Preventing Creativity Being Killed
By: Caroline Greb
Motherhood is inherently creative. Contrary to wider culture’s popular belief, parenthood is not the enemy of creative work. It’s actually, I believe, one of the greatest opportunities.
In the first months after Thea entered our lives, I wrestled with finding a place for my own creative work in the midst of newborn land. Some weeks, I would paint daily while Thea napped or played next to me. Other months, when Thea went on a nap strike, my brush didn’t stand a chance. But the absence of my idyllic creative situation—me, painter extraordinaire, dressed in my painting garb, listening to serene music, and painting for an uninterrupted 8 hours a day—does not mean there is an absence of creativity. I may not be painting a master portrait, but I set the table, decorate our home, prepare varied and flavorful meals (or buffalo chicken dip and crudites, in a pinch and a moment of weakness), and invite Thea to do it with me. Inspiring creativity sometimes just means doing it with thoughtful, deliberate choices, thoughtful time management (painting is best during naps, cooking can be done with little helpers), and engaging in broader creative acts. Beauty matters. Children notice. It is a privilege to help them inhabit a space that feels like theirs, that feels home.
This creativity, whether in the home or on a canvas, is not easily won. There are days when Elisabeth Elliot’s words “do the next thing” ring in my ears and it takes all I have in me just to change yet another (very smelly) diaper and vacuum the floors for the fourth time this week. In one of my most beloved books, The Hidden Art of Homemaking, Edith Schaeffer writes that “one needs to fight to prevent creativity being killed.” What does it mean to be creative? It may mean sitting in my garden and painting a landscape, and I truly hope I do that. But in motherhood the most creative moments are sometimes the most mundane: making a soup out of homemade broth and scattered vegetables when your pantry looks bare, sewing a tablecloth out of remnant fabric on a borrowed machine, making up a song to avoid a toddler’s grocery store meltdown, or arranging flowers for your table from seeds that you threw in the backyard. Creativity mimics the creative act of God, but instead of creating out of nothing, it requires you to look to the provision that is before you.
Maintaining my specific vocation of artistic creativity has taken work through tired hours, communication, and the willingness to be flexible and change with the seasons. Finding the balance is a constant conversation because the balance is always changing as your children are always growing. In those early months, Ethan would have a papa-daughter date for an evening while I went to a night class to get in a few hours of figure drawing. Now, as Ethan attends seminary and Thea grows into a toddler and we both work other jobs from home, painting has come to take up my post-bedtime evenings, but it is more sparse. To an outsider, it may seem like I’ve given up on a dream—to go to atelier classes, to be in galleries, to paint bigger pieces—but it’s just on pause, a willing pause. Another dream has surpassed its place. I still desire all those things, but desire is for the future (and most definitely to avoid making reels and be a part of the impossible Instagram popularity contest). Right now, I continue to build the foundation by continuing to paint on a however small a scale.
I’ll offer you a few practical ways to keep your creativity engaged when the daily fight of motherhood (or any stage of life!) can wear you out. First, and probably most importantly, communicate your needs, whether it’s an afternoon off at a nearby museum or an evening to go to a gallery opening (date idea!). Read widely. Keep a commonplace book to write down interesting quotes from the books you read or things you hear. Carry a sketchbook with you wherever you go. Ask for and share your recipes profusely. Learn to love the little years, with all the childlike wonder they bring.
Creativity will always be inseparable from my motherhood. I know there will be a season when I may not need to work a more predictable income-producing job, our children are grown, and endless afternoons may be set aside for painting again. But in this year, in this place, though the choice requires sacrifice, and it must, faithfulness in creativity looks different every hour. Regardless of the ever-complicated and changing status quo, Ethan has consistently noticed and remarked “painting makes you a better mom.”
Painting is like prayer to me. It fills me and provides my space to commune with God. It enables me to serve my children and my family well when I, also, do what I am made to do as just “Caroline,” not as mom or wife, or teacher. Becoming a mother has actually motivated me to be more creative, to show Thea the importance of beauty, and to live a life that recognizes beauty as an essential part of being human. But painting itself and all it brings—the particular self-actualization, the freedom, the greater financial blessing once my business is more established—cannot become my ultimate goal, or my priorities have been skewed. “You can’t get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first,” (C.S. Lewis, “First and Second Things”). The first things must be kept first. But the second things must be worked for too. And on the best, most gloriously creative days (especially those days when Thea takes an extra long nap), they’re one and the same.
In between the hours making scrambled eggs, changing diapers, and going on neighborhood walks, you can find Caroline editing for Ekstasis Magazine,
teaching high-school Aesthetics at Greyfriars Classical Academy, and painting commissions and work for her website and other small businesses (and one day, she hopes, galleries!) You can see more of Caroline’s work at carolinegreb.com and follow her painting, homemaking, and adventures with her family on Instgram. Her favorite breakfast food is baked oatmeal with a maple syrup drizzle, but ask again next week and that has probably changed.
