parental overwhelm

Morning! I’ve been extracting myself from parental overwhelm just enough to try making comics about that precise feeling. It’s hard to sum up in good art - at least, it feels that way. I️ have two theories as to why.

Maybe it’s too tedious. Running a household with kids is made of all the stuff that doesn’t make it into a novel or poem - the meaningless little tasks - the little uninteresting decisions. There’s nothing big in it, no resolution, no escape. You make everyone breakfast, you brush everyone’s teeth, you get everyone dressed, you walk the dog, you clean the dishes. You do a good job, you feel a sense of relief, you do it again the next day, and the next, for-what-feels-like-ever.

But that’s not true, what I️ said, that it isn’t interesting. It’s interesting to me. When I️ talk to my friends who are in the same boat, we don’t talk about art and books and parties. We talk about bedtime routines and what our broken nights are like, how absurd our kids’ demands are (my son has been losing his mind at me for two days because I️ refuse to work magic and turn all his toys into robots). It fills up so much space, always, everywhere.

My second theory: maybe it feels so strange to turn this stuff into art because I️ have too little to compare it to. People who are immersed in this are not generally writing books or making art - definitely not art that reflects the tedious muchness of taking care of people’s bodily needs. Life takes up too much time to make that kind of time-consuming, sprawling art. Every time I️ read Tell Me a Mitzi by Lore Segal - a wickedly mundane children’s book that documents every step involved in getting dressed and eating a meal, even as it tells real stories - I️ feel so seen.

Here’s a taste of my comic for all subscribers. Subscribe to paid for the whole unhinged thing scrawled on a cramped page. Either way, thank you so very much for being here. I’m afraid if I️ appreciate you too much you’ll disappear - so I’ll leave it at that.

As always you can buy letterpress prints on my website, lianafinck.com (new stuff dropping soon) -

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