A Desperate Artist’s Guide to Parenting…
By: Tiffany Antone
Tags: Satire, How To, Parenting, Art, Humor

Because “Balance” is for chumps!

Photo by Umanoide on Unsplash

It’s not easy being artistically obsessed while also responsible for a small, impressionable (and financially-draining) young human. I know — as a playwright/mom/wife/cat-servant, I’m one one you. I’ve been pulling my hair out in panic for so long, I might need to start investing in wigs…

But I’m here to tell you there is hope! You can remain committed to your dreams of being a working artist while also responsibly ushering new life into this expensive-as-hell drama-plagued landscape we call “The World.” Here are five simple things you can do to make the artist/parent balancing act easier on yourself…

1. Be rich.

I’m not rich. If I were rich, a homely, overly-qualified, baby-minder would be watching my toddler play with the washing machine knobs for the 187th time today instead of me. But I do have credit cards. And credit cards allow me to buy toys with cool knobs and buttons that trick my toddler into thinking the toy is more exciting then the washing machine, which gives me a hot second here and there to write. Of course, this means Visa, Mastercard, and Discover are battling over who gets to be in charge of my indentured servitude once our Plutocrat-in-Chief finally puts the corporations in charge, but hey let’s not worry about that yet.

2. Give up on Personal Hygiene

I will literally not shower for days, rather than waste one precious second of nap-time on personal hygiene. This means I spend a lot of time trying to not-notice how disgusting I’ve gotten. My husband has learned to accept that the cost of producing an heir is that his wife will now only look/smell her best two days a week, and that the rest of the week is a total crap shoot. I will also forego eating, cleaning, and sleeping during naps, which means I’m a disgusting, exhausted, hungry beast-woman most of the time. But hey, I wrote this, didn’t I?

Because making everyone suffer for your art is so much more hardcore than suffering alone

3. Ignore Your Spouse

This one’s hard, and can lead to potentially catastrophic side-effects if left in play too long (increased odds of passive-aggressive “foregetfullness” in regards to closing the toilet lid at night, frequent references to how much fun “Past-You” was, not-so-casual threats of divorce…) But think of all the art-making time you’ll save by not having sex/making small talk/being a decent human being to your significant other!

4. Literally Stop Having Any Fun, Ever

You know who has time to have fun AND make art while raising an infant and paying the bills? Trust fund parents. The rest of us are ping-ponging between the job that pays us, the art that (mostly) doesn’t pay us, and the children who are sucking the last vestiges of our youth from what’s left of our exhausted bodies. Basically, if you happen to be a poor artist schmuck with a day-job and a child and a need for creating art, you need to forget about doing anything even resembling fun ever again… Unless (gasp) you don’t really want to win that Pulitzer/Tony/Writer’s Guild award after all, you lazy lump...

Photo by Chris Barbalis on Unsplash

5. Become a full-time #ArtMonster

You’re already tired, dirty, and broke. You have the hygiene of a barely domesticated wilda-beast, and no-one can stand being around you for long since all you do is count the precious seconds being wasted on socializing while you agonize about getting back to your canvas/laptop/pottery wheel/etc… So why not just go full #ArtMonster and hole up in a cave somewhere instead? Sell your belongings, pack up your child, and beg your significant other to come with you (you need someone to stoke the cave-fire and hunt for wild game). Call yourself “Free Range Parents”, start a blog, and make money off click-bait articles titled “I gave up soap and now my son uses my scent to help find his way home after school” Sure, you’ll miss your Serta and hot showers, and you’ll need to leech wi-fi from Starbucks parking lots, but you’ll be making art, damnit, and that’s what really matters.

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