And here's my last whiny post of 2005.

Oh, but I am feeling low.

I could blame the chocolates my mom bought my husband--my delightfully Jewish husband who is all, “I do not understand you Christians and your strange Christ-birthday; who is this ‘Christ’?” and then insists that my family only give him presents that he can consume. So we get these damn chocolate confections that are incredibly delicious; one of them makes you feel that you require twelve more, and then the second one provides you with the sensation of needing to tear your skin from your face and set your pants on fire. I ate three.

Also, Henry is sick. We put him in preschool and he fought off every virus that came his way, but one weekend with my family was all it took to bring him down. The night before last he had the CROUP, and we immediately rushed him into the steamy bathroom and sat there until the ceiling melted. He continued to whuuup and hurrk far long than he ever had before, but then as we discussed our imminent trip to the ER, he decided hospitals were not his thing, and the episode passed. But now he’s all drippy and crusty and feverish, and when I’m not worried about him I’m worried about how I’m going to keep from killing him.

He is moany and whiny and needy and I can understand why, but he’s not needy in a way I understand. Lying on the couch requesting blankets and tea—this I can understand. Running around and throwing toys while wearing nothing but socks and screaming at me to take off his socks—this is his version of being sick, and it makes no sense to me. No he does NOT want soup, take that blanket OFF him, he LIKES shivering, and don’t THINK about giving him Motrin, on second thought the Motrin tastes like candy so give him EXTRA, what do you MEAN extra is bad for him? THE NAKED BOY WANTS EXTRA MOTRIN.

When he isn’t demanding that I overdose him, he wants me to play, except what he really wants is not for me to play—he wants me to sit next to him and watch him as he plays. This way lies madness, as we know, but I am not given much of a choice in the matter. If I try to pick up an action figure and join him in playtime, I am berated. If I attempt to rise and get a glass of water, or maybe use the bathroom, there is much screaming and pleading for my company. If I sit right next to him and read a book, the book is torn from my hands. My attention is demanded constantly, but it’s only to acknowledge whatever it is he is doing. “Look, Mommy!” he announces, holding up Batman. “I am holding Batman!” Pause. “Look! Look! Look! Look! Look! Look!” and so on, until I respond, “Yes, that’s Batman, all right.”

Repeat this with every one of his two hundred figures.

I am bored out of my mind. Literally, I have no mind.

So maybe this is not the best day to take stock of my life. But whoops, too late.

Waaaay back, I got an MFA in creative writing and I told myself I would have a novel published before I had a child. Ha, ha! No really, I did! I know! Then when I was pregnant I downscaled my ambitions to, “Hmm, I should really get a short story published before I give birth.” I didn’t make that goal either, but I did eventually get two stories published. And a poem. Which, okay, more than zero! Not so bad! But really if I consider myself a writer, I should have more than two stories published in my lifetime. Two stories (and a poem) would make a crappy collection.

So now I’m working on a book. Which is nice, to have an idea, to be working on something. To finally, after years of struggling with rock-bottom expectations and crippling self-doubt and blar de blar twelve years of therapy blar, be doing what I’ve always want ed to do. Except! I have no time! Ever! Because there’s this child! Whom I think a great deal of, who’s really a great kid, but who demands every second of my time! And I may be just a wee bit resentful about that!

I’ve been getting up at six in the morning to write. I am not a morning person. But Henry isn’t either, and as he gets up at 8 at the earliest, it seemed the perfect time to get some things done. But by the time I get a cup of tea, turn on the lights, find my robe, use the bathroom, stare at my freaky morning hair in the mirror, turn on the computer, and try not to throw up as I see what I wrote the day before—by the time I’m ready to write it’s 6:30. So the most I can do is an hour and a half of writing. And it’s not enough. I need that much time just to remember why I’m sitting there, what brought me to that place and what it was I wanted to say, again.

Today I made the mistake of reading an interview between Paul Auster and Jonathan Lethem, and they were talking about the five or six hours each day they devote to their writing, how satisfying it was to have SO MUCH time to write! Devoting those hours to their Art infuses the rest of the day with a “kind of grace,” they agreed. And I thought, if I see you fuckers on the street—and there’s a good chance I will; they’re both around here somewhere, I’ve seen them before—I am going to kick you in the shins. Six hours! Hey, Jonathan: once we were at the same party and you were dancing and you danced like a moron and I laughed. And then you went home and wrote a masterpiece. Wait, that didn't make me feel better. Asshole.

I don’t know how anyone who is a mother is also a writer. I suppose you have to achieve a certain level of success so that you can hire a nanny without killing yourself from the financial burden or from the guilt or choosing your nonexistent career over your child. But if I don’t have the time, then I can’t write the book, so I can’t get the money, which I need to, um, have the time. I go around and around like this, and then I want to throw up. Or maybe that's the chocolates.

I am sorry to end the year like this, so I will say Happy New Year, and then I will go to bed, and maybe tomorrow, the last day of 2005, will suck a tiny bit less.

Comments

[coolbeans]

Michael,

I think you're missing a key point. Here's the thing: I have decided what kind of mother I want my children to have. The kind of mother I want to be isn't one who hovers and dotes, but one who is attentive, accessible, involved and interested. I can be that mother playing one-on-one with my child and I can be that mother while keeping house or while engaged in various other activities. It would be very difficult for me, however, to be those four things listed above if I were deeply involved in a creative process that demanded my attention and required inspired, uninterrupted focus.

[B]

Wow. It's times like these I'm glad I'm barren.

Also, I don't have any kids, nor any pets, nor any houseplants that have survived my not-quite-green-more-like-death thumb, and I still don't have time to do anything productive. Other than leave blog comments, that is.

[alice]

Michael, you're adorable! But what are you talking about? It's not how much attention you give your child, it's how much they DEMAND. It's hard to produce when you have a three-year-old gnawing at your arm.

[Suzyn]

Michael, parenting has a HUGE influence on intellect. The research actually says the opposite of what you postulate. Cause and effect is hard to establish, but the IQs of adopted children increase when they move from institutional to single family environments. The reality is that quality parenting can ameliorate developmental problems in children, and neglectful, shitty parenting can exacerbate what might have been minor personality issues. It's easy to think that us watchful, attentive, involved moms are going to raise a generation of people who demand everyone pay attention to them all the time, but you are wrong. Appropriately involved, attentive parenting creates engaged, empathetic adults.

[Terry]

I'm convinced you'll get this done -- it's just that, the boy seems like he'll be 3 forever, and your time will never be your own again because it hasn't been for 3 years & counting -- but there will come a point where you realize your time is (somewhat) your's again, and you may even feel some FONDNESS & NOSTALGIA for these days of attending to the every need of someone who yells at you even as you're doing so.

This was written by someone who is currently on her fifth 3 year-old. Last week he was lying on our couch, drinking soda while he recovered from a fever/flu thing. At one point, he told me he wanted to sit in a different chair (the better to see the T.V.? I guess?) and even as I was lifting him up to move him he shreiked at me: "No, I don't want that chair!"

I actually thought about dropping my sick kid on the floor.

[Kirsty]

Ah, roll on the school years. I didn't get much art made when my son was little but once he went to school, oh boy had I ever built up a real head of steam. In fact, I'm still trading on that pent up creativity some 8 years later.

It does get better and it is possible to combine creativity and motherhood - difficult but possible.

I took a notebook everywhere with me, so that even when I wasn't able to make art, I was could write. It helped.

[Angela]

You deserve a medal for getting up at 6am and TRYING. I have been wanting to post about this very topic, but--ha ha ha! how ironic!--no time. So this is why a lot of my creative energy has shifted over to photography...because it can be done kind of quickly. Even that has been difficult.

People tell me the same thing, all the time; that everything will be better once the twins are in school. (Indeed, the mothers I know whose kids have just entered school DO look a little calmer!). I miss my own time to connect with the adult world so badly I'm constantly having to remind myself to stop thinking about two years from now, and enjoy the cute little girls they are now. But yes, it is agony, just letting everything go...there's no time to even jot down crappy little brainstorms on post-it notes.

I guess the bonus that OvaGirl and I will share is two kids entering school at the same time. YAY!

[jenalda]

Boy, do I feel your pain. I got pregnant and gave birth in the middle of finishing my PhD in English. Two and a half years later, I'm still in the middle of finishing my PhD in English. I have two hours usually while my child naps, and maybe another two after her bedtime and before I pass out myself. And no one besides my husband and maybe my mom seem to understand that gee, a dissertation isn't something that can be written in the four hours of free time I have to myself each day. It's so frustrating--just like you said, by the time you get ready to actually write, you are out of time. I know this sounds bitter and snipey, but I have noticed that the men in the PhD program with children don't run into the same problems--they seem to finish licketysplit, wailing newborns/demanding toddlers or no. Keep trying, though, and good luck.

[sharon]

Oh, yes, is that familiar. (And I have two croupy children right now). I also get up in the morning to write. Not as successfully, because the children have started getting up when I do to ambush me before the computer is warmed.

Happy New Year. The book will come. You have so much talent.

[Robyn]

Hi, first time commenter, long time reader(think Dr. Laura - and actually I haven't been reading this blog that long, but I enjoy it!). Anyway, it is the same with my knitting. I'm afraid to knit while my son is awake for fear he will fall from the bookcase he's not to be climbing on, onto one of the needles. Pointy end up, of course. So I get very little of it done. I also would love to write, even have something started, but there's that kid thing again. I keep telling myself, when they're older.
Have a good new year!

[Jem]

Happy New Year...it will probably not make you feel any better, but your writing on here is very good and I love reading it and I would buy any book you wrote.

[clickmom]

OK I don't have time to read the other 61 comments here (imagine, a mom with no time!) so forgive me if I am being redundant, but this is what I would like you to know from my own experience:

1. Do not give a child with a low fever fever reducing medicine. Sick kids need to lie around the house, which they will do if they have 101 or 102, but not if you lower the fever. The last thing any mom needs a sick kid that doesn't feel sick anymore. If they have 104 feel free to dispense the fever reducing medicine because then they are likely sick enough to lie around regardless. Remember that those fever reducers are hard on their little livers and they don't need the added burden when they are sick, unless they are very very sick.

2. Preschool time is YOUR time, use it to write, and then drag Henry on all the errands that you could have been doing while he was in school when you pick him up. Also, this is a great time to send him off on playdayes alone, you can work something out with a friend.

3. Lighten up on yourself, if you were cranking out the books, we would all suspect that your kid was neglected anyways, so this is really one that you just can't win. He'll get older and you'll reclaim your life. It is inevitable.

[Angela]

I, for one, will continue to wait patiently for your fabulous book. I will wait patiently until 2010. Then I will start to get a little antsy.

May each day in 2006 suck a tiny bit less than the day before, and may you find Time.

I might have a bit of a hangover! Happy New Year!

[Heather]

Yeah, and then some of us dumbasses go and have THREE kids!

Finished and/or Published works: None
Half-started works: 1,062,478
Amount of time alotted to personal hygiene: 5 seconds
Number of fancy baby blankets I made and sold this year, 'cuz this was going to be "my home business": None
Time spent breastfeeding: 27 hours/day
Number of brain cells I have left: 4 and a half
Time spent with baby sleeping on chest while I channel surf, but quietly so he doesn't wake up: at least 7/day

Let's just run away!

P.S. Can we at least know the stories you had published so we can read them? I enjoy your writing so much and would love to read more!

[agatha's bitch]

Alice...you are my hero and just said all the things I'm feeling. I'm going to carry a copy of this blog entry in my wallet, so when I finally have that nervous breakdown and go catatonic, people will find it and understand why.

so thank you.

[Arabella]

Oh, Alice, you ARE a writer, and a very, very good and prominent one at that! I totally second LetterB. Everything is different now. And our lives of juggling work and laundry and children and public venting are simultaneously the oldest thing in the world and very cutting-edge.

Happy New Year!

[Elizabeth]

Alice,

this post brings to mind that scene in The Last of the Mohicans where Daniel Day-Lewis has to jump down the waterfall to escape the Indians who are going to kill him and he implores Madeline Stowe to "Stay ALIVE. I will find you." And then he jumps into the massive, crashing water. (God, such a great scene, I got goosebumps just remembering it).

Anyhoo-- I want to implore you to Stay SANE--the book will find you! It will come. You will make it through this challenge. And there will be a book-- many books, as many as you want to write and you will have time! Hang in there-- you are a fabulous writer and it is your destiny.

[Sarah]

I heard Jane Smiley interviewed at the San Francisco City club a few years ago, and they asked her about writing while being the mother of 4 (I think it was 4). She writes 2 hours a day. And she is very prolific. Perhaps not looking in teh mirror in the am?
Sarah

[nathalie]

i am costantly swallowing ambition and re-commiting to the choices i've made as a parent it's hard

i am always amazed at how much better everything seems when a cold or child's illness has lifted

i'll stand in the kitchen and suddenly realize that i feel good - where did this energy come from - and i figure it out - yes, we are all finally healthy again

those brief energetic moments are what i imagine it will be like when i sit down to an uniterupted period of time with children at school - except i'm sure that i will miss the days like this one where a sleepy nursing baby causes me to type one-handed messages void of grammer all e.e. cummings-like

some things just take time

and ditto on the low-fever no motrin thing

[margalit]

Alice, I'm the single mom of 13 year old twins, both with special needs. I'm also a professional writer. I've written over 20 books (none of then even remotely readable unless you're interested in the workings of software, but nevertheless) since my kids were born, many of them in the house with the kids at the same time. I learned a long time ago to carve out time for myself. My kids had a livein aupair for the first 2 years, and then went off to preschool during the day, which gave me plenty of time to work. I also work odd hours, mostly very very late at night after my kids have gone to sleep. As they have gotten older, I've had much more time to send them packing to their own comforts and leave me time to write. I know of MANY other writing moms in the same position.

Henry is a demanding child, and you tend to give into him because (and I would too) it's easier than finding another way. But there are other ways, including finding the RIGHT daycare situation for him, even if it means a sitter in your house for a few hours per day while you're locked into your office. Honest, it can be done, even with a high needs kid.

The effexor helps, of course. I'm never going off it.

[Very Mom]

You need to have another baby so Henry has a playmate.

[pregnant pause]

Ha ha ha.

Only kidding, the third child, she has made me ever so slightly maniacal.

[Sarcomical]

i am absolutely CONVINCED that anyone who can make me laugh regularly as you do will no doubt publish a fabulous book very soon! i hope you feel much less sucky today. ;)

[Hurly]

They do grow up. And if you're like me, you'll never wish him a single day younger. Just don't let Henry have any "enrichment" or he may be good at it or love it, or both and then you'll have to take him here and there. Oh, and ask your husband for a vasectomy for your next birthday present. That right there is at least another poem. Seriously, adding up all your blog entries is a book. Well-written and witty, too.

[wordgirl]

Wasn't that interview in "Believer" magazine? If so...I read that interview and had the same reaction. Doubt I'll see Lethem or Auster slumming around here in Texas, but if I do I'll kick them both for you.

And staying home with a sick kid (even though you love him dearly) sucks the big pudding! I HEAR your pain!

[Michele]

Oh, great, this is what I have to look forward to. My son is 17 months and already goes ballistic when I leave the room, yet also refuses to let me get involved in his toy playing. "Do you want help with that?" "NO!" He was also sick over Christmas and boy, talk about needy...I was about ready to just give up and staple him to my hip.

I agree with the other comments about writing. I blog because I don't have the time or discipline to do something like a novel. Talent I have in spades, but time? forget it. But someday I will enter NaNoWriMo again and actually get something substantial written, dammit!

[Michele]

sorry, that last link didn't work. It's www.nanowrimo.org, not www.nanowrimo.com. A book in a month...it could work!

[meganann]

Henry will get older, and you will get more time to yourself. Hang in there for now, even if you can't write as much at the moment as a couple of men who are not the primary caretakers of a toddler.

You are a fantastic, gifted writer. You have a talent and ability that many wish for and few have. Don't give up on yourself. Sometime in the future, all of us who are reading now will be buying your newest book from our favorite bookstores.

[meganann]

Or um, a primary caretakers of a preschooler? Sorry about that, don't know where my brain went.

[Amy]

I suppose the grass is always greener, isn't it? I have the time, I have not the talent. Be happy with what you have.

[Amanda]

The answer, CLEARLY, is to just have more children. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

I'll let you know how it goes.

[Michael]

A post from a collection of comments in Edge about "dangerous ideas".

JUDITH RICH HARRIS
Independent Investigator and Theoretician; Author, The Nurture Assumption

The idea of zero parental influence

Is it dangerous to claim that parents have no power at all (other than genetic) to shape their child's personality, intelligence, or the way he or she behaves outside the family home? More to the point, is this claim false? Was I wrong when I proposed that parents' power to do these things by environmental means is zero, nada, zilch?

A confession: When I first made this proposal ten years ago, I didn't fully believe it myself. I took an extreme position, the null hypothesis of zero parental influence, for the sake of scientific clarity. Making myself an easy target, I invited the establishment — research psychologists in the academic world — to shoot me down. I didn't think it would be all that difficult for them to do so. It was clear by then that there weren't any big effects of parenting, but I thought there must be modest effects that I would ultimately have to acknowledge.

The establishment's failure to shoot me down has been nothing short of astonishing. One developmental psychologist even admitted, one year ago on this very website, that researchers hadn't yet found proof that "parents do shape their children," but she was still convinced that they will eventually find it, if they just keep searching long enough.

Her comrades in arms have been less forthright. "There are dozens of studies that show the influence of parents on children!" they kept saying, but then they'd somehow forget to name them — perhaps because these studies were among the ones I had already demolished (by showing that they lacked the necessary controls or the proper statistical analyses). Or they'd claim to have newer research that provided an airtight case for parental influence, but again there was a catch: the work had never been published in a peer-reviewed journal. When I investigated, I could find no evidence that the research in question had actually been done or, if done, that it had produced the results that were claimed for it. At most, it appeared to consist of preliminary work, with too little data to be meaningful (or publishable).

Vaporware, I call it. Some of the vaporware has achieved mythic status. You may have heard of Stephen Suomi's experiment with nervous baby monkeys, supposedly showing that those reared by "nurturant" adoptive monkey mothers turn into calm, socially confident adults. Or of Jerome Kagan's research with nervous baby humans, supposedly showing that those reared by "overprotective" (that is, nurturant) human mothers are more likely to remain fearful.

Researchers like these might well see my ideas as dangerous. But is the notion of zero parental influence dangerous in any other sense? So it is alleged. Here's what Frank Farley, former president of the American Psychological Association, told a journalist in 1998:

[Harris's] thesis is absurd on its face, but consider what might happen if parents believe this stuff! Will it free some to mistreat their kids, since "it doesn't matter"? Will it tell parents who are tired after a long day that they needn't bother even paying any attention to their kid since "it doesn't matter"?

Farley seems to be saying that the only reason parents are nice to their children is because they think it will make the children turn out better! And that if parents believed that they had no influence at all on how their kids turn out, they are likely to abuse or neglect them.

Which, it seems to me, is absurd on its face. Most chimpanzee mothers are nice to their babies and take good care of them. Do chimpanzees think they're going to influence how their offspring turn out? Doesn't Frank Farley know anything at all about evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology?

My idea is viewed as dangerous by the powers that be, but I don't think it's dangerous at all. On the contrary: if people accepted it, it would be a breath of fresh air. Family life, for parents and children alike, would improve. Look what's happening now as a result of the faith, obligatory in our culture, in the power of parents to mold their children's fragile psyches. Parents are exhausting themselves in their efforts to meet their children's every demand, not realizing that evolution designed offspring — nonhuman animals as well as humans — to demand more than they really need. Family life has become phony, because parents are convinced that children need constant reassurances of their love, so if they don't happen to feel very loving at a particular time or towards a particular child, they fake it. Praise is delivered by the bushel, which devalues its worth. Children have become the masters of the home.

And what has all this sacrifice and effort on the part of parents bought them? Zilch. There are no indications that children today are happier, more self-confident, less aggressive, or in better mental health than they were sixty years ago, when I was a child — when homes were run by and for adults, when physical punishment was used routinely, when fathers were generally unavailable, when praise was a rare and precious commodity, and when explicit expressions of parental love were reserved for the deathbed.

Is my idea dangerous? I've never condoned child abuse or neglect; I've never believed that parents don't matter. The relationship between a parent and a child is an important one, but it's important in the same way as the relationship between married partners. A good relationship is one in which each party cares about the other and derives happiness from making the other happy. A good relationship is not one in which one party's central goal is to modify the other's personality.

I think what's really dangerous — perhaps a better word is tragic — is the establishment's idea of the all-powerful, and hence all-blamable, parent.

[roo]

Don't knock that hour and a half-- they add up.

[Minnams]

I had a children's book published in my early twenties and ever since then, nada on the writing. But I heard an interview with the author Carol Shields a couple of years ago that was immensely comforting, far more so than the exchange between Paul Auster and Jonathan whatshisname. Carol Shields said she dreamed and dreamed of becoming a published writer and the day that her youngest of her five children went off to school, she sat down and started writing her first novel, at age 40. Small Ceremonies (the book is called) So I cling to the belief that I still have time to do it. My youngest is due to start school in two years...

[alice]

All right, Michael, enough. Go start your own blog.

[Rosenleaf]

I would buy the book with the two short stories and a poem.

I, too, am trying to be a writer and trying to wrangle a toddler. The only thing that has worked for me so far is to keep my expectations really low. I have no novelistic aspirations and content myself with being a writer-for-hire for magazines and doing some blogging. If a novel strikes me, I'll write it. But I can't imagine that happening any time soon.

Several thousand posts ago, someone said the far worse thing would be to have oodles of time and no talent. Be glad you have the opposite problem.

[Margaret]

YOU ARE A GENIUS. I don't have a child, but for five years I had Wrestling With My Infertility to keep me company while I didn't write. I have also declared you my Favorite Public Figure of 2005 in my livejournal.

[Amy B.]

see you should do what I did. give up writing. take up scrapbooking. Then you are deveoting your time to recording your precious child's life! he will love you! you write on the pages! oh and then you can get totally caught up in whether or not your pages are getting published in national scrapbooking magazines and feeling like a faliure because you arent meeting your publishing goals there either and . . . never mind. don't do that.

[Candice]

oh the croup. I know this one well. It attatches to my children like gum to the bottom of your shoe.

[lis]

1) I read your story in Fence, and it was good. Jolly, Jolly, Panty Good.

2) I SAW Jonathan Lethem through a window and he was picking his nose and crying "why! why is alice funnier than me? why can't I do it!?" so there. He is a boogery watery sad man. And a bad dancer, too, or so you say.

3) If you're getting an hour an a half of writing done a day, that's glorious. If I wrote that much, I'd feel like a genius.

therein ends my comment. happy new year!

[alice]

I am now picturing Jonathan Lethem picking his nose, and I am laughing.

(I failed to mention that during the hour and a half of writing? I'm actually just picking my nose. Honesty in 2006!)

[cagey]

You are WAY too hard on yourself expecting that you should get so much accomplished while having Henry in the house. I admit I had no freakin' clue until I had my own little MonkeyBoy last October. Even though I stay home full-time, I still have a teenaged cousin come in a few times a week so I can get a few things done in the house, run quick errands, and go to the gym.

Not to Assvise you or anything, can you hire a teenager to come in and hang out with Henry while you work on the book? A friend of mine did that so that she could work part-time from home and it went quite well.

[braine]

No, I haven't read all the comments, but. I took up running a few years ago, then we had a son. In order to run I get up at 5:30 am. I respectfully suggest that you ditch the "I am not a morning person" self-identification and replace it with "I am a writer who gets up early to give myself enough time to get into my groove."

My novel, I work on during my two-hour commute. There is time in the day, you just have to make it.

And you know what? I'd trade the enjoyment I get from reading your blog for the enjoyment I would get from reading weekly notes that say "I am writing something else but thanks for checking in."

[Shelli]

"And I thought, if I see you fuckers on the street...I am going to kick you in the shins."

I am still laughing.

As to what braine said, I use my blogging to get my creative juices flowing. It really helps me and I think I need it in addition to my other writing.

My kids are older, but my youngest (10 1/2) loves to interrupt me with inane things, like "Mom, do you like my new word--uppeadambowambo?" Or some other such nonsense. It just throws off my whole train of thought/thinking process. It makes me laugh now, though, to think what my face must look like as he says it to me. I am sure it is an utter look of disgust and confusion. I am sure he goes into his room and laughs hysterically.

[the patriarch]

The childless should never, EVER give advice on parenting. Period. Of course, one can never know this until they have a child themselves. Michael, as one man to another, shut up about this. You have no idea and are not expected to, so chill. I have a friend who is a writer, and when his wife was expecting their first child, he layed out his plan for squeezing in some writing after the baby is born. This will make all the parents laugh. It went like this:

I'll set up the bassenet nest to my desk and write when she's napping.

I laughed in his face when he told me this. Needless to say, it did not go as he planned.

[Maggie]

Lady, please. You're totally kicking ass. You're writing online, raising a sweet little boy, and spending about 550 hours a year on your book.

It's a novel, for pete's sake, it's going to take a long time. Of course, owing to your extraordinary talent and wit, your novel will be better than most people's novels--even people who spent a lot more time--and that will be lovely. We will have tea and chortle over your demonstrable superiority.

Enjoy your lovely mornings alone in the twilight writing, I find they infuse the rest of the day with a kind of grace.

[Coelecanth]

Everyone is focusing on the parenting issue and not at all on the depression. (Pardons if I missed a comment or two that did)

Depression can create false feelings urgency.

I'm sure you understand that writers, unlike Pop-tart singers for instance, can create their art until they're very, very old and grey. On some level I suspect you know this but it bear's repeating: you have time. Even if it takes a couple of years to be in a place where you can devote yourself fully to writing, you will still be capable of writing once you get there. Indeed, the experiences you gain in the interval might even make you a better writer.

The hour or two you're doing now may not *feel* like enough, but it's better than nothing. Besides, feelings need to be viewed with suspicion when you're depressed.

The time you're spending now is more than enough to keep your skills from atrophing. The evidence is right here in this blog. You're a fine writer right now, despite your current lack of free time.

I wish you the best, I have personal experience with depression and it's a tough, tough thing to deal with.

To everyone telling Michael to shut up: if you disagree with his argument address the arguement. Give a counter argument, explain why the *argument* is wrong. He might indeed be incorrect, but saying he doesn't know anything because he's not a parent isn't proof. Or more to the point it isn't proof that the studies he's citing are wrong. Comtemptuous dismissal doesn't furthur anyone's understanding.

[Jen]

I don't know if it is any comfort, and it is actually lame of me to say it, but ME TOO! My son is seemingly a close copy of yours, and I am an artist with a career that is more or less on hold, and I have all the same Issues that you described so well. And my son does need every tiny molecule of my attention. And not only that, I have a new son as well. hahahahaha! Thank you for providing me this one break-- it is the only blog I read and I never miss it. So, um, you ARE doing something, at least for me.

[debl]

The problem isn't Michael's argument, it's that his argument isn't applicable here, as it doesn't help Alice (or any parent of a demanding child). Seriously, before my peers starting having kids, I always thought, "What's the big deal? Kids start getting too annoying, you just firmly tell them No!" Then I saw some actual toddlers in action. You have no idea how good they are at ruining your day. And they simply don't seem to be able to step back from the situation and look at it rationally! It's quite amazing.

[debl]

P.S. Toddlers, preschoolers, close enough....

[mox]

With all the time you (don't) have, you should read Shirley Jackson's 'Life Among the Savages' and/or 'Raising Demons'. I feel the same as you do about the time/money/daycare/writing thing, but then, the idea that Shirley Jackson had the same issues and still managed to write some wickedly scary stuff... well, I guess life's not complete without a little guilt.