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Writing While Parenting
Ben Berman's Writing While Parenting explores what it means to pursue a creative passion alongside raising a family, how having children can make a parent both more vulnerable and more adventurous as an artist. Given how hectic parenting is, is it possible to balance a career and family, let alone find two minutes to pee without someone tugging your leg and asking to watch you "make bubbles"? How does one possibly find the time or energy to be creative?
Spanning five years, these essays range from humorous moments (the seven-year-old daughter complaining that she "just got kicked in the weenie") to the more serious ones (finding two swastikas etched into the slide at the neighborhood playground). No matter its genesis, each piece thoughtfully examines the overlaps and the dissonance between the creative life and the procreative one. This is a witty, inspired, and illuminating collection for the writer, the parent, or both.
Spanning five years, these essays range from humorous moments (the seven-year-old daughter complaining that she "just got kicked in the weenie") to the more serious ones (finding two swastikas etched into the slide at the neighborhood playground). No matter its genesis, each piece thoughtfully examines the overlaps and the dissonance between the creative life and the procreative one. This is a witty, inspired, and illuminating collection for the writer, the parent, or both.
- GenresParenting
222 pages, Hardcover
Published March 10, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 10, 2023
Look, Ben is my friend, and Ben is rad, and Ben knows how to use words. Not all of these essays hit with me, but the ones that did, really really did.
This is not really a how-to or book of specific pieces of advice about how to live a creative life while also having to work and caretake. It's more about Ben's philosophy about what creation, writing, and poetry are or can be; why the creative life is worth pursuing; why playfulness and mistakes and perseverance matter; why setting aside the time for this kind of life is necessary.
You can choose to go through your day with a head full of tasks and petty grievances and mental detritus or you can choose the mindfulness of deep observation - of others, of yourself, of how words want to play. Your body can be in the supermarket, but your brain can be on the monkey bars, or your brain can make the supermarket into monkey bars - you can choose.
This is not really a how-to or book of specific pieces of advice about how to live a creative life while also having to work and caretake. It's more about Ben's philosophy about what creation, writing, and poetry are or can be; why the creative life is worth pursuing; why playfulness and mistakes and perseverance matter; why setting aside the time for this kind of life is necessary.
You can choose to go through your day with a head full of tasks and petty grievances and mental detritus or you can choose the mindfulness of deep observation - of others, of yourself, of how words want to play. Your body can be in the supermarket, but your brain can be on the monkey bars, or your brain can make the supermarket into monkey bars - you can choose.
January 24, 2023
Ben Berman's new collection of essays, Writing While Parenting is a cornucopia of delights. A feast of original, genuinely funny, whip smart insights into writing, language, and parenting yes, but also a deep dive into the sheer joy and wonder of being alive. Highly recommended.
October 16, 2023
Amazing! Ben has a way with words. The last line was beautiful and a perfect way to end the book. 💕
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews