and finally felt ready to jump in. I was sure that everyone else in the industry would immediately sense my ultra-readiness too and beg me to work with them. After my first child I devoted myself to what they call the “query trenches,” where I received upwards of eighty rejections on a young adult fantasy novel. I was disappointed, and disillusioned, but kept going. However, my time for writing grew shorter, my brain developed a few more splintering cracks, and when writing I felt the antsy unsettled-ness that crops up when you’re in the right place at the wrong time.

This spring, I read Patti Smith’s memoir, M Train, which she wrote while in her mid-sixties. This “slice of life” perspective from the successful and cultured mother of punk struck me deeply.

“When I found out I was pregnant, we headed back home to Detroit, trading one set of dreams for another. Fred finally achieved his pilot’s license but couldn’t afford to fly a plane. I wrote incessantly but published nothing. Through it all, we held fast to the concept of the clock with no hands. Tasks were completed, sump pumps manned, sandbags piled, trees planted, shirts ironed, hems stitched, and yet we reserved the right to ignore the hands that kept on turning. Looking back, long after [Fred’s] death, our way of living seems a miracle, one that could only be achieved through the silent synchronization of the jewels and gears of a common mind.” – M Train, Patti Smith, pg 87

After she’d experienced so much success in the music industry, I was surprised by the fondness of which she wrote about this simple, domestic chapter of her life. She seemed to recognize just how short that chapter was for her – but she seemed to fully immerse herself in it, with ample time to spare after that cover closed. More time to write, more time to explore, albeit sadly alone after her husband Fred’s death.

Then a friend sent me a Substack article by

Catherine Oliver

that quoted Elizabeth Gaskell.

“One thing is pretty clear: Women must give up living an artist’s life, if home duties are to be paramount. It is different with men, whose home duties are so small a part of their life. However we are talking of women. I am sure it is healthy for them to have the refuge of the hidden world of Art to shelter themselves in when too much pressed on by daily Lilliputian arrows of peddling cares…”

I found myself nodding as I read this quote, while simultaneously spitting back a retort. “That’s ridiculous. You can do both.” But the more I thought about it, the more I realized a painful dichotomy that exists within myself, and no doubt within hundreds of other women inclined toward the arts.

An image came to my mind. My two booted feet, with one firmly planted on a dock and one on a boat pulling relentlessly at fraying ties. For my entire career as a homemaker, I’ve had a “one foot in, one foot out” mentality, with always the pressing sensation that: I have more important work to do. I’ve believed wholeheartedly in millennial mantras. “You can be anything.” “If you work hard enough, you can achieve all your dreams.” “If you believe something will happen, it will happen.” Throughout every social activity, or every agonizing moment with a child who won’t put their shoes on, always, the hourglass in my head ticks ticks ticks on. Almost everyone from my 2020 writers’ group is published now. Why not me? Because I stopped putting in the work? I stopped hustling? When was the last time I stayed up past my husband, hammering a keyboard and burning with the light of creative genius?

I actually did stay up late writing a few weeks ago. But there was no light and no creative genius; I was at a party I didn’t wanna be at. But how do I become a best-selling author if I don’t write novels? This is the career I’ve always wanted, so I need to work harder. I need to believe it will happen and it will. Right? However I answer the question, I can’t answer with a real smile. If a dream changes shape, does that mean it fails, or just flies in a different direction?

The boat pulls away from the dock. I have to make a choice, because I see that this dichotomy within is robbing me. I want to keep one foot in the world of career dreams, but none of those are real right now. For me, that implies less time in my precious Real World, my new green leafing, new-teething, covered in fresh aromatic sawdust world. My brand new home is being built around me. My garden is full of life and my plot of land is overgrown with possibilities.

Others are able to pursue a writing career while also pouring into their kids and community and all the things. I am not Others. When I question what my priorities should be, I need to ask the One who knows. What is God calling me toward in this season of life? Where is he leading my tenuous and fractured focus? He instantly brings Philippians 3 to my mind. “Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in Him…” this is the prayer of my heart.

Deferring my dream of being a Published Super Successful Author because I’d rather focus on my family? That goes against most things I know about being a millennial and everything I know about being an American. But it fits what I could never quite grasp about being a Christian.

I pray that God will finally give me the willingness to release this pearlescent balloon I have been gripping with all my strength. I also dare to pray that after it has completely disappeared from my sight into the blue that He will catch it and loop it onto one of his million pinky fingers and save it for later. I hear Him reminding me gently that I should keep writing. I only need to surrender the motives behind it.

So here I am. It is May, and the trees have just burst into the most lovely greenscale. I am where I belong.

I am typing something, and I have no grand plan for it. It’s just a Substack. I am where I belong.

My three year old wakes up at half past six and wants to read books with me in the big green chair. I am where I belong.

I watch cooking shows with my husband and mock the contestants, while I pull the world’s most lopsided loaf of bread out of the oven. I am where I belong.

No guilt. No more discontentment. Two feet planted on the deck of a ship heading into the most beautiful sunrise while the dock grows smaller and smaller. With me I have a stack of books written by the greats, and an empty notebook. A pen tucked into my hat. I’ll be back someday to claim my dream. Until then, I chase the clock with no hands.

*photo by Shaun Terhune