Flannery O'Connor never married. Neither did Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen, or Willa Cather. J.K. Rowling was a parent, but single, when she wrote "Harry Potter". Katherine Anne Porter married, divorced, remarried another, but never had children. Zora Neale Hurston was only married for a few months, and never had children.
I am sure there's someone out there who has made a great research project out of my question. But I haven't stumbled into the book that answers this question, (and I don't like Virginia Woolf) so I'll still ask it:
Is it impossible to be a great mother and a great writer? Does great passion for one of the two sap and subsume the other, rendering it weak and dysfunctional?
I say this because my personal favorite great writers are either 1) men, or 2) single women. The successful, married-mother writers I know of aren't any good (in my admittedly snobbish opinion. For what I consider a poor example, mother and wife Stephanie Meyer, the "Twilight" lady, has great story ideas but such hard-to-stand, cliched, lifeless writing.)
With three children of my own plus two step-children, I almost never write. I have the rare commodity of a kind, faithful, handsome, doting and adored husband. And while nursing a 9-month-old, listening to a the non-stop narrating, track-meet-and-scouting 3rd grader; keeping up with a swim-team-and-cross-country running ninth grader, and enjoying the two stepkids who spend summers here, there isn't much time to read or write. But I do jealously carve out a little time.
And I would not, not, for millions and billions of dollars or for masterpieces with my byline, ever trade my wonderful life as a mother, and all these smiles and noises and laughs and hugs and joys, not for any glorious writing life.
I am sure there's someone out there who has made a great research project out of my question. But I haven't stumbled into the book that answers this question, (and I don't like Virginia Woolf) so I'll still ask it:
Is it impossible to be a great mother and a great writer? Does great passion for one of the two sap and subsume the other, rendering it weak and dysfunctional?
I say this because my personal favorite great writers are either 1) men, or 2) single women. The successful, married-mother writers I know of aren't any good (in my admittedly snobbish opinion. For what I consider a poor example, mother and wife Stephanie Meyer, the "Twilight" lady, has great story ideas but such hard-to-stand, cliched, lifeless writing.)
With three children of my own plus two step-children, I almost never write. I have the rare commodity of a kind, faithful, handsome, doting and adored husband. And while nursing a 9-month-old, listening to a the non-stop narrating, track-meet-and-scouting 3rd grader; keeping up with a swim-team-and-cross-country running ninth grader, and enjoying the two stepkids who spend summers here, there isn't much time to read or write. But I do jealously carve out a little time.
And I would not, not, for millions and billions of dollars or for masterpieces with my byline, ever trade my wonderful life as a mother, and all these smiles and noises and laughs and hugs and joys, not for any glorious writing life.
But I would love to be able to do both!
If only I could cut out sleeping. Or sweeping under the kitchen table.
Sometimes I wistfully think about my acceptance, two years ago, to the University of Utah's Ph.D program, where I would have continued my Master's Degree's work on ethnographic literary journalism. (When I found out I was pregnant, I declined that Ph.D opportunity.) I would have liked to have done both, but it would never have worked, not in my heart nor in my schedule. I sometimes take out my thesis and read some of it.
Sometimes I wistfully think about my acceptance, two years ago, to the University of Utah's Ph.D program, where I would have continued my Master's Degree's work on ethnographic literary journalism. (When I found out I was pregnant, I declined that Ph.D opportunity.) I would have liked to have done both, but it would never have worked, not in my heart nor in my schedule. I sometimes take out my thesis and read some of it.
So. Here's my question for the day: Is there hope? If we writer-mothers keep reading and studying and writing in small tidbits, as well as we can, on our own, still putting our family first, yet rarely actually writing at all, will we still one day have the richness, knowledge and articulation to write great books?
I hope so. I hope mothers can begin with great motherhood and then, when we smaller mountains of laundry to fold and fewer meals to cook and carpools to taxi, then we'll also find great writerhood.
If not, it will surely happen in heaven.
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| Heaven is now |
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| Better than a byline |
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| Me and my smallest masterpiece |
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