00:02:15.200Our kids do not need perfect parents who are around them all the time, hovering over their
00:02:20.820every move. They want parents who are there. And I think as important as that, they need parents
00:02:26.420who are lit up by doing something that they love and they need to see that. Here's my chat with
00:02:32.100Em. I'm so excited to be here with you today to talk about one of my favorite subjects, which is
00:02:40.980creativity and motherhood and whether or not the two can exist together.
00:02:47.540What did you think was going to happen to your creativity when you had a kid?
00:02:51.960In the gestation process of creating a child, as the child was growing, there was impending doom,
00:02:59.120maybe the feeling of pressure of not knowing what was going to happen next of like, I can't
00:03:06.440believe how productive I was in the few months that I knew that I was pregnant like I went crazy
00:03:13.740I have two kids and both times like not knowing what life was going to be like after you added
00:03:21.280another person to your circle of influence like I just I was producing so many pages and editing
00:03:28.960everything and trying to finish everything that I had ever started because the fear of course
00:03:35.280is that you'll never write again the fear is that you'll never get something out into the real into
00:03:41.980the world you know like that ever again ever again yeah that life is going to change and you're going
00:03:47.580to change and everything's going to be different and that's preposterous you're just adding a new
00:03:52.400relationship to your life like we never feel that way when we're like i want to go and have a
00:03:58.060relationship like when you're going out on a dating app or something you don't go wow i wonder
00:04:02.920if this is going to affect my creativity if i find a girlfriend i wonder if if i get married
00:04:08.460is it going to totally change my productivity because you wouldn't get married if it was going
00:04:15.480to change your creative right like right just but we do but we do think it about parenting jobs
00:04:24.540because people keep equating parenthood with a career should be like you know like when you were
00:04:31.540little and your parent had a second child you're suddenly a big sister and now you have to figure
00:04:39.040out what that means in your life you're suddenly a mom you have to figure out what that means in
00:04:43.620your life it doesn't mean like you have like i don't know mothers don't have bosses we are the
00:04:49.840bosses we are we are the bosses we are we are as my daughter likes to say i'm the boss of my body
00:04:56.020that's what i'm like yeah you are girl yeah you are but i'm i'm with you when i was pregnant i was
00:05:02.820the most creative and the most productive that i had ever been and i will say that i am also much
00:05:10.960more productive and efficient post having kids now and i don't know if that was because of the fear
00:05:17.060or the hormones or a mixture of all of this but i talk to young women a lot who are afraid
00:05:24.200to have kids because they do have that fear. They do think that they're never
00:05:29.260going to achieve a creative life. And I like to talk about my life as often as possible because
00:05:35.320I think that I've found a way to do both. I feel like a very present mother of three kids and I
00:05:41.980feel like a very productive author and creative person in the world. And it's hard, but everything
00:05:46.940is hard. Everything is hard. There you go. That's like the thing. Everything is hard, but everything
00:05:53.520is possible. Like, yeah, you're going to have to work. And then there's a lot of reward when you
00:06:01.660work hard, when you organize your time or or even if you're not an organized person, when you're the
00:06:07.740kind of person that just grabs a few minutes here and there and make something out of them. Or if
00:06:11.900you're not that kind of person, if you're a kind of person who goes and gets an accountability
00:06:16.500group and becomes accountable to somebody else for your writing, it doesn't matter how you make
00:06:22.280it work what matters is that you want to you your desire to have a creative life and then you make
00:06:29.880it happen for yourself there are so many ways to succeed in the world you know there's one way to
00:06:36.600fail that's the quit yeah no absolutely so yeah talk to me a little bit about you have your first
00:06:43.280kid and you're very very prolific and the creativity is just bubbling up what happens in
00:06:50.120your life afterwards? Well, obviously that's going to depend on how much support you have from
00:06:55.640whoever made the kid with you or whoever you're taking care of the kid with, or if you're alone.
00:07:01.700Like your support system is going to make a lot of difference as to how much negotiating you have
00:07:08.900to do. But basically I would say that when you add a child as a new relationship in your life,
00:07:15.240Now you have to reassess your time, your energy, and your money, and how much you're going to allocate to yourself, to your career, to your hobbies, to your showering capabilities.
00:07:29.200I was out of negotiations about that, right?
00:07:44.620But, or you can just shower shorter and more frequently.
00:07:47.840There's a million, like I said, there's a thousand solutions identifying that there is a situation is first.
00:07:57.140You're like, okay, my new situation is I am 24-7 in charge of a helpless human being until that helpless human being becomes a capable adult.
00:08:09.340and then you know how do how do i enable that helpless human being to become a capable human
00:08:18.160being and then everything else is like what else am i going to do with my time like am i going to
00:08:23.840spend 100 of my time turning this person into a capable i'm going to believe that they're going
00:08:27.520to help and i'm going to step back and take care of myself too because i'm still a human being
00:08:31.640and i would like to maintain the human beingness of myself man i'm so intrigued by this idea of
00:08:39.860adulthood right now like what you were saying about the young person being terrified of becoming
00:08:45.660a parent i think that has a lot to do with all of us being terrified of being adults because
00:08:51.580it's too much we're being asked we ask ourselves we ask of ourselves to be too much
00:08:57.420we are too much world is too much it just feels like you just want to like hide from it and
00:09:04.280not do anything but i think it's better if we do at least what we can do and what can we do is
00:09:11.420write something interesting that people will enjoy reading write something that might make somebody
00:09:17.700think. No, I think, and I think, I think we do. I think you've really hit on something.
00:09:26.400Adulting in this day and age is so much more work than it was a generation ago. I mean,
00:09:34.580the world is different. I think the world is harder. We also put so many bigger and scarier
00:09:42.200expectations on ourselves. And I just, I do wish that we could find ways to give ourselves more
00:09:51.600grace in this crazy world. I love this idea of, well, you know, a lot of people are shutting off
00:10:00.980or at least monitoring their exposure to, let's call it the news. But what it really is, is
00:10:09.320not just national, international, and global news, but also the news of what their friend
00:10:15.900is doing right this very second. The news of somebody just bought a new dress that you would
00:10:20.980like to have. Somebody just, their child just started walking and yours hasn't. Like there's
00:10:26.440all this information that we allow to affect us constantly. And many people are sort of
00:10:36.940trying to shut that down some people it's it's binary they're like i'm off of everything i'm
00:10:42.580never looking at the news again i don't think that seems healthy either but and i an idea for
00:10:48.780being able to manage this 24 7 fire hose of information that we're being asked to judge
00:10:56.920it might be to like take breaks from it yeah i don't think that we were ever meant to live like
00:11:05.700this um this intensely online all of the time it's so much and it's too much it truly truly is
00:11:15.220but we need some like we need to know it's important to know things and to be aware of
00:11:22.960things outside of just like our our bedrooms or our homes like to be aware of the world at large
00:11:29.260without feeling overwhelmed with the responsibility for the world or or even to live up to other
00:11:37.780people's expectations. There's just so much to think about when it comes to all this information
00:11:43.940that comes at us. It's like, you know, already social media asks us every single thing that we
00:11:50.340see on social media. We are making a decision whether we like it or don't like it or don't
00:11:57.020have an opinion on like we know that if we interact with a post we're going to get more
00:12:02.300posts like that right so if you interact with a book post you get more book posts so
00:12:08.640we go and interact hopefully we go and interact with book posts to get more book posts
00:12:13.180it's distracting and difficult because of course the algorithm wants to give you
00:12:21.440things that upset you things that you know move you and yes that is indeed the world that we live
00:12:29.600in all right let's let's take a let's take a quick break here and when we get back i want
00:12:34.880to talk a little bit about pen parentis and what made you start this group
00:12:40.140okay we are back i want to talk a little bit about what pen parentis is and what they do
00:12:54.560they are a literary non-profit that help writers stay on their creative tracks after they have
00:13:01.080kids one of the things they do so well is creating community among parent writers through weekly
00:13:06.800meetups, as well as monthly literary events online. They bring on really successful writers
00:13:11.660and other kinds of creatives who've balanced parenting and their craft. For me, it's the
00:13:16.480community. It always is. I say that. Look, like, parenting doesn't just take a village. Life takes
00:13:21.840a village. And that is what I'm getting into with Em in the second half of this episode.
00:13:27.600So there's so many different community aspects of what you're doing. How important is it
00:13:36.780for parents who who want to who want to be in these creative careers how important is it to
00:13:44.140find a community and find a community that is going to support you i would say it is the number
00:13:49.220one most vital thing in the universe to have a writing community even if that is one person
00:13:56.160who is eager to read what you have written and some people find that community on like instagram
00:14:03.940They might have people that care, but I don't think you'll keep writing if nobody cares.
00:14:11.900And that's why I think the community is so important.
00:14:14.520And I mean, that's for parents, that's for anybody.
00:14:16.840When you finish your MFA program or if you've written something, you've written a poem, you want somebody to read it.
00:14:25.200And before you can launch it into the world, a lot of times you need somebody to help you make it better.
00:14:33.940And so, like, having a writing community is just, it's absolutely vital. You find your editors, you find your readers, you find opinions, you find your, what are they called, sensitivity readers. You expand your resources exponentially when you have other writers to talk to.
00:14:50.820And that was one of the reasons that we started Pemprentes. When I say we, I mean, I. I didn't have, I had my grad school friends, but none of them had kids. Well, one of them had kids. And she and I would go to lunch and be like, how do people do this?
00:15:07.440And so she and I together started this reading series that we just presented writers who have
00:15:14.680kids. And from this reading series, people would come up to us after the readers would read and be
00:15:20.220like, I want to join this organization. And I would say, there's no organization. And eventually
00:15:26.460I'm like, maybe we should make an organization. And my friend was like, I'm a writer. I just want
00:15:30.200to write. And I said, well, I'll do this organization. So I started the organization.
00:15:34.020But it was literally because everybody seemed to want it so badly. Like, people just, they have their parent friends, but they don't, like, after they have kids, they no longer have such tight contact with their writer friends. Because writer parents have unique issues.
00:15:55.940Talk to me a little bit about that. What do you think are the unique issues of writer parents?
00:16:01.580I would say, well, one of them is the fact that a lot of our choices are made for our kids.
00:16:07.020So where you live is no longer I live in the best literary community I can find.
00:16:14.360It is I live where I can afford to live or where my kids will have a yard or whatever reason that is child centric near some special needs school that my kid has to go to.
00:16:27.560Like, those are adult choices that you are choosing for somebody else, not necessarily for yourself. And just to make sure that your family is better, you know. Sometimes people go where their spouse works, right? And creating that new writing community over and over again, that's a uniquely parent, I think. I don't know if it's uniquely parent, but it's a very parent-known thing.
00:16:53.780But then also the 24-7 of being a writer and the 24-7 of being a parent will frequently conflict in the sense that, you know, your kid has a fever and you have to go and pick them up even though you have an agent meeting that day.
00:17:11.580And that is a typical conflict that working parents have. But very few emerging writers consider themselves professional enough to be able to say, wow, you know what, husband, I have an agent meeting. Could you go and pick up my child?
00:17:30.620the mom is like no my child i must go pick up my child you know and so i'm not saying that it's one
00:17:39.660is more important than the other i think that the problem is is that people equate them as one is
00:17:45.160more important than the other and i don't think it is i think it's a i think it's one is a business
00:17:51.840choice and one is a personal i have to do this choice if that makes sense no it makes it makes
00:17:58.960a ton of sense you bring together so many writers who are also parents what is some of the best
00:18:04.100or or most surprising advice that you've heard from them surprising advice um i mean the best
00:18:11.920advice is just keep going and find the time make the time make the time is really the best advice
00:18:18.180you can outsource a lot of household stuff that isn't like laundry or like you can teach your
00:18:27.860kids how to do the laundry a lot younger than you think you can oh but how young how young did you
00:18:33.800teach your kids to do the laundry i don't know my i mean my kids my kids didn't do a lot of laundry
00:18:39.140but but i got my spouse to do laundry for a while i found myself outsourcing a lot of housework
00:18:44.540because or just not doing it as often and dealing with it all at once or doing it with the kids
00:18:51.320around. Like a lot of times, I think when I had really young kids, the common thing to do was to
00:19:00.540spend, let's call it quote unquote quality time, which meant educating them. Like you're sitting
00:19:08.060there and you're being a teacher, doing flashcards or, you know, this is what people were doing on
00:19:12.400the internet. People were showing off their infant flashcard sets and how quickly their child
00:19:18.860learned numbers it was kind of the crazy time because when i started pen prentice it was
00:19:24.660remember 2009 and in 2009 that was when the first mommy blogger crested uh six figures
00:19:33.940and so the questions that i was asked once i graduated from i have an mfa from columbia
00:19:41.020and i wanted to be a writer and i here i am i'm out in the world i'm winning awards i find myself
00:19:47.240pregnant and people are saying oh you have a child are you a mommy blogger and i'm like no i'm a i
00:19:55.540want what no i can't novel like oh is it for children no i'm like i was just so baffled by
00:20:05.780this because i thought do people do this to their doctors like when their doctor says oh you know
00:20:11.900i know that i'm the best heart surgeon in this city i just discovered that i'm pregnant do they
00:20:17.000go, oh, are you going to become a pediatrician now? Like nobody does that, but they do it.
00:22:05.960You've had so many people come through pen parentis. How often do you hear people say,
00:22:12.580oh, well, I feel guilt or shame when I choose my kids over my writing or my writing over my kids?
00:22:19.780I mean, it's like we can't win, right? Correct. If you balance them against each other on a
00:22:25.260scales of justice, you are going to feel miserable no matter what. When you're writing, you'll hate
00:22:31.180the fact that you're not with your kids. When you're with your kids, you're going to hate the
00:22:34.260fact that you're not writing. It is not a scales of justice type balance. I think you have to think
00:22:40.180of balance as a large mobile, like a calder, like a thousand pieces. And one of them is big and one
00:22:46.840of them is small. And the closer it is to the center, the more stable it is. And the farther
00:22:52.500away it is from your center, from what you care about, the more it can go up and down and you can
00:22:57.880like not do it for a while. Like, I mean, how many of us play the instrument that we played when we
00:23:02.540were in middle school. You know what I mean? Like, like, you just it's just farther away from
00:23:08.520what you care about. So it can go up and down. If you care about something, bring it closer to the
00:23:15.460center. And then it'll be more stable. So you care about your job, you care about your writing,
00:23:22.440your writing is your job, you keep it very close, you know. And your child is obviously going to be
00:23:28.820right near that center, right? But when you first put a child on that kind of big mobile, like a
00:23:34.380baby mobile, it's like putting a bowling ball on the mobile. Yeah, you can balance it, but it's
00:23:40.200initially it takes a lot and everything is going to move around and then it will all stabilize.
00:23:48.340I think that's that. I mean, we hope we hope, right? And I think that's something good to
00:23:53.100remember, too, that none of this really happens right away. It's a process, right? You're not
00:24:00.600going to hop a baby out of your vagina and the next day finish a novel. And some people have.1.00
00:24:07.680I mean, I think that I think the thing is that we shouldn't do is compare ourselves to other
00:24:12.560parents. Every kid is completely different. Also, every book is completely different.
00:24:17.960When you're creating something, you have to be in a relationship with that thing, whether it's a baby or a person or a book or a, it's so much about relationships and that, like you said, it has to evolve. It has to, you have to, one of the things, oh, you asked me about guilt.
00:24:36.820And one of the things that these meetups do is we realize that we all are weighed down by the same guilt, no matter if it is a person who is, I don't know, growing their own radishes and masticating them on purpose organically for their child, or a person who is like, you know what, go eat this chicken nugget that's frozen because I don't have time.
00:25:00.000Like, it doesn't matter. You're still feeling guilty. You haven't done enough. You can never do enough for your kid ever. And so that feeling like you have to get rid of that guilt feeling before you even move in to the guilt of what you are doing with yourself.
00:25:17.960like yeah i mean i also feel like i can never do enough for my writing either i mean i turned in
00:25:26.080i turned in a book today and congratulations thank you that's amazing um yeah no it's great
00:25:34.080i mean it's the final draft and it's going off to copy editing but i also now i have that feeling
00:25:40.820i'm like i didn't do enough i didn't like oh my gosh i should have spent more and more hours
00:25:46.480researching. I should have revised more. I didn't do enough. And so I feel that guilt on both sides
00:25:51.940and it sucks. But it's the guilt of the creator. Our creation is never perfect. We must continue0.82
00:25:59.920to just make new stuff. Like we put new things in the world. Each time you do it, you do another
00:26:06.060thing. It's you have more time. You have time to make the next book. It can whatever four things
00:26:13.260you didn't put into this book you could put them in the next book and i mean and i the same with
00:26:20.080the kid like the kid is not gonna it's not gonna ruin them if you played with them for 15 minutes
00:26:26.660or you played with them for 17 and a half minutes it's not gonna change who they are inherently as
00:26:33.340people I don't think I think we really put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do things to make our
00:26:45.640creations perfect but I think that the creation's perfect it just came out and there it is and now
00:26:51.120we have to I don't know decorate it it's all decoration no now we have to sell it friend
00:27:06.440How have you seen parenting change since 2009 when you first started this?
00:27:14.760Well, I think in 2009, it really was like a lot of parents went into blogging because that was where the money was.
00:27:23.360And since you're obviously when you have a kid, one of your issues is we have to pay for college someday. And so there's a lot of money pressures that you may not have when you're by yourself, if you have to pay your rent when you're by yourself. But like once you have other people dependent on that, your money issues get higher.
00:27:41.660So monetizing parenthood is a terrible, frightening thing. But I think that it started in 2009 and hopefully we are pulling slightly away from it. Although I don't know, like everybody's monetizing everything right now to an extreme extent.
00:28:02.300oh watch watch people take shares out on celebrity babies there's a thought
00:28:08.160it's just all so wild so all right well give me your best advice what is your best advice
00:28:13.980for someone who is about to bring a child into the world but they still want to live a creative life
00:28:20.460my best advice is remember that the writing is really important too that it is not
00:28:29.700diametrically opposed to you having a child, but it is having a child with a delighted parent
00:28:38.320who is fulfilled and happy is what a child wants.
00:28:45.040Like, they want their mom to be happy. They want their dad to be fulfilled. They don't want a
00:28:53.540miserable parent so if you take away the things that you love so quote unquote for the child
00:29:00.800not only will you resent your child but you'll also be miserable yourself so don't do it and
00:29:07.320that is that is the worst thing i mean not the worst thing there's hair there's so many so many
00:29:11.240terrible things but you know to have an unhappy parent is very stressful on a child as well and
00:29:19.380I think it's important to remember that it is not selfish to take time for you, to take time for your
00:29:24.240art, to take time for your job. It is not a selfish thing. So many people, adults, come to, single
00:29:31.040adults who do not have kids, or some of them have chosen never to have kids, they come to our salons
00:29:36.560and they say to me afterwards, oh my god, my mom was a poet. I wish that this organization had
00:29:43.740existed for my mom because she was so unhappy that she didn't go deeper into it. And sometimes
00:29:51.240it's poetry, sometimes it's like writing a novel or something like that, or like painting, like a
00:29:57.960lot of creative things. The children, the grown children of adults who have stifled their own
00:30:04.400creativity feel so bad for their parent. So if you remember that, when you're trying to deal with
00:30:10.700Like, do I take this five minutes and just sit in the corner and cry?
00:30:16.620Or do I go take this five minutes and write a poem about how bad I feel?
00:30:29.680So me, my writing is on mmdevoe.com, and my profit is open doors, welcome for anybody at any writing stage, at any stage of their parenting career, is at penparentis.org.
00:30:46.860And penparentis is like pen, and then the word parent, and then I-S, like is.
00:30:53.480So penparentis.org and all of the social media are at penparentis.
00:30:58.780So we are on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and I don't even know what else.
00:31:05.380Thank you so much for being here with me today.