Author Chris Ames, who once feared that parenthood would stifle his creativity, has discovered that raising children has instead become a rich source of artistic inspiration. In a piece for the Guardian, Ames describes how his four-year-old son's linguistic inventions—such as saying he can 'hear his reflection' on a video call—have opened new ways of perceiving the world.
From anxiety to artistic partnership
Ames, whose book 'I Made This Just for You' is out now through Ultimo Press, admits he had deep concerns about becoming a parent. 'As a writer, I had a lot of anxiety about having children. I was worried there would be a new divide between me and creativity,' he writes. However, he has since reframed parenting as a creative practice in itself, an ongoing act of interpretation, response, and improvisation. 'Your attention is the medium,' he notes.
The author draws parallels between parenting and art, highlighting how his son's imaginative games—like turning kale stalks into giraffes going to Bunnings—embody a collaborative, world-building spirit. He cites author Ben Lerner's analogy of parenting as a bonsai tree, 'a thing that seems both massive and miniaturised,' where one exists on two scales simultaneously.
Transcendence in the mundane
Ames acknowledges that not every parenting moment is beautiful. There are days of screaming, vomiting, and stepping on Lego. Yet, he finds transcendence in small acts, like lying on the carpeted floor of the National Gallery of Victoria with his daughter, staring at the stained-glass ceiling. He describes these as moments of 'the small as opposed to the minor,' a concept from author Rivka Galchen's 'Little Labours.'
He writes: 'Invented language, a kaleidoscopic view of the self, new ways of perceiving the world. Kids give you this with the same casual indifference they give you the seed of a date they've finished by spitting it into your palm.'
Shifting from management to making
Ames advocates for a shift from a 'model of management' to a 'model of making' in parenting, treating children as collaborators in the larger project of being alive. He lists things that feel like art—such as his son's genre-based storytelling (snail, slug, rainbow, or jail) and his daughter's fixation on toy tags—against things that don't, like interrupted sleep and illness spreading through the family.
He ends with a reflection on the tension between creativity and caretaking: 'I couldn't have written this piece without my children; I had to wait for a weekend when they were with their grandparents to write it. Creativity and caretaking, at odds, and yet somehow, impossibly, in service of one another.'
