The Best Gift You Can Give the Creative in Your Family

(And you can't buy it on amazon...)

It is Tuesday. I am breathing a sigh of relief because this is the day each week where I wake up with no homeschool plans, no to-do-lists looming over me. Of course, I will be busy all day long with my children—eight of them, ages 18 months to 14—but I will be doing the kind of work I love. Being a Mom, hanging around in the kitchen, having conversations, answering questions in an unhurried way, and studying these beautiful, inspiring people, learning who they are becoming, helping them, encouraging them, noticing... This is our weekly Creative Day, and what that means is everybody in this house can do what they love.

These are my guidelines for Creative Day:

Time—I am convinced that time is the greatest gift you can ever give a creative soul who lives in your home. Randy and I have come to an understanding here—he takes one day a week to do his songwriting/recording and I take another. Creative people need time—not just an hour here and there when it magically all comes together. It needs to be open-ended and scheduled and as frequent as will work for your family rhythms. That means leaving a day in your week where there is nowhere to go, few interruptions, and there are hours available for some slow, quiet, deep creative work. I find that it takes me the first hour just to get warmed up to my ideas, and I don’t really start writing the real words until the second hour and the second cup of tea.

No Inspiration Killers—On Creative Day, my kids know there will be no movies or video games. They don’t ask anymore. I have found that once the tv goes on, creative energy significantly decreases if not dies altogether. They can use apps for creative work (such as Garage Band or iMovie), but otherwise phones, computers, and screens of all types are off.

No Pressure—There is no pressure to have an amazing idea or finish a project or have something tangible to show at the end of the day. I am here, so I know what is going on. I know they aren’t wasting their time. A lot of the work and play of the day is creative process, which is just as important as a final product. This is where they are making discoveries, trying new things, and learning in a very physical sense who they are and what they bring to the table. The final product is not even the goal. It is learning to activate that unique voice within each of them. This comes slowly, building experience by experience, idea by idea, mark by mark.

So what does Creative Day look like in our family?

Every week is a little different. The piano is played frequently by different children throughout the day (The soundtrack is a strange combination of original classically-inspired songs, Super Mario music, Irish tunes, and I think I just heard someone plucking out the melody of Penny Lane. I never know what I’ll hear…). Some of the younger kids are out back making up games that involve long sticks and walking around the edge of the playground. While the baby naps, I am sitting on the front porch with a cup of tea, writing in my journal and musing over this newsletter. Randy is away at a friend’s house (an empty, quiet house!), where he is working on a new song.

I don’t give them assignments. I let them decide how they want to curate the day. I think this is a really important part of the creative life—knowing how to manage your time. Engaging in creative work when the time is available instead of only when you are burning with creative fire. Thinking ahead about things you want to do and preparing so that when the time comes, you will be ready, momentarily-inspired or not. And making yourself find something to do. This feels tricky at times, but as we continue this rhythm, I see more courage and resiliency in my children. And I see them coming to the day more prepared and enjoying it more fully.

I don’t limit reading for pleasure (which I consider inspiration) or listening to audiobooks. I often prefer to listen to a podcast or a story when I am busy with my hands, and my children do, too. I am happy when the kids use part of their day to play a board game or stop to have a tea party. While these things are not 100% creative work, I consider play an important part of the creative life. And I value this type of interaction immensely.

I consider Creative Day one of the best things we have established as a family. It is a non-negotiable. If we have plans that take a day from our week, we almost always swap out a busy-worky day and hold dearly to this one. It makes living in a houseful of busy, creative people a joy, instead of viewing their creative work as a nuisance or a mess or something that I keep feeling guilty about not doing because it doesn’t seem as pressing as finishing a curriculum. But I have come to see this day as the most important of their education.

Information has never been cheaper. You can ask a robot anything and find the answer. But understanding the value of your one and only creative voice… Knowing that there are secrets inside you that cannot be found by typing a question in a search engine… I want these precious little people to know this truth intimately.

I don’t want my children to be simply entertained through life. I want them to show up for the purposes for which God has created them. I want them to do the things that only they can do. I want them to have the living conversations that can only come from their hearts and mouths. I want them to build the structures that can only come forth from their minds and hands. I want them to create those songs and paintings and drawings and phrases that put substance to the impressions that others feel but cannot themselves articulate. I believe in these little people. I learn from them. I see my greatest role as a mother and home-educator as this: Assuring my children that they were born for a unique purpose, praying and watching and listening as that purpose is revealed, and giving them the tools to become the people they are meant to be. And it doesn’t just begin at some arbitrary date in the future. God is using them now. These children are alight with the very seed of creative fire that he planted inside them. They are created beings, made by God himself in his image and for his glory. And week by week, I aspire to remember that all of the creative work flowing out of this family is part of that beautiful, inspired breath of life within them.