Creative Parents: how having a child changes your work

Becoming a parent changes your entire life, whether you like it or not. From day one, you no longer stand at the epicentre of your own life; suddenly you’re a background character in the show starring your baby and, for the most part, that’s OK. But when your entire perspective is jolted, you can expect your creative work to follow suit.

These changes might come reluctantly and unexpectedly if you’ve spent your career so far carving a careful niche in a busy creative landscape, but the fact is you’re looking at the world from a new angle (and with a neurally remodelled brain, according to some studies) so it’s fair to assume the ideas you come up with, and the projects you’re drawn to, might differ from the pre-parenthood era. Your old lifestyle and routine is a distant memory too, with free time diminished and the idea of headspace almost laughable, not to mention being perpetually exhausted.

There are some positives coming up, promise... Most creative parents say that, once you acclimatise, parenthood makes you an adept plate-spinner and more efficient with time (because you have to be), and gives you laser-sharp focus (after a few coffees) and renewed appreciation for the small joys in life, helping you to find inspiration and motivation where you might never have found it before.

In the first article of a new series looking at the unique experiences of parents working in the creative industry, we look at how having kids changes your creative output. From influencing subject matter to involving kids in their process, and posing bigger questions around the purpose of creativity itself, an eclectic and formidable group of leading creatives share their deeply personal stories on the intersection of parenthood and creativity.

Marina Willer, graphic designer and Pentagram partner

“To start with, surviving everyday life with twins felt like Apocalypse Now. I still ask myself how on earth does man- and womankind survive this on a daily basis. Once panic is over, mad house becomes the norm and it’s brilliant.

“My children and family are the biggest inspiration to me. We constantly make and build things together: cardboard monsters, doodles, prints, sketches, stuff. Children see every day with a fresh eye, as if anything is possible. In order to stop technology taking over, we had to all re-embrace the analogue world. Yes, we banned screens and that was the best decision we ever made. Their curiosity and imagination took over. We all started to read more, play music and make stuff by hand. And you fall in love with all those habits again. We are constantly blown away by what children can come up with. From making clothes out of recycled materials to composing songs and writing poetry.

“Children today know so much more about science and the world around us than we did. So you have to step up your own knowledge. Together we listen to podcasts all the time, it might be about black holes, the moon, AI, radioactivity, jazz, origami or Extinction Rebellion. I am so inspired in general by the younger generations, how they know we need to change the way we live on this planet and with each other, and that there is no other way.”

Amy Bennett, artist

“When my first child was born, I was taken aback by how quickly he developed. Sometimes he would wake up from a nap looking more mature. It filled me with the same bittersweet wonder we experience with time-lapse photography. It shifted my perception of time. Meanwhile, I was also feeling quite vulnerable and instinctively made paintings that were literally more distanced, while I processed my new experience and lifestyle. Instead of working at a scale where figures are about an inch tall, I zoomed out to a drone kind of view, to that point just before you can detect people when you’re descending in an airplane.

“I made a series of paintings exploring the development of a fake landscape as it evolved into a town. It wasn’t until I had settled into my new life in the suburbs and was pregnant with my second child five years later that I felt ready to make work about parenthood. I had this long list of images I needed to make, which resulted in my Nuclear Family series.”

Mijae Kim, art director at Artment.dep

“Frankly speaking, pregnancy was not a planned event for me. My son felt like an unexpected gift. I was anxious about becoming a mother because life of as an art director is fast-paced and quite intense at times. And I was truly grateful for my parents’ support for my new adventure of motherhood.

“Motherhood is not as glamorous as life as an art director. Cleaning up a disastrously messy room filled with toys becomes a more important task than creating beautiful things with my hands. Being sleep-deprived and having no physical and mental energy to take care of myself often pushed me over the edge in my relationships with my son, with work and even with myself. And this still happens at times. But I am also growing and learning, just like my son, about how to work and rest at my own rhythm.

“I am an art director, so my job makes me consider the visuals of everything. Yet ever since I became a mother eight years ago, I looked to add a ‘health’ component to my projects. I want health and wellbeing to be a part of any beauty that I create, whether that be ingredients for a newly developed cafe menu, architectural components, or even in business contracts with partners – I put intentional effort into creating something healthier for mother nature and the environment for kids. (Seriously, I didn’t care about anything but visual aesthetics before!)

“As my value and priorities changed, building Tea Collective (a Seoul-based tea brand) was a natural discourse for me. Tea Collective initially started as a simple design project but soon expanded into a bigger business. In fact, my projects began to reflect my daily life in more granular details; the places I go to eat and drink with my son became reference points for my projects. Now, I find more value in creating visuals encompassing healthy beauty for everyone, not just for the highly fashionable few.

“Whether you have a child or not, being an art director permeates your life. I stand for my work, just as my life stands for my brands.

“Meanwhile my son has grown to become a sensible, fashionable and introspective boy. He always asks what I think about objects, places and foods that we share together. He prefers dolls and toys with natural and comfortable colours (except for Lego!) and loves drinking organic tea! As a single mom, I understand that I exert an un-shared influence on my son. I only hope he also finds what he is genuinely passionate about, enjoys the glee of observing and learning something new, and shares that joy with people around him – just as I’ve done in my life.”

Tom Finn, co-founder of Regular Practice

“It’s quite hard to quantify how becoming a parent has changed my creative work, also because it’s all still relatively new (my daughter Billy is only nine months old now). I haven’t actively thought that as a studio we should no longer be working on X or be doing more of Y, although I definitely negotiate harder, invoice earlier, sleep less, and worry more. I also want to travel less and be home on time, which is difficult as a young-ish studio, but Kristoffer (the other 50 per cent of Regular Practice) is one of Billy’s godparents, so he has to be supportive now by default…

“The person in all this who I think has been most affected is my partner Amanda. She’s also a creative, and has put her own career in animation on ice to look after our child, and to allow me to continue running Regular Practice. Being a freelancer is hard enough when you’ve spent years building a career, so to stop and start again is a terrifying prospect. Shout out to her and all parents who put what they love on hold for the arrival of another.”