{"id":5190,"date":"2009-11-19T22:21:04","date_gmt":"2009-11-20T05:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/?p=5190"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:34:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:34:05","slug":"pangs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2009\/11\/19\/pangs\/","title":{"rendered":"Pangs"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m having an ego moment. Cruising the Internet, I find so many sites by people — especially women — who are creative and generating a living (or at least some income) from it. Friends are making and<\/a> selling their<\/a> art. Friends are designing clothing<\/a> and selling the patterns<\/a>, and knitting up gorgeous garments. A friend is starting fitness accessory business<\/a>. Friends write books<\/a> and hold retreats<\/a>. Acquaintances are life coaches, writers<\/a>, have award-winning blogs<\/a>, make and sell jewelry<\/a>, and so on.<\/p>\n

And I’m here in my little corner of the world, dabbling away. I suspect I’ve always been a dilettante. I walked away from a fledgling career as a professional counselor with her own practice to move here with Husband. (To get licensed here would require almost going through the whole process again — at a cost in money and time that I just won’t spare.) Sometimes I think about setting up a life coaching<\/a> practice, but what is<\/em> that, anyway? Everyone seems to be doing it; Google produced 42 million<\/em> hits for the term. Plus, I’ve been out of the work world long enough that I feel rough and rusty. <\/p>\n

One reason I go through sporadic periods of creating is that once I’ve got something made, the question arises of what to do<\/em> with it. I’ve got knitted stuff stored in my drawers. Art I’ve made sits in a portfolio. Space is limited, so I create less often, and it depresses me to create only to have it sit in the dark. Yes, I could knit for charity — and I do. But there is something satisfying in being compensated monetarily for one’s efforts, and it is validating and heartening to be recognized for one’s work. <\/p>\n

I’m not complaining so much as I am musing aloud whether I could be doing more, if I am wasting precious skill and talent by not generating income in some way with all this creativity. <\/p>\n

And I’m wondering where these women get the energy. Some of them, in addition to being mothers, work outside jobs, and yet still find a way to create, often at the expense of their sleep and perhaps health. Maybe they can actually function this way. I did it for years in my 20s and 30s, but I’ve found that I’m a crappy mother if I’m exhausted and sick, and I want to be a good mother. I don’t enjoy life when I’m barely able to move or think. There are no sick days available.<\/p>\n

So I struggle a bit with… envy? Or maybe it’s worry… a fear that I have retreated into a passive state, almost infantile, in that I don’t generate income, especially from all the dabbling I do. I’m getting to play, while Husband is out there bringing home cash. I don’t have currency in a world where the question, “What do you do for a living?” is unanswerable because I don’t make an income. There was no place on the U.S. Census form that I filled out for our household for me to write that my current job is Homemaker and Mother and that no, I wasn’t laid off and seeking work. It — I — just didn’t count. <\/p>\n

I know, wah wah wah. But I do wonder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m having an ego moment. Cruising the Internet, I find so many sites by people — especially women — who are creative and generating a living (or at least some income) from it. Friends are making and selling their art. Friends are designing clothing and selling the patterns, and knitting up gorgeous garments. A friend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,48,214,25,34,27,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-community","category-domestic-arts","category-education","category-motherhood","category-recreation","category-social-science"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5190"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11718,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190\/revisions\/11718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}