#58: How I'm thinking about parenting and creativity
An extremely brief reflection on the work that matters
I love being a mother. It is the most surprising & rewarding thing ever.
He is such a cool baby. There’s a lot of personality that’s coming out already. He is bubbly and sociable; he’s also reflective and observant. I can tell he’s going to be such a smart kid.
I love being a mother. Despite that, I do not like writing about parenting. It’s way too easy to get misunderstood, for all the wrong and right reasons.
Alongside this, I am also comfortable calling myself an ambitious person. I tend to demand more from myself, and sometimes from others. When it comes to my own personal ambitions, if I can make a lot of things happen, I would. (I really would.) For as long as it aligns with my personal mission, at least. Being a mom and succeeding at this role to the best of my ability is no different.
A few things I’d want for him:
Develop his own sense of curiosity— for all the right1 things.
Live a life of minimalism, material-wise.
In an increasingly more and more distracting world, be a little bit more present & focused. Especially for him, as a digital-native2.
Have a healthy amount of empathy— too much of it is just as unhelpful as having none.
Learn how to create from words to code to visuals to materials/hardware, anything worth tinkering around with, really. Creativity is essential to living a fully satisfying life.
Above all, kindness. His life should be overflowing with kindness, internally and externally.
The last one reminds me of this quote/tweet:
‘took me years to begin to understand that one of the most heroic things you can do is not hate yourself’ - @visakanv
There is a way to increase the likelihood of all of those happening. If I am really serious about incorporating those values into him, I have to keep living them myself.
The more I practice what I preach, the higher the chance he’ll actually live them, or at least take them as seriously as I do.
The practice of creativity is not too different from parenting. What is becoming more and more obvious to me is this: there is no such thing as balance. It is a myth. It is less of a balancing act that it is of an integration. There is no compartmentalization, if I want to achieve great things. And if, as a creative person, achieving great things is not in the cards for me, then I’d rather not pursue this, because what is the point? (Besides the monetary / practical gains)
In the same way as I think about co-raising a child, I don’t ‘clock out’ of my creative self after the day’s work ends. It is my life design. It’s my source of nourishment and endless inspiration. Even with all the uncertainties (economic, society, political, environmental et al), I get a lot of energy from doing the work (that I think matters). This platform is one of them.
The idea of making things, purposeless or not, is exhilarating. I do it for a variety of incentives, intrinsic and extrinsic. Truthfully, it hasn’t been easy. Between sleepless nights, a daily recurring fatigue, a growing household, a day job as a designer and everything in between, I don’t have a lot of time for making things lately.
This new reality doesn’t make any of this any less appealing to me though. In fact, I think it fuels my drive and my willingness to keep pursuing side projects, in spite of the constraints (time).
Speaking as a hands-on, full-time mother and wife, now, MORE THAN EVER, I’m dedicated in pursuing the absolute best of what this creative life can offer.
Or, more importantly, what I can offer (and I can offer a lot.)
Speaking of which, I recently recorded a podcast episode about this intersection of a topic (careers x parenting x creativity). I’ll send you a link once it is live. Enjoyed the conversation a lot, thanks Jazz.
Thank you for your time, this is one of those sporadic entries that I think was worth sharing.
Nikki
Got a quick second? Would love your thoughts, feedback on my platform
Things bring a lot of value to one’s life, family & society.
People born in the age of machines / computation. I first heard of this term from Christopher Lockhead of Category Pirates, specifically, this podcast episode: https://lochhead.com/new-category-of-humans-native-analogs-vs-native-digitals/