Maternity/paidblog:
So, this post is quite a personal topic, but something I have been pondering or worrying over for a while, without conclusion or useful thoughts. Perhaps the good blog readers will be able to offer some advice/ own experiences?
On having children; my husband is desperate for babies and I’m not adverse to the idea, in fact as soon as YSbloodyP is done next summer it’s babies are go as far as I’m concerned (presuming we are both able etc..). One major problem, as a self-employed artist, is what the hell am I going to do about money?? Full child benefit currently stands at £80/month.
My husband earns an okay wage as a games programmer. However, he went back to Uni and graduated again in 2006, so then he had a job, but plenty of debts too. When we moved in together, he had just started work and I am a self-employed artist, therefore neither of us could pass a landlord’s credit check and had to get a loan to pay rent in advance. This meant paying back more and over a longer period, so that took its toll. Needless to say Dan has to bail me out occasionally (see non-payment in Linz for most recent example). Anyway, that is all back history to illustrate the point that we live in our overdrafts and struggle when unexpected car bills and the like crop up. To be solvent it will take a few years, but we don’t want to wait. Friends and family have joked that I need a job in the council or somewhere for 6 months, then I’d have maternity pay. Trouble is, that does seem like the only real option; getting employed.
Reminded of a familiar worry by this month’s curated selection on Axis, there is also the worry about how I will manage everything. The selector Katy Deepwell says
“While many artists in art school are still fed the myth that somehow motherhood and art are incompatible, the extended education of many women (artists included) has pushed motherhood later and later in their lives”.
But is it a myth? Can I still work? More likely perhaps – will I be so smitten that I won’t want to? Lena Simic from The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home in Liverpool manages to mix her children, life and art pretty seamlessly, but I’m not sure this way is for me; my husband is not an artist for a start and he likes his privacy! I don’t know anyone else that I can use as an example; all my (women) friends with babies gave up their art long ago or never did it, and friends who are artists do not have babies.
Mainly I am scared about having worked so hard and losing all that. Would I end up losing my practice (as opposed to finding it)? It seems that whichever way you do it; you can’t really have it all. Can you? (someone say yes please..)
