This week Joanna Serth talks to us about being a writing mom, in the first of our Writing Moms posts by our guest author bloggers.
I wrote this a week ago. I composed it entirely in my head. Right before I fell asleep. Like every writer I have ever known, I do my best work in the minutes before my brain shuts down for the day. Unlike every writer I have ever known, I immediately forget what I have crafted come morning, when my brain is jolted awake by the sound of a toddler scattering hundreds of Cheerios on the kitchen floor while attempting to make her own breakfast.
It took me a week to find the last of the scattered Cheerios and a week to get my thoughts on paper.
I am a full-time mother and a part-time writer. My days are spent catering to the needs of three young children. Just like other writers with full-time employment, my writing is relegated to any available moment I can find in between the completion of my daily duties and responsibilities. I find time to write a few paragraphs while my children are playing outside or doing their homework or watching a movie or soaking in the bath or fist fighting over Lego pieces in the basement. There is never a large swath of time to linger on an essay or fully flesh out an idea. I can measure my daily free time in minutes, not hours.
As a result, I am selfish with those minutes. I guard those minutes. I hoard those minutes. I ignore the dirty dishes, the cloudy windows, the dusty baseboards, and the toys all over the living room rug. Sometimes, I ignore my children. I am a selfish writer. A selfish, writing mother that believes I should still get something that is all mine. A mother that believes my young children shouldn’t get to claim every nook and cranny of my life.
This selfishness pushes against the prevailing theory of motherhood that tells us that a mom should be all mom. Side passions not allowed. As mothers, we’re told to cherish every minute with our children, that this time in our life is brief, that one day our children will be grown. I know this to be true but when that time comes, I want to be able to say to my children, “Look what I did when you were late for school that one day.”
“Look what I wrote while you were eating crumbs off of the kitchen floor.”
“Look at this story, this story of your life, our life, that I wrote when no one was looking.”
This is why I write. This is why it’s important I find the time to write. This is how I mother and write.
My children are my life, my employment, and my day to day. Writing is my escape, my sanity, and my way of making order out of chaos. It is incredibly important to me. To not find the time to write amidst the daily duties of mothering would be to deny myself. And, my children deserve better than that. They deserve the best me. The best mother I can be.
Joanna Serth writes a little bit about everything at ofgoodfamily.com. Prior to freelance writing, Joanna worked in resource management, product marketing and, for the briefest of moments, in television news. She lives with her husband and three children in Virginia.
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