Making space for creativity in parenthood

"Creative living is living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than fear" – Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic.

When you have little ones, caregiving responsibilities tend to fill every crevice of your life, whether you are a full-time caregiver or you also have other responsibilities such as work or study.

The needs of babies and young children are so incessant and urgent, and we only have so much capacity, so it is understandable that so many of us offload our own needs – sometimes even abandoning basic bodily maintenance needs such as showering or shitting (1).

If personal hygiene can sometimes get offloaded, we are at even higher risk of neglecting needs that are considered in our culture to be desirable rather than essential.

Creative expression is one of those supposed "nice to haves" which is actually an essential need, because it is how we connect to our own humanity. Being engaged with creativity and the arts has a positive impact on mental and potentially even physical health.

But if you like many self-sacrificing parents have trouble valuing an activity for the benefit it will bring yourself alone, consider this:
1. The benefits we gain from creative engagement will likely expand our capacity to be the parents we want to be – patient, kind, ready for emotional connection.
2. Through prioritising creative practice, we are modelling to our children the expansive, joyful life we want for them; that there is more to life than alternating between fulfilling obligations and numbing out the pain of existence.

This article is all about how to open up space for creativity in your life – whether you used to engage in a regular creative practice before you were a parent, or you have never thought of yourself as creative.

You may find parts of this article challenging or uncomfortable (eg thoughts like "I can't do that!" or "that would never work for me"). Prioritising creativity is counter-cultural. If you can, try to stay with any difficult feelings. And remember you can always ignore anything that doesn't resonate with you.

Creating space for creativity in your life

"But I don't have TIME to be creative!" I hear you protest. I know you don't. None of us do, to varying degrees.

If you feel the urge to at least tip your toe into creativity, here are two ways to start engaging with creativity without changing your schedule and one way to carve out space for creativity that some people will find very challenging...

Bringing creativity into activities you are already doing

This is for you if creative practice feels completely out of reach. For these tips, you can keep your routines exactly the same PLUS creativity.

• Singing in the shower
• Listening to music while driving, cooking dinner, getting dressed etc. (Bonus points for nostalgic music that reminds you of your wild and unencumbered life before kids, or your misspent youth). Depending on the circumstances and how much the music slaps this can lead to...
• Random dance parties (alone or with other people)
• Reading a book or sketching/doodling while waiting eg. for an appointment, for school to finish, any other waiting time you might otherwise be doomscrolling
• Playing with fashion. Nudity laws mean we have to get dressed every time we need to leave the house, but there is no law against having fun doing so!

Being creative with your kid/s

There are a lot of creative activities you can do at the same time as caring for your child/ren. This can be nourishing for them as well as for you.

Being creative together

• Collaborative drawing. You can do this with kids as soon as they can put crayons to paper in their first forays into art. It works like this: They draw, you colour in what they have done and add to it. Or you draw and they colour in. Etc.
• Playing music/dancing together
• Bush art: Going anywhere there are trees and using found objects such as leaves and sticks to create art
• Lego/duplo
• Parallel play: Getting alongside playing kid/s and doing your own creative activity, such as drawing or writing. This can be as short as one minute. And you might find that your child/ren play independently for longer if you are with them

Using childcare time for creative practice

I have deliberately left this tip to last because I predict it will be the most challenging concept for parents.

Childcare time is precious, even more so if it is paid, and there is often immense pressure to be 'productive' during it. But while I acknowledge that we all need to make a living, productivity is for robots. It's not what makes us human.

Just an aside: Many new parents struggle with feelings of low self-worth, especially given the low cultural value placed on caregiving. This may be you. By doing yourself the honour of spending childcare time on nourishing your inner life, you are sending the message that YOU are valuable.

You could use paid/unpaid childcare time to...

• Go to a class, workshop, or social art/craft event
• See a play, musical, concert or other live performance
• Visit a cultural institution (eg. museum, gallery, library)
• Spend time on your own creative projects at home. Either the kind of thing you can't do while the kids are around like pottery or developing photos in your bathroom darkroom conversion, OR the kind of thing you technically can do with the kids around, but which is more pleasurable when you are uninterruptable

Demoting housework on your list of priorities

"The work will be there when you're dead. Come and have a cup of tea."

I was working on this piece at a regular creativity meet-up and a friend told me the above quote. He said that his grandmother used to say it regularly.

Housework is endless in nature. If you were able-bodied and had no other responsibilities, you could wear yourself out cleaning every room of the house, processing load after load of laundry, and washing every single dish in the house, and have it all done at the same time.

But five minutes later, there would be more housework to do.

If you wait until there is no housework to do before you let yourself engage in your creative practice, you will be waiting forever. Whatever housework needs doing can wait while you do something that brings you joy.

This piece of advice can be combined with some above. For example, if your children are playing, you could go lie on the floor next to them and do some drawing instead of taking that chance to unpack the dishwasher. (If they are open to your company, of course).

I want to acknowledge that inhabiting a messy space can be stressful, so cleaning up might bring you more wellbeing than prioritising creativity. When you have the choice, only you know what is your best move in that particular moment. Artist and thinker Marta Rose writes about how her approach to housework is to do it whenever it is getting in the way of her creative projects.

Over to you!

Please comment below with your ideas for engaging in creativity, or if you are reading this in email, feel free to click reply and tell me.

I would also love to know if this piece inspired or challenged you! Interested to hear anything you want to share.

Reflection questions

1. Peruse all the examples of creative practices mentioned in this piece. Could you add three more possibilities? Consider picking one item from the list that you could do in the next week without having to dramatically change anything in your daily/weekly routine.
2. (For this one I would advise dedicating a time when you can sit down and self-regulate). Identify something in this piece that brought up a strong emotional response for you. Eg. Paying for childfree creativity time, ignoring the dishwasher in favour of lying on the floor drawing with your kids.
   
   Spend some time reflecting on your emotional response. Then consider what this means for your life. Do you want to approach things differently? Have you learned something new about yourself?

(1) Ali Wong has a hilarious joke about being too busy to "poop" on her Netflix special Don Wong.