Older female creatives with children are inherently selfish.

Or so literature would suggest. I think it's about time we celebrated creativity amongst mothers - young and old - rather than vilifying them for daring to express themselves outside of motherhood.

I was sat having a coffee with my friend this morning and we started discussing our daughters, who we feel are edging far too quickly towards tween/teen years.

We were talking about the relationships we have with them now, and how this might change as they become more independent.

As part of this conversation, I said I sometimes wonder what my daughter will blame me for in the therapy she’ll no doubt have as an adult.

Because the blame almost always falls on the mother.

I said I expect it will be that I’ve been selfishly creative, and prioritised this over motherhood.

And then I laughed, because this is very much not the truth.

I have continued to write poetry and articles, non-fiction books and novels - but always around the edges of motherhood.

I spent one summer when my second baby was a year old, committing two hours an evening to completing a novel.

Nothing ever came of it, but I enjoyed spending my evenings writing creatively.

The rest I’ve done in school and nursery hours, remaining very much present during their early years.

So why do I imagine myself becoming framed as the selfish creative woman who has prioritised this over motherhood?

(Also, why do I feel I need to make clear that I’ve not sacrificed any part of motherhood for my art?)

Well, as our conversation continued, I told my friend about the novel I’m currently reading, and the one I read before that.

Both of which feature strong, older, creative women who are mothers.

I have italicised this point because it is the fact that they are combining creativity and motherhood that seems to be the problem.

The first is Harriet Sangster, the mother-in-law character in Monica Ali’s Love Marriage.

The second is Mercy, an older mother of three children - and now grandmother - in Anne Tyler’s French Braid.

These books are totally unrelated.

The first I read after seeing it on a list and the second, I chose to read as I like Anne Tyler as an author.

But I have felt uncomfortable with both representations of these older woman - one a writer, the other a painter - that feel so narrow and actually, quite unfair.

What then struck me is that in the last novel I wrote myself, I had an older creative mother who is inherently selfish.

She was an absent mother, and then a fairly useless grandmother.

This isn’t a character I was creating based on life experience - my own mother was very present and didn’t work as a creative.

And I can’t actually think of a woman I know who she resembles.

So where did I get this idea from?

Where did Anne Tyler and Monica Ali get their ideas from?

Writers on motherhood

In a 2008 interview with the Telegraph, the writer Doris Lessing said: “No one can write with a child around. It’s no good. You just get cross.”

And on discussing leaving her two children in Southern Rhodesia and returning to England, she said:

“For a long time I felt I had done a very brave thing. There is nothing more boring for an intelligent woman than to spend endless amounts of time with small children.

I felt I wasn’t the best person to bring them up. I would have ended up an alcoholic or a frustrated intellectual like my mother.”

This is the more extreme end of the creative mother spectrum, where she actually felt she couldn’t combine motherhood and creativity.

Shifting along, we then have messages like the one from journalist and author Lauren Sandler that:

‘The Secret to Being Both a Successful Writer and a Mother: Have Just One Kid’.

A message that caused backlash from Zadie Smith and Jane Smiley, both of whom have more than one child.

And you might be familiar with the famous quote from editor and critic Cyril Connolly, who said:

“There is no more somber enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.”

So these messages circulate in our literature and media that if you have children, you are - essentially - creatively fucked.

You will need to either abandon your children entirely, have someone else mostly caring for them or - at the very least - limit how many children you have, to ease the consequences.

If you try to both mother and satisfy your creative urges, you will not succeed. Your art will be crap, or your mothering will be.

Time for a re-frame

I have another idea.

How about we write characters in fiction who manage to be both mothers and creatives, without damaging the children?

Because these women certainly do exist.

How about we publish poetry about motherhood that shows it can serve as inspiration for our art?

Because that definitely can happen.

How about we start celebrating older women who have had children and have managed to continue to be creative?

Because this is a wonderful thing.

In youth, we’re allowed to be free and creative and travel and experiment. But in our middle and older years, the expectations set in.

As a woman, you should be in the home, nurturing the family and shelving your creative passions.

Don’t travel, don’t seek inspiration, don’t have adventures, don’t pretend you’re still young, don’t do anything entirely for yourself.

Give up your creative dreams.

Ignore those ideas landing in your mind.

Because if you veer from this narrow ideal, you’ll one day be painted as an inherently selfish older female creative.

Come on, now. Let’s change the narrative.

What our children, especially our daughters, will find most inspiring is seeing that we can be committed mothers who also have boundaries protecting our creativity.

A creatively satisfied mother is the kind of role model I’d like to be.

Annie x