My sister wrote a post thinking through the affects of her writing aspirations on her young family. Her conclusion was that while it was important to prioritize her family above her writing, it was also important that she maintain a creative outlet. I couldn’t help but chime in supporting her conclusions. Then I liked my response so much that I’m pasting it here for my own reference.
The worst thing you could possibly do is to give up who you are to devote yourself to your family. You will not be happy and in the long run it will not be good for them. Mommy with an identity crisis is not good for anyone.
Our mother ALWAYS had something creative when we were growing up. Remember those fabric paint parties, painting plaster figurings, painting rocks, crochet, belonging to craft boutiques, 12 days of christmas, rooms filled with newspaper and balloons just for fun, the list goes on. Lots of times it was a project we could participate in, but there was always something.
My advice also comes from recent personal experience. I’ve spent most of the last 10 years head down in mothering. Most of my creative energies were funnelled into parenting, child management, and actively encouraging developmental growth in the kids. After all those years I managed to lose myself. I honestly didn’t know what to do with myself when I wasn’t being a mommy or a wife. I felt that there probably should be something more, but I wasn’t sure where to find it.
About two years ago my personal rennaissance began. Some of it can be attributed to the lower levels of stress post-Novell. Some I attribute to my involvement in livejournal which cracked the floodgates behind which I’d hidden my inner storyteller. Some is simply because I no longer have a baby in the house and I have larger blocks of time. For whatever reason, over these past two years I’ve developed a strong personal identity. I know who I am. I know what I am good at. I know what I aspire to be in the future.
If you can shortcut the losing self/finding self process that so many mommies have to go through, you’ll be ahead of the game.
If you can shortcut the losing self/finding self process that so many mommies have to go through, you’ll be ahead of the game.
Hmm. Maybe I just never had a “me” to lose to begin with, or maybe I just enjoyed the whole loss/reforming process. I don’t know. It’s been very empowering for me to completely involve myself in something and then to begin to rebuild who I am. I still have a bare bones structure built — I’ve got an infant to focus on — but I’m enjoying the gradual process.
I had written a fairly long “here, here!” reply, but LJ ate it. So. (cough) “Here, here!”
And.. Being a mom is a creative endeavor, don’t let anybody tell you differently. Engaging the mind of one (or more) child to amuse, educate, and enlighten is a challenge requiring a flexible and creative mind (especially on a rainy day. ugh).
Still, it’s easy to let the crowding of Things To Do and so on swallow our creative impulses for ourselves, whether we work at-home or away-from-home. I get this strangely unsettled feeling when it’s been too long since I painted or crafted, the way I suspect other women get when they need to be pampered. Pull out the paints, finish a project, and voila! the itch is quieted for a while. Happy creating!
Even if you had a good sense of who you were before child(ren), you’re still going to do a little bit of this searching. After all, you’re not that woman anymore. You’re a Mom now, and corny though it sounds, you’re forever changed. The trick is for us to realize that “Mom” isn’t the only description that applies, even now.
I have ALWAYS had the NEED to do be creative. Creative with whatever I could get my hands on! A Jack of All Trades, Master of None. I remember being a little girl playing with my mom’s cross-stitch material and some tape and thread and making a bustier for my barbie. (I know, weird.) If I don’t get to be creative for a while, it’s like a building pressure in my heart and head. Then when I finally get to do something creative, the pressure goes away in a big huge rushing flood of relief. ahhh, that hit the spot!
That build up of pressure has made me volunteer for things at church that I normally wouldn’t have… 🙂 And probably was a factor in me being the Enrichment Leader at church.
Just yesterday I figured out that in May, I will have officially been crocheting for 6 years! 1/2 of my marriage. It’s been a creative self-life saving activity. I love it! and I love teaching it to others to help them have something creative (and practical) to do.
I’ve watched my mom go from cross stitch to hardanger to gourmet cooking to dyeing cloth to quilting. (with who knows what else in between!) I can see in her a DESPERATE need to be doing something creative, yet sometimes with a short attention span. (long enough to learn a craft and do a couple of projects) Luckily, Quilting has held her creative attention long enough to want to make a baby quilt and a big boy or girl quilt for each grandchild and a Married Quilt for each of her kids. (and have a “Quilting Room” full of thousands of dollars of material!) I’m glad she’s found a good creative outlet to hold on to for a long time. However that means that I can’t quilt because Quilting has been HER self esteem / identity maker. That’s okay, I don’t mind being the Crochet Lady or the Cake/Dessert Lady… but, maybe I’ll secretly try my hand at quilting one of these days…shhh, don’t tell my mom! 🙂
P.S.
I heard on the news that mothers have higher IQs than women who don’t have children. Because: When you have children you really have to multi-task and you have to be very creative and fast to figure out new situations (which happen every day for 20+ years).
The news didn’t mention anything on the news about mothers having to memorize books (children’s books AND How to help your kids ____ books etc.), and memorize every character on children’s programming and every song sung on t.v. with those programs, and deciphering coded languages of a 3 -4 yr. old, and memorizing First Aid/medical texts, and children’s psychology, etc.
(sorry I’m so tired and chatty today, I could go on forever, but, I’m sure you got my point with the 1st and 2nd sentence… {:)
You make a good point. For years I enjoyed “losing myself” in mothering, especially when it was all new. It was only after about 8 years that I realized that I’d lost track of how to be anything except “mom.” I’ve spent the last two years recreating my non-mother identity.
Yeah. Craft stores thrive because people tend to sate their need to create by buying lots of supplies and then not doing much with them. I’m glad your mom has found joy in quilting. I hope that some day she can be secure enough that you taking up quilting won’t be a threat to her creative outlet.
I wish you lived closer so you could help Kiki with her crocheting. She took a class through her school and is very interested in it right now.
Ahh, see, I had no interest in recreating it. It was liberating to have a chance to start over from scratch and be the adult I want to be, not the one I’d been before.
That would certainly make a difference. 🙂
My mom is also an avid quilter, and one of my sisters sews beautifully. I don’t really want to take up quilting, because it’s kind of their thing… not because of their self-esteem, but because it seems redundant.
I’m still searching for one particular type of craft or creative outlet that grabs me, but for me, it’s the search, and the journey, that’s the fun. Learning new crafts, trying new ideas, getting comfortable enough to go without a recipe or template (with sometimes amazing, sometimes dreadful results), ahhhh that’s the stuff.
Because so much of what I like best to do is small and cute, I thought long and hard about starting a crafting business. But it’s not for me. I just can’t force myself to do the same image over and over. bleeeeh.
I don’t know about your mom… my mom had a frame but never even set it up (which as just as well, it broke half way through my first quilt). I’d have been delighted if she had quilted. (I’d be delighted if she would now) My older girl is hopeless in that department.. she doesn’t even like quilts but the younger one keeps asking me to “make this quilt for me”. My response is that I’ll teach her to quilt but she has to make it herself. I’m hoping that one day there will be one she wants SO much that she does. I would really love for her to pick it up! I’d even teach her how to sew and quilt on a machine (ick) just to have her start quilting.
PS. I’m not an ogre… I made her one quilt and she has another one that was embroidered by her great grandmother and will be quilted by me but she doesn’t get that one until she’s AT LEAST 16… maybe older.
I don’t know about your mom… my mom had a frame but never even set it up (which as just as well, it broke half way through my first quilt). I’d have been delighted if she had quilted. (I’d be delighted if she would now) My older girl is hopeless in that department.. she doesn’t even like quilts but the younger one keeps asking me to “make this quilt for me”. My response is that I’ll teach her to quilt but she has to make it herself. I’m hoping that one day there will be one she wants SO much that she does. I would really love for her to pick it up! I’d even teach her how to sew and quilt on a machine (ick) just to have her start quilting.
PS. I’m not an ogre… I made her one quilt and she has another one that was embroidered by her great grandmother and will be quilted by me but she doesn’t get that one until she’s AT LEAST 16… maybe older.
I noticed that… and to me, even when I’m doing it, it seems odd since that’s the exact opposite of what I understand the spirit of quilting to be… which was to make something both useful and beautiful out of leftovers and things that weren’t any use otherwise.
I noticed that… and to me, even when I’m doing it, it seems odd since that’s the exact opposite of what I understand the spirit of quilting to be… which was to make something both useful and beautiful out of leftovers and things that weren’t any use otherwise.
Well, I only have 6 rubbermaid containers of yarn….that’s NOT nearly enough! AND they keep coming out with newer softer yarns!!! [sheepish smile]
I actually DO use what I have to make projects I happen upon. 🙂
And yes, I wish I lived closer too.
I wonder if a once a month crochet class at your house is feasible?
I’ll have to e-mail you an easy beginner project for Kiki. And I can send you a couple of nice crochet & craft link webpages that can help you help her.
Yay Crochet!
About my mom, sometimes I have this guilty feeling, because when I see a lot of her quilts I think, I could’ve done that better or why did she stick to the pattern?… especially for the one she made for me. (don’t get me wrong, the ones she made for my kids are wonderful!) but then I think she would be a little defensive around me because my label in the family is “The Creative One”. SO, no quilting for me for a while, (besides an Old Jeans tied quilt) I’ll let her have her attention and her glory. 🙂 And if I’m REALLY good, I might inherit the contents of her Quilting Room… hee hee.
Well, I only have 6 rubbermaid containers of yarn….that’s NOT nearly enough! AND they keep coming out with newer softer yarns!!! [sheepish smile]
I actually DO use what I have to make projects I happen upon. 🙂
And yes, I wish I lived closer too.
I wonder if a once a month crochet class at your house is feasible?
I’ll have to e-mail you an easy beginner project for Kiki. And I can send you a couple of nice crochet & craft link webpages that can help you help her.
Yay Crochet!
About my mom, sometimes I have this guilty feeling, because when I see a lot of her quilts I think, I could’ve done that better or why did she stick to the pattern?… especially for the one she made for me. (don’t get me wrong, the ones she made for my kids are wonderful!) but then I think she would be a little defensive around me because my label in the family is “The Creative One”. SO, no quilting for me for a while, (besides an Old Jeans tied quilt) I’ll let her have her attention and her glory. 🙂 And if I’m REALLY good, I might inherit the contents of her Quilting Room… hee hee.