Is Blaming My Children A Form of Self-Sabotage
I’m not getting as much writing as I’d like done but who is really to blame?
I was at a wedding a year ago talking to an old friend and he asked me how my novel was going. I just laughed.
Novel? What novel?
I told people about writing a novel to make myself accountable, but here I was annoyed that he was asking me because in my mind any time I had to write had disappeared since having my second son ten months before. I had barely looked at that draft in a year. Progress had ground to a halt and it was my children who I blamed.
They say a lot of the time writing a novel is not actually spent writing but thinking and I should have plenty of time for that, except I don’t. In the early days it was breastfeeding that had me shackled to one baby while trying to entertain another. Now, it feels like every time I sit down on the sofa to even dare think about anything other than a pretend game or to take my eyes off my two boys for a second, I am pulled back to reality to serve their needs: a snack, the potty, a dirty nappy, fighting and putting themselves in compromising situations. I feel like I cannot do anything when I am with them, other than devote to them my entire self.
I don’t have time to write. I don’t have time to think.
I look after them for the majority of the week, after giving up my job due to the cost of childcare. In effect I am their childcare now. I am being kept in clothing and fed on the assumption that I look after them to allow my partner to work, for us to be able to pay the mortgage. I do freelance too when I can but most of my time is sanctioned to the children. I am in effect a stay at home mum. Being a stay at home mum isn’t enough for me, as you may well know already if you have subscribed to Distracted for some time. Whilst it was a choice I made, it was forced and I would like to work more and perhaps even more selfishly, I would like to write more.
I resent my children for being there as an obstacle to my writing. They are hindering any chance I have of success or making it pay somehow. How will I ever get published if I have no time to finish this draft?
But am I right to blame them, when I was never promised this free time I imagine I would have anyway? This ability to write and look after them at the same time has only ever been a dream. Even if I wasn’t looking after them, I would be working full-time and not necessarily dedicating any more time to writing than I manage already.
It is in fact my children who are inspiring me. Without them I might not have attempted writing at all. I had tried a few times in the past to start blogs or bookstagrams but nothing really stuck. It was only when I had children I had the motivation to create a writing practice: to see myself as a writer, even if I consider myself a hobbyist.
I want my children to see that it is possible: that I can do this. That I can write after having developed a completely other career. That I can tell a story that is close to my heart, but many won’t be familiar with and that I convince others to believe in me too. That I can do this all whilst mothering: I can be the ultimate super mother.
I am obviously not a super mother, or at least not a super creator mother. It seems I can’t always find the time to do all the things I want or need to do.
Strangely I think my motivation for both writing and design comes in waves. (Often it is linked to my menstrual cycle which is understandable - some hormones are more conducive to creativity than others) but I find despite the waves I really struggle to get going with the bigger project of a novel. I get started only to stop again a few weeks later. I find it hard to work on it for more than a couple of hours, yet feel frustrated when I only have an hour to get my head into it and I have to come out again. Sometimes I don’t have the energy to work on it at all. Even when I am brimming with ideas and have the energy in the evenings and have lots of available time it isn’t usually my novel I will choose to work on.
I am beginning to wonder if I am stopping myself somehow. That it isn’t actually my children who are the problem here. Their presence is constant and my motivation dips and rises, my commitment to the project is fickle regardless of the availability of time.
If I were to look at my pattern of behaviour, the consistent thing is that it is my novel that ends up last of the priorities. It’s like I have no interest in finishing it at all.
Reading
book Sabotage has helped me to see a few things that might be happening, how I could be using the children as an excuse not to get things done. It is not my children who are getting in the way of my success, but myself.I am scared
When I do finally get the time to write, I ponder and plan profusely. I am anxious to actually get going - to start writing word after word. I am at a stage now where I have 50k words to work with but so much of the plot is missing, and I am scared of doing it wrong. I am worried it isn’t working. I’m worried I’m going to mess it up or that I already have and that is five years wasted. It will never be as perfect as it will be in my head. But if I keep avoiding working on it, it will fail based on the fact I never finished it and I don’t want that.
As
says in Sabotage, it’s the permanence of the book that is daunting. The idea that the book should be perfect is paralysing me. “For creatives, [perfectionism] can manifest as anxiety that stops you making and releasing the art you want to make.”Whereas the nature of more short-lived writing can feel less perfect or finessed and therefore more approachable. I can write easily for Distracted. I can edit it and change my mind. I think and write in the moment, words flow out of my head. I tell myself the short nature of the newsletter fits into my lack of time narrative, but really I am terrified of writing something that people will hate or not doing the story or the topic justice and it lasting forever in print. It means too much to me for me to do it badly - so I don’t do it at all.
I don’t value my own writing
When I do work freelance as a designer I get paid a day rate and I manage child-care around the work, negotiating with my partner to allow for me to have the time to earn money. When it comes to writing it isn’t worth anything to the family financially, so I feel like it doesn’t deserve my time in the same way and that is something I need to get my head around.
Because I don’t value my own writing in a financial sense, I don’t see it as worthy of taking me away from family time at the weekends, or for me to excuse myself from housework or other family priorities. Similarly, because it isn’t paid and there is no deadline, there will always be priorities that override it. Even the smaller jobs which will take 2 minutes will all add up and deplete my available writing time. It is time I prioritise it, or at least make time for it if I am going to take writing this novel seriously.
I feel like an imposter
I am a designer who writes as a hobby. I have limited means of knowing how well I write without any formal training in writing since my GCSEs in 2005. Without qualifications or accolades I will probably always feel like I am not good enough or that I am from another world.
The imposter syndrome feeds the critic in my head it tells me I’m not good enough. Writing is just a hobby. Why are you even bothering? I use my children as an excuse to not bother. Sorry I never finished that novel, I had to look after my kids.
But in a way it is feeling like I am of another world that has inspired me to write. People like me don’t write books, but I want to change that and I am going to have to suck up the imposter syndrome to do it.
My children aren’t the problem, it’s me.
Since having children. I acknowledge that my time is now precious and there is distinctly less of it, but the lack of time is not the only reason I have not finished this novel.
I have not finished it because I am scared that it won’t be perfect, I don’t value my writing and so I don’t find time to write in the same way I would for paid work and I don’t feel like a proper writer. It isn’t just my children that are getting in the way of my writing, it is myself. It is time I made changes both in my mind and in my schedule to allow myself to finish this novel.
If this post resonated with you please do let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear from you.
Wow. All of the little things that take two minutes or seem like they will but snow you under like an avalanche of you’re not careful because life as a mother is filled with those two minute things - the school snack calendar, the permission slips, the dress-up days, and on and on. But I really appreciate your perspective on this - it is not them, it’s me! Also, you have 50,000 words!!!!!!!! I hope as you recommit and refocus you remember the small wins too. Thank you for sharing.
I relate so much to this! Especially the “I’m scared” part. I almost forgot I even had a few chapters and an outline of a novel until I read this! (Not really. I just wish I did.) But yeah, there is some real fear-driven creative blockage when it comes to writing a novel that doesn’t exist with other writing, even full-length nonfiction. I think you nailed the why. Now to just push through it!