Children and writing

Many, many years ago, I had dreams of being a writer. However, I also had dreams of having a family, and, quite honestly, the pull of being part of my own little family tugged harder than did being a writer. A line from a Harry Chapin song illustrates my feelings exactly, “All the dreams of open spaces come alive in children’s faces.” And children was what I was able to accumulate—six of them. I found that being a mother was harder than I thought possible and I’m afraid I wasn’t always good at it or physically up to the challenge. Children need and demand a mother 24/7. I remember staggering through a day after more than one child had woken in the night with terrible needs and thinking, “Three hours of sleep is good. Three hours is good.” I also remember feeling immense frustration at the limits of my rather weak body. For instance, imagine trying to juggle bags of groceries and keeping track of three small children who liked to run away as I maneuvered through a parking lot and tried to open the car door. I just didn’t have the physical strength and it almost brought me to tears. But, oh, the rewards—“all the dreams of open spaces come alive in children’s faces.”

I also had this pull to be a writer. Nap times became important writing times. If I could manage, then 5:30 a.m. became a good time to write, but, quite frankly, I was often too exhausted to write, so I read—a lot. I even read to my children. There were times when we read every afternoon. Over the years I wrote a few novels. Good practice but none were worth much.

A friend of the family, who was a successful writer, scolded me for wasting my creativity on being a mother. I never believed him. Indeed, I scoffed at his ignorance about the importance of family over the importance of writing. Later he had children of his own and I never heard another word about loss of creativity from him.

Still, I wanted to be a writer, so I wrote. I wrote a lot of drivel and I wrote some imaginative stuff that had promise, but didn’t quite cut it. I even sold a few short stories. All that practice made it easy for me to write short articles. I became quite facile at shooting out short magazine and newspaper articles. Give me the information and an article appeared in minutes. Facility with words comes with practice. So does the discernment of what makes good literature. Did I mention that I read—a lot?

My sister-in-law, Janice, introduced me to the rich and growing world of children’s literature. Children’s literature has come of age. When I was a child, I was restricted to a few animal stories, dogs and horses, the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and then in junior high I discovered Robert Heinlein and science fiction. Fantasy and science fiction are passions of mine, but now I drift over to science fiction and fantasy in middle grade and young adult literature. Oh, and I even write it, and have had some published, as those of you who read this blog know. What fun.

“All the dreams of open spaces come alive in children’s faces.” Years have passed. My children write. I read what they write and am in awe—their blogs and their short stories and their novels are magical. Imagine—my children write.