Everything Happened | vol. 215

How do you write and work and care for kids

Last week, I needed some attention (youngest child of deeply stoic parents reporting for duty!!) so I posted that anonymous question portal thing that’s been going around to my Instagram. If you haven’t engaged with one of these or you are too mentally well to be on Instagram, it allows a user to send anonymous questions to a custom inbox. Then you answer them and post them to Stories for followers to read.

The anonymity part is misleading because you can upgrade to a paid account and receive “hints” about the identity of certain question-askers. So if you are owning up to a forbidden crush or confessing involvement in a crime, I would maybe keep that for your journal. But because I’m a normie and not a public figure, I can use this kind of tool casually without fear of receiving anonymous instructions to kill myself or worse. So that’s nice for me. Had 2 do it. Folks,,, she lives 2 post.

Here are some questions I got that stuck with me and seemed threaded together around the theme of mothering, writing, and creativity:

How do you get your brain to switch from constant mothering/mental load vigilance to writing?

How does one write and work and care for small children?

How do you have the mental space to write/even have thoughts to write about while caring for little kids?

Ok, this flavor of question is actually pretty easy for me to answer. I live in the United States where there is no mandated paid maternity leave for anyone, at any level. That means that between 12 and 16 weeks after the birth of each of my children, I was back at work full-time because I could not afford otherwise. This is fucked up and I hope that someday soon it is a kooky relic of the near-past, like ashtrays at McDonald’s. But it was my reality and the reality for all of my American parent friends.

It also meant that within a few months of giving birth, I was back at a desk, staring out a window, drinking irresponsible volumes of coffee and blasting myself to the moon in various Google Docs tabs. In office jobs, as in most of life, Cs get degrees. Do you feel me? I do not put the kids to bed and then crack my laptop to write. The gates of my brain roll down at 7 p.m. like a mall food court Chik-Fil-A on Sunday. When I played sports, no coach ever lauded my “hustle” and nothing has changed in that regard. Evenings are for taking a third of an edible, watching survivalist reality shows and begging my husband to hammer the restless-leg-creepy-crawlies out of my calves with his fist.

Most of the writing I do is what you are reading here: no editor, no deadline, no reporting, just vibing directly into the Substack text editor like a pervert. If you see a freelance byline from me, it’s either because someone asked me (I love to be complimented!) or a major appliance broke and we needed the money. There was a time a few years ago when I was starting to pitch more just for fun and ambition, but the pandemic cratered my time freedom and brainpower and then I had that additional kid.

If I’m on deadline, then I remove myself from the house to do it. Usually a bar on a weekday evening, because I struggle to bring professional energy of any kind to a weekend. I take whatever scraps of thoughts have accumulated in my various tabs and try to synthesize. Bar snacks help this process, the brinier the better.

This is complicated if you breastfeed, if you are a single parent, or if your partner is unsupportive or incompetent. I realize that. A note to lactating people: someday it will be over (actually, quit today! you totally can!) and you will go months without thinking about having ever breastfed a child.

Sometimes I don’t feel like being out. I live in a very small town and it’s hard to post up somewhere without having to acknowledge and catch up with a coworker, my dermatologist, and a preschool parent I once offended, all on the same night. But if I write at home, all the children have to be out of the house. Nick has to remove them for a reasonable stretch, which he is usually game to do. In my post-breastfeeding second kid, pre-third kid days, he would sometimes take Desi and Jane to his brother’s house in DC and they would spend the night there. Heaven! Maybe someday I’ll kick Polly off the boob and access such luxury again.

I am able to write basically because I do not have to—most months we can pay our bills without it. I am able to write because I allow myself space to fart around and be unproductive and trust that ideas for me will never come steadily like an assembly line, but all at once and then not for a while again. A flash rainstorm in the desert. The desert thrives like this. It’s how deserts work!

There was another question in my anonymous Instagram question box that I can’t stop thinking about, but it will have to be for the next newsletter:

How do I have more fun as a mom?

I have thoughts!!!

yr mate,
Evie
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