Hello,
This is going to be a short post. My son has been sick/home with Covid since Friday and I️ don’t have anyone to share the responsibilities with, so I️ can only work (and do everything else) in the two hours between his bedtime and mine. This isn’t to say caring for one sick two-year-old has been backbreaking work - just that I’m absolutely not attending to my art/career right now. And haven’t been very much for a while.
I’ve been thinking about how artists and self-employed people often live outside of labor rules - we don’t do weekends or holidays or evenings, we don’t have sick days or benefits or 401Ks, we don’t have to work a certain number of hours in the day. We feel lucky to have such flexible schedules, and we also buy into the idea that, since our work is such an organic part of us, it would be wrong to divide it from our personal lives the way someone with an office job might.
But I’m at a moment in my life where I’m decidedly not all artist - and I️ really wish I️ had some stronger
guideposts. I️ wish I️ had a set number of work hours in a day, no more, no less, and that they were respected by my family, by my audience/clients/employers (so impossibly vague) and by myself. I️ wish I️ wouldn't be the parent expected (by daycare, husband and self) to to attend the spontaneous daycare potluck. I️ wish not being always available to my audience/clients/etc wouldn’t lose me freelance jobs and social media followers. I️ wish there were childcare that was nurturing, affordable, and convenient. I️ wish there were a system of childcare for when kids are sick (which is all the time).
I️ know people with 9-5 jobs want the same things. But I️ feel like they have someone to ask, or at least blame, besides themselves. Maybe not.
I feel like – where someone with a 9-5 they love might feel like they need to leave their uncompromising job to be with the child they love – my career is more like taffy. It stretches and accommodates until there’s almost nothing left.
I’d planned to take the week off posting as a lesson to myself that I️ am allowed to take things like sick days, care days, and holidays. And I️ do intend to going forward. But I️’m here to post a few drawings…and to tell you about a new book I️’ll have out in April, which I️ LOVED making.
Here are the drawings. (All were posted on @newyorkercartoons on Instagram last year)
:
How to Baby: a No-Advice-Given guide to motherhood, with Drawings will be published by The Dial Press and Random House in late April. You can preorder it here.
It’s a memoir of my first year of parenting masquerading as a how-to book (a genre I consume a lot of). It’s full of drawings. I’m very proud of it, and I love how it turned out.
Thank you Random House for this animation!
The quiet parts in between the posting and scheduling and sharing and producing, where your audience also sits back and waits...is part of the magic. Believe it to be true that taking time to nourish and water yourself and your family, is wildly relatable to most creatives living like you. We understand. We see you. And we are you. It makes the next edition or piece of work all the more anticipated, exciting and timely. We rock!
Writing from under water, up all night with one sick kid and a dog who loves a 4:00 a.m. party. I chose the safe road with golden handcuffs (sick time, vacation, pension) and wonder every day what's been stifled in the process. Being creative in this dead-inside economy is a risk and we benefit from your brave choice -- wish we could both move to a Scandinavian child care utopia but in the mean time sending you sleep-deprived and mildly demented good vibes.