The Divided Heart - Rachel Power
Firstly, a big thank you to those who recommended I track down The Divided Heart by Rachel Power when I wrote about life/work/art balance a while ago. I did indeed track it down and then devoured almost the entire thing in a weekend - a pretty mean feat, you would have to agree, when there are small children to be entertained but I am pretty adept at reading while I cook, collect laundry off the floor and make creatures out of playdough. Despite life buzzing around me, I couldn’t help. I just had to keep reading.
As you know, I am no book critic, but someone who will rave endlessly and evangelically about a book I enjoyed - and The Divided Heart falls into that category. Reading it, especially so intensely, had such a profound affect on me. I took a little mini roller-coaster ride of emotions that weekend. To show you how extreme, my thoughts went from finding more childcare for Lily, to giving up my work entirely and then to, for the first time, contemplating a third child. THAT is how much of a roller-coaster ride and that is no exaggeration.
Rachel is such a sensitive and hugely intelligent author. Her introduction and her own reflections on being a writer and a mother are some of the most interesting parts of the book. She looks at the sad truth that, on the whole, historically women were not given any chance to attempt to be both a mother and an artist and so many women artists turned away from motherhood as a result. She looks at the mythology that surrounds art and (usually male) artists, and she talks about motherhood and domestic life still being feminism’s final frontier; the fact that our generation has grown up believing that it is possible to do everything (and let me tell you - reading my 80s journal is a blinding testament to that! I was going to be a film making / writer / mother of FIVE according to my 17 year old self) only to discover somewhere along the track - around the time of breastfeeding is the general impression - that despite the best of intentions of all parties, this is not always so easy. Each of the women she talks to have pretty similar struggles - and her point is made so very clearly that it’s a hard thing to be both a passionate mother and a passionate artist.
All the women she spoke to and interviewed for the book (including such gorgeous women as Claire Bowditch, Rachel Griffiths, Joanna Murray-Smith and Davida Allen) are refreshingly candid and touchingly open in their desire to share their experience. You get a real sense of sharing a heart to heart over a cup of tea with each of the women, a sense of their life and also a clear sense of the transience of all these feelings - which, we all know, change from day to day, stage to stage, child’s age to child’s age, yet a sense of the universal truths they live by.
I loved this book but at times I found it a little bleak as unsurprisingly there is no easy path to follow and the resounding message is “yes it’s bloody hard but you do the best you can do.”
But in the end I did come out feeling a little better about all in the world. There are so many pearls of wisdom to be found within the interviews, unsurprisingly the most inspiring come from the older women Rachel chose to interview, the ones whose children have grown up a little and who can look back on the early years with a sense of perspective. One of the interviews is with printmaker, Franki Sparke. It was a paragraph from this which resonated with me last week:
“There is always a gap between what we imagine ourselves to have the potential to become and what we really are,” Franki warned. “Motherhood is just one of the things that can be used as an excuse for not realising our dreams. You can always find a way to adapt your practice and work around your children. Perhaps it’s your career that’s compromised, as opposed to your art, or yourself as an artist.”
I realised that this for me is SO true! I have been banging on about not having enough time to do my “Work” for so long that I haven’t even any idea what my “Work” really is. I should just bloody well do something!
I highly recommend The Divided Heart, especially if you, like me, are feeling that inevitable pull between your work and your children… but I suggest reading it slowly (though the temptation is to keep reading it in a kind of frenzied desire to find answers to all the big questions) because it can be overwhelming and then let it sit before you rush off to have extra babies, book nannies, chuck in your art or your family.
A Divided Heart can be found in bookshops here in Australia, and can be bought from the publisher’s web site for those who are interested from Overseas.
Responses
28th August 2008 at 2:39 pm
It sounds like something i should read. Thanks for recommending it 
28th August 2008 at 3:03 pm
I am just at this stage with a almost 12mth old and a 5 and 8 year old (where did that time go?) Determined this time not too loose my link to my art, then feeling guilty for spending any time doing any of it, the self doubt and negitivity now attached to it. Thanks for keeping this subject out there and providing the link, I look forward to getting this book.
28th August 2008 at 3:07 pm
oh i’m so glad you tracked it down! i just knew it must be a winner of a book, what with all the fantastic women contained in it.
can’t wait to read the rest of it myself
28th August 2008 at 3:18 pm
Wow, thank you so much for sharing such a wonderful resource and candid review. As a 30 week pregnant lady with her first, I am already experiencing the heights and despair in even planning on trying to juggle all the different lives and roles that I want and plan to still keep.
Having conversations with recent mothers who tell me that I no longer exist out of the realm of being a mother, do not help and deserve a bucket being tossed at their head.
28th August 2008 at 3:21 pm
This is all very enlightening. Thank you for sharing. I definitely understand that feeling of division, but I find myself trying to bridge the gap by making everything I do a creative endeavor–how I homekeep, cook, play with my babies. And then when I have a quiet moment (naptime for said babies), I work on whatever my creative vision is. It seems that if you can get through the tough (though inspirational) baby years, your children can be quite an asset in your artistry. They can contribute and inspire and create too. I guess I’m just thinking that it doesn’t have to be so… bleak!
28th August 2008 at 3:23 pm
I’m putting that on my ‘to buy’ list.
I think the issues you mention apply even to us who aren’t artists. I’m a physician and part of an online community at mothersinmedicine.com where we discuss the difficulties/rewards/conflicts of having a foot in both fields.
Great post.
28th August 2008 at 3:41 pm
Oh thank you! This book sounds quite wonderful. My brain has been completely filled with this exact issue over last few weeks (well the tension created by mothering one child, trying to complete a PhD and an attempt to be creative, rather than being an artist per se) and I am really struggling with it.
I tried childcare and hated it and am not quite ready to quit the PhD (tempting as that is) and so I too am trying to deal with the reality that it’s just going to be a hard slog for a while…
I really had no idea what I was getting into, but perhaps that is just as well.
28th August 2008 at 8:30 pm
there is a talk about this with the author and others at the writers festival this weekend … saturday or sunday, I think. It looks excellent …
29th August 2008 at 3:14 am
That is amazing. I have been struggling with some of the same things. It is always hard to find the balance. Now that both my children are in school 5 days a week, my big question has been, should I go out and get a regular J-O-B that would bring in a more predictable income, or do I keep at my work and my art at home, doing what I love even though it comes with sacrifices like less financial security, and having my home and work being very intertwined. Thanks for sharing - I will have to check out the book. Have you watched the movie/documentary Searching for Debra Winger? Also along the same lines and VERY good.
29th August 2008 at 8:18 am
It’s a complex topic you have there. I feel it big time. I’m torn between being a mother and getting on with my career in the Arts that was ‘bubbling along” nicely until I chose to have a family. Now that career is totally off the boil. My choice? Yes. But still, I feel that tug back on a daily basis and it does lead to certain random but intense feelings of discontent, self-disappointment, frustration. Art takes time and such focus. Motherhood also. Something has to give. The choice is unfair, but it is real. Kidding ourselves that we can do everything leads us to feel as though we are failures.
Something that always bothers me. I used to have a secret love of the now semi-defunct magazine, Family Circle. Every month without fail there would be an “inspirational story” of a mother of at least three children who had somehow managed to also create a successful small business.
This was all beaut stuff, and I admired these women, but when I read the articles about them there would be, without fail, some sort of remorseful statement from the women or their children about how they had to sacrifice or severely compromise their family life along the way. The children were often resentful of the business taking away their mum. Nothing comes for free.
29th August 2008 at 10:04 am
It sounds like a great read. I’ll have to pick that one up.
29th August 2008 at 11:46 am
Gaaaaaaaaaaah - you made me buy it! Thanks for the advice - looking forward to it.
29th August 2008 at 12:08 pm
Sounds fascinating, and very very fat (in scope/issues/importance).
I have never studied feminism so I don’t know much about it, but the issue I have is how little respect mothering (in fact, parenting) is given by society. How many times have I heard women say they go to work to be respected and to be a good role model for their kids: why is staying at home looking after, and bringing up your children not considered a good role model in our society? My mum was telling me just last night that in Poland when I was born, women were given THREE YEARS of fully-paid maternity leave. And women there were always expected to follow similar career paths as men, so mothering was just allowed to fit in with job/career. While I’m sure it wasn’t as perfect as it sounds (for a start, it was a totalitarian Communist regime!) it sounds pretty good!
Anyway, I could go on and on, but won’t. I’ll have to read the book — it sounds like it explores the kinds of issues very important to me at the moment (as an educated woman mostly at home happily looking after two young children).
29th August 2008 at 12:52 pm
Oh dear - as an exhibiting artist and mother I’m thinking - should I read it, shouldn’t I…. Perhaps I’ll not read it and just go on happily doing the best my selfish little moments will allow….
29th August 2008 at 6:13 pm
Anu kind of balance is hard to find (and maintain) and finding balance between motherhood and desire/need/accomplishment of creative pursuits is tough. Because the moment you give birth your priorities change. And ‘motherguilt’ suddenly arises. I think I’m a better mum because I take time to be creative on an ‘intellectual’ level. Thanks so much for sharing. i will go out and buy it.
29th August 2008 at 6:35 pm
i agree it were the older women who held the inspiration for me.
at times i had to put the book down. i dont feel like my heart is divided.
its all just part of the experience.
rachel is a great writer. and it was an great ride to go on.
30th August 2008 at 10:18 am
I have been struggling with the best way to respond to this amazing topic, but as a non mum, it’s the passion for creativity and the drive to fulfull this desire (and keep the work/life balance) that interests me about this book. I am curious to read it.
31st August 2008 at 2:18 am
I am so happy you posted this. I had no idea such a book existed, and I am going to read that thing, immediately.
May I also suggest: Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch, by Henry Miller, which was very soothing to an overworked artist/mommy’s soul, as well!
Happy Weekend to you!
31st August 2008 at 4:19 am
Hi, this looks really interesting, I might have to check it out, if I have the time that is!!!
I love your blog and have been watching it for a while now, but have just relocated and sort of gone on blog-hiatus for a couple of months, so it’s nice to come back and see that you’re still up and running! thank you.
love Ruby
31st August 2008 at 9:59 am
wow…sounds like a great book.
I am a single mom of five (divorced almost two years ago) and I have so far continued to home school my kids while starting up college myself.
One thing that happened after the divorce is I started designing little girls clothing again…I don’t know if it was purely for that much needed boost of any income during the spurts of time to do and not to do it, or because it is something that belongs to *only me* in a house where I give so much.
I truly believe that right now I may get to the point where I question some of my choices of giving so much but, when I am older with an empty house I won’t question a bit of it and will be quite satisfied with what I gave and the children I grew in my *mothering years*.
bookmarking you :o)
Lori
1st September 2008 at 1:11 pm
Wow! Sounds very interesting. I am finding that I am getting stuck in my creativity, in as much as I don’t venture out to make new, different things like I used to. I think the thing is as I have so little time to create, I feel I don’t want to spend the time creating something totally new and then possibly failing. Before I had children I never worried about something that didn’t work out, but now I think ‘ahh, I wasted 1 hour and have nothing to show for it’. when actually the failures are the stepping stones I need to achieve something better! Clare, thank you so much for giving me some food for thought. I am so excited about you going to Japan for P&C’s wedding. Any room in your suitcase??*lol* love,Melissa
1st September 2008 at 1:31 pm
I attended the Melbourne Writers Festival panel ‘Art and Motherhood’ yesterday which Rachel Power was on as well as 4 other very successful mother artists and I was inspired!
I’m not yet a mother nor an artist really but these women have given me a burst of inspiration and reassured my ever questioning mind that yes, I will be able to be a mother and artist. If that is what I want to do. It can happen.
Catherine Deveny who was also on the panel had the best advice I think I’ve ever heard, DO THE ART FIRST! Yes, you need to feed your children and get the bills paid, but do the art! Dont put it off. Dont let it be relegated to the back burner. DO IT!
I’ll be buying the book to read on my flight to Sydney on Wednesday and will most likely finish it in time to leave it with my best friend who is a new mother. I can always get another copy
3rd September 2008 at 10:23 pm
wow. thank you for this. I never seem to be drawn to ‘ you must read this’ stories, but I am somehow. I feel really compelled to read this book!
3rd September 2008 at 10:59 pm
I’m going to look up this book, thanks for the recommendation.
4th September 2008 at 7:23 pm
hi, i came across your blog via kirin notebook. . . what a great review. i read the write up in the age last sat or sat before and thought i must get that but promptly forgot. a good reminder, thanku. sounds like something i NEED at the moment! advice that on topics like this, even if it’s indirect, definitely resonates
5th September 2008 at 9:24 pm
I shall buy this book and read it with relish. On Sunday I turned 42. I have 2 sons, ages 12 and 8. I am a physician and own my own business but have a heart of an artist. Indeed, the “art” of medicine is lost in so many ways. But for those of us called to medicine as a vocation, it is the art that calls us.
I am at a place in life where the pressure to be career and mother exacted a toll. For me, it was the realization that to live fully on this earth, I must permit myself to grow from the inside. While I am far from being an artist, I have a heart filled with creation: words, food, gardening. What I did not have was permission from my spouse. My heart was dying. So I faced and made a difficult choice. Motherhood, medicine and art(wereever that may lead). Was it better to stay in a marriage where your heart shivels and withers, or risk it? It is a terrifying concept and one not entered rashly or impulsively.But one that was necessary. My sons will benefit (I hope) from the courage to follow the heart into the yonder, eh?
Godspeed,Lisa
28th August 2008 at 1:34 pm
I was peaking at this the other day. I don’t have children but I found (the parts I read) so interesting - creativity/motherhood and the gap in between. Your review makes me what take closer look. Thanks.