We were never being boring

The side effects of parenthood are well known. From nausea in early pregnancy, swollen ankles to sleepness nights and mummy brain (when you walk into a room and can’t remember what for).  But I have yet to read anything about how being a parent can turn you into a bore overnight, especially to those friends of yours who have no children.

It starts when you give up the alcohol in pregnancy. This is already potentially the start of being a huge bore. When your friends are ordering beer you are nursing your herbal tea, hoping that the honey will make you a bit tipsy. It doesn’t.

When the baby is there, you notice that some friends just don't call you anymore. When you meet up, it is often at home, conversations snatched between scooping up baby food and nappy changing. Piled up laundry it is. Fancy free and fun it ain't. It isn't sipping cocktails in a cool bar, or checking out the latest exhibition or shopping. It's apologising as you have to put the baby to bed and might not emerge for another hour, if at all. 

Whereas you may be able to talk to other mothers for hours on end about baby food, breastfeeding and childbirth stories, this won’t wash with many of your other friends.  Why should it? You are literally cocooned in your own little baby world and by the time you emerge your friendships may have reshuffled and changed.

You don’t (in their eyes) do anything anymore. You are boring. This is a tough one to deal with, on top of the above mentioned side affects of parenting. It is creeping, underlying and often not said out loud.

In Berlin I would literally take my baby with me everywhere, to loud street parties, to open air film screenings, I didn’t think anything of riding home on the U-Bahn at 3.00 in the morning.

When you have two kids (and you move to a less cosmopolitan place like we had to), this becomes impossible. A three or four year old will not put up with this, and then you find yourself getting into their routine. Having two kids is like two to the power of four, it is just weird maths, which mean that the efforts of parenting have quadrupled rather than doubled.

In order to survive the year you have to dig in and get downright boring. Celebrate your boringness. Don’t get any hobbies, or if you must, try Suduko.

‘Get a babysitter’, come the cries from the outside of your nest, trying to rake you out of your babybore phase.

But my kids don’t get to sleep until 10pm, and I usually am asleep before them, you reply. And so it goes on. It is funny, but you can blame yourself when friendships drift apart. You don't think, heck, they could come round and chat about formula milk. You think, I have got to get out there, otherwise I am in danger of falling off the face of the earth. 

I say, give yourself a break. 

I am advocating raising the boring stakes a notch. Baby birth bore talkathons, baby poo talkalongs and baby food shaggy dog stories.

So, when you have young kids, forget upping the interest stakes by trying to be like your former all night partying former drink bingeing self or feeling you have to get a cool career to boot.  Play fire with fire by celebrating motherhood in all its glorious bore-potential.  Get down right boring. 

One day you may wake up feeling bored yourself. Then you can think about what actually interests you. Maybe your old friends are right. You have changed. You may be surprised yourself that  the things you found important before you had kids no longer interest you. In fact, you find them rather boring.

creative quandary

dining table with printmaking equipment

It feels slightly ironic that I have come here to the Mumsnet Blogfest when my two kids and my husband are back in Germany! Still, it is the first time I have been away by myself for ages and I get precious time to spend with my friends and family back in London. But the question remains: How do you balance your creative ambitions with family life.

I am staying at my mum's who is a printmaker. Her studio is in the house. When I was growing up it didn't strike me as odd that there were trays of acid in the bathroom (for etching ), for example. There were plus and minuses from our perspective that her work space was in the home. Us kids were encouraged to make lino cuts and etchings, which was fun. On the other hand, I felt it was hard for my mum to switch off from the work, especially if a print wasn't going her way. That is the problem of having your work space at home. It is hard to create a divide between your home and work life.

If your job involves being creative like an artist, where the measure of your success is not so easily defined and the output is more personal then this can be even harder. You may also have to justify to yourself and to others that what you are doing is valid, especially if you are not earning much money through your art. If you can manage that, then you may need to find the headspace in order to be creative. I have read with admiration about authors who have written books during their babies naps, for example. (I was napping through my babies naps, though!)

litho press and bookshelf

I would like to do a survey amongst people who are artists and who have families. How do they strike a balance with their art and family life? Can they involve their kids in the process, or do they need for "a room of ones own", like Virginia Woolf. Also, how do they manage between creative thinking, where you really need the luxury of time to develop ideas and the hectic schedule of family life. A female friend of mine organises family life as well as teaching at a University and developing her own art work. Her husband, who is also self employed, is away with work a lot. She said she doesn't touch the housework until the kids come back from school. It is the only way she can get things done.

Another artist friend of mine has recently taken a self imposed sabbatical. When she originally told me this I said, rather insensitively I think, I"ll believe it when I see it. I meant it in a positive way, because she is one of the most dynamic and energetic people I know. She came to Bielefeld and in less that two years embarked on a PHD, attended conferences and formed an art group. This kind of drive is often what helps you to survive as an artist, even when you have two young kids and are a trailing spouse with an uncertain future. I can imagine that it may be difficult to put aside this drive to focus on other priorities. You can read about her sabbatical here.

It is very hard to strike the balance between work and family as a freelancer or an artist.

I  discovered this when I was working from home as a translator. If you don't respond to requests and opportunities from the outside then you may kick yourself for missing out. But if you take everything on then it can easily get too much, and your health suffers and this effects your family.

printmaking table arial view

I question myself on a regular basis. How much is too much? Will I overstretch myself if I take on this job.  I also love writing my blog, which I see as being a creative outlet for me. I also question the time taken to write it, as I now question the time I have taken to come to London on my own. 

At the same time I am glad that I have a mum who has followed her artistic career, despite being a divorced mother bringing up four children singlehandedly  and can see if you fulfil your own creative ambitions then you can still be a good mum or precisely because of that you are a good mum. 

prints in progress