Comments on: When Does a Busy Mom Write?

By: Respectful Parenting, Part 3 « In Need Of Chocolate

Respectful Parenting, Part 3 « In Need Of Chocolate — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:24:17 +0000

[...] comment of Melissa’s that struck a chord with me was her statement toward the end of When Does A Busy Mom Write? that she always turns away from the computer screen when a child comes to ask her something. (Willa [...]

By: Alli ~Mrs. Fussypants

Alli ~Mrs. Fussypants — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 04:30:58 +0000

The Rilla’s sweater post was one of my favorites.

Excluding all the HS posts that have totally shaped how I HS!

It was honest, funny and so real to life.

By: Jo

Jo — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:24:54 +0000

This post really strikes a chord with me, as I am contemplating giving up my on-line children’s bookshop to spend more time with the family. It’s breaking my heart, but really, life just isn’t tenable. My husband has a very strssful job that he loves, and I have found that as the children grow older they need more time, not less. Less physical chores, which really, you can do while your mind is somewhere else, more time where it is necessary for brain to be fully engaged - dealing with conflict resolution and having heart to hearts and negotiating all the big teenage issues. And there are the little ones as well…there is no slack anywhere in our lives, and so something has to give. I’m not really being a martyr, because there are parts of being in business that I despise - the bookwork, the tax, the filing! And I really resent not being available to the children because I’m doing a stocktake! But I love the writing and the connection with so many people I don’t even know in discussion about good books. And it gives me an identity apart from the ‘mummy’ tag, which I wear proudly, but is it enough?

By: Meredith

Meredith — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 23:50:52 +0000

I really appreciated your snapshot here too Lissa, in fact I printed it out for my dh to read. He is keen to the idea of me doing more writing as well, and his biggest question was “But do you NEED to?” she NEEDs too. And of course my reply was that uh, yeah I NEED to write too. He gets it :))

Loving all your strains and trains of thought as well as everyone else’s!

By: Angel

Angel — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:59:07 +0000

Thanks for posting about how you write. When I only had two or three kids I would write when they were napping in the afternoons, which gave me about an hour a day. I wrote a couple of (unpublished) novels like that. Now that I have 6 (4 under 5), the little ones never sleep at the same time and I suddenly have an extrovert (how did that happen? LOL) who likes to talk to me while the other kids have “quiet” time. At night my husband and I have to work together with the kids to make the house manageable and to get everyone ready for bed… if they sleep! There’s never really a time for my dh and I to even sit down together without kids (considering my 11 and 8 yos don’t go to sleep until 10:30) — which is tough on us as well.

So… sometimes I have to do a reality check because it’s easy to guilt myself into “why I am not writing more”. It would be easier to totally give up writing, I guess, but that would make me into an icky person. Right now my blog is serving as my only writing outlet, which I have a problem considering as “real” writing. But since it’s the only thing I’ve got at the moment, I suppose it will have to do. It is much more important to be Mom to my kids, and sometimes I need to be reminded of that.

By: More On Patience, Control, and Unschooling « In Need Of Chocolate

More On Patience, Control, and Unschooling « In Need Of Chocolate — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:15:46 +0000

[...] Melissa wrote a delightful answer to this question and continued with a discussion about how she’s not “doing it [...]

By: Sarah N.

Sarah N. — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:25:03 +0000

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain all these details about your life! I saw so many of my own dilemmas about how to divide my time in this post beyond just writing.

I think it’s marvelous that you have found a system that works for your family and allows you to get some writing time even if it is much less than when Scott worked from home. Right now, I get about an hour during the baby’s morning nap on the mornings when my 4.5 year old is in preschool and about 3 hours one weekend day. But as I’ve considered homeschooling I’ve had trouble imagining any weekday time without giving up more sleep than I can sanely sacrifice. Thanks for letting me see how you manage to get some of those pent-up words out of your head

My husband and I also like to rent seasons of tv shows and tend to watch one or two episodes a night together. And I also tend to get really into reading books or gardening or reading/posting on blogs and cycle through my hobbies in bursts. Thanks again for this wonderful glimpse into your life and how you fit in what you do and choose to leave out what doesn’t matter.