From Fear to Discovery: How Parenthood Sparked Creativity
Writer Chris Ames initially worried that having children would create a divide between him and his creativity. However, he has since learned to see parenting as a creative practice in itself, one that offers invented language, a kaleidoscopic view of the self, and new ways of perceiving the world.
According to Ames, his four-year-old son often produces bits of fresh syntax that glisten and lodge in his brain. For example, after a bad tumble, the boy might announce that his 'tears have gone home' or that the best way to get through a thunderstorm is to 'hold on to your brave.' On a video call with his grandfather, he turned to Ames and said, 'Look, I can hear my reflection.'
Parenting as an Act of Interpretation and Response
Ames draws parallels between parenting and artistic creation. He describes parenting as an ongoing act of interpretation and response, requiring improvisation and world-building, with success impossible to measure. He notes that attention is the medium, as his son constantly asks him to look at a dandelion growing through concrete, a dog with a harness, or the moon visible in the daytime sky.
Referencing author Ben Lerner, Ames compares parenting to a bonsai tree—seeming both massive and miniaturised. Parents exist on two scales at once, looking down at their child while remembering what it was like to look up at their own parents. This duality, he suggests, is what great work strives to achieve.
Transcendence in Small Moments
Ames acknowledges that not every day is beautiful. There are days of being screamed at, cleaning up vomit, and stepping on Lego. But there are also moments of transcendence on a tiny scale, such as lying on the carpeted floor of the National Gallery of Victoria's Great Hall with his daughter, staring at the stained-glass ceiling together. He cites author Rivka Galchen's concept of 'the small as opposed to the minor.'
He writes that children offer invented language and new ways of perceiving the world with the same casual indifference as spitting a date seed into your palm. 'Because yes, you're technically closer to the bin, but in many ways, you are the bin,' he adds.
From Management to Making
Ames encourages a shift from a model of management to a model of making, treating children not as art projects but as collaborators in the larger project of being alive. He lists things that feel like art, such as when his son asks to choose a story genre from snails, slugs, rainbows, or jail, or when his daughter hyperfixates on the small white tags on her stuffed animals instead of the toys themselves.
He also shares a humorous example: after stripping kale to make pesto, his son grabbed two stalks and said, 'Look, these giraffes are going to Bunnings.' In contrast, things that don't feel like art include the sound of footsteps at 11pm, a tantrum heard in stereo through a baby monitor, and a single strand of illness passing between family members for weeks.
Creativity and Caretaking: At Odds Yet Intertwined
Ames reveals a funny truth: he couldn't have written this piece without his children, yet he had to wait for a weekend when they were with their grandparents to write it. He concludes that creativity and caretaking are at odds, yet somehow in service of one another. He emphasises that parenting is work, often hard and fruitless, but there is an astronomical bent to it—an understanding that you won't see meteors every time, but you must keep putting out a folding chair on the cool grass of your attention span and look up, night after night.
Chris Ames's book I Made This Just for You is now available through Ultimo Press.
