People ask me how can I possibly get anything written. Still others hear I have three kids and look at me with a knowing glance and then say "well...I know what you're doing." I never correct these people because I've learned that to tell people what I'm really doing - like trying to write seven rough drafts this year or actually reading adult books (books that don't begin with Hola, my name is Dora and this is my friend Boots) - makes them uncomfortable with me as a mom, as an artist, and possibly as a human being. I don't know why.
Then again, theater artists get a little uncomfortable with me when I talk about my kids. I noticed that most women theater artists where I live don't talk about their kids. I had rented rehearsal space from one woman for several years before finding out she had a daughter. I knew pretty much everything else about her, but she never mentioned her daughter. I asked her why. Reply: people don't want to hear about that.
Anyway, I'm in the middle of staying up late nights - Marshall is on a two hour schedule. So I'm pretty short on REM sleep - and I found this wonderful post that I wanted to share. Enjoy.
4 comments:
I think theater in general has an uneasy relationship with parenthood. My feeling is that part of this is due to the current economic situation, where it's nearly impossible to support one person by being a playwright let alone a whole family. With night time rehearsals for small theatres, or the travel required to be a professional working with regional theatres, having kids is tough for a playwright. Lots of novelists have kids, but I feel like it's rare for the most successful playwrights.
I love the link, by the way. I've got two kids (now 7 and 12), and I certainly have had to learn to be especially focused and efficient. I know that I only have a limited amount of time and energy, but when it's time for a new draft of a book or play, I seem to find the resources to make it happen.
I agree with Patrick. When I meet new people in theatre and mention I'm a father of two, they look at me like I've just copped to the superfluous third nipple.
On the other hand, I'm lucky that a recent encounter with a theatre organization not based in NYC has been very receptive to the notion of accomodating my family when I travel to work with them.
I don't know what I did before I had children. I didn't start writing seriously until I had my first baby, in fact, and wrote my first novel ( a short one) while my youngest child was a baby, writing in between feeds and so on. Motherhood was never a problem for me, although the role was another thing.
Maybe it's just the artists I know, but almost everyone I know has children, and the fact of children is respected. So I think of theatre as a child-friendly place rather than otherwise. I take my kids to the theatre all the time, and started as soon as they were old enough to be interested - nothing worse than boring them, after all - and they enjoy it. And they're made to feel welcome there by my theatre friends. Maybe it's just different cultures? In Melbourne, lots of women work in the theatre, and they would never dream of not talking about their children; reading that made me feel sad. And it's not just the women; it's hard to make my husband - a playwright - shut up about his kids, and the actors I know who are fathers are just the same.
The first collaboration I ever did, my two (male) collaborators insisted that we put side some of our meagre budget for babysitting, so I could come to every performance. Where I struck the anti-mother thing was in the world of poetry; it was what you might call a consciousness-raising experience. It certainly made a feminist of me.
Great post.
My wife (an actress) and I have a child on the way (due in August). As people trying to make it as artist - or in the arts anyway - we're terrified and exhilarated simultaneously about the changes that have come and are about to come.
My post about it is at http://litdept.blogspot.com/2007/02/theres-theory-about-art-and-artists.html
Like Dan, I've recently come in contact with a bunch of theatre people who have recently had kids or are about to have kids. (Meg McCary at Clubbed Thumb has two!) And it's great to hear about more through the blogs stuff.....
Great post. Thanks for the link.
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