In making artful lives, we learn to be right-sized. Practicing modesty, we learn humility. Our children, too, become right-sized as they measure their endeavors against their own standards, not those of others. We are correct to actively appreciate our children’s gifts, but acknowledging their creative lives and the accomplishments of their siblings and peers is a delicate issue. Even with the best of intentions, overemphasizing our children’s achievements can foster perfectionism, competitiveness, and disconnection from God’s plan. Humble, we are all at our most empowered. Humble, we are closest to God.
Ah, fame. It is an American drug, a poisonous, rampant distraction. It attacks us at every age, telling us that if it hasn’t happened yet, it’s not going to happen. (Translation: It’s too late. You’re not good enough. Why even try?) We watch the news and see headlines in newspapers of enormous success by people (1) younger than we or our children are; (2) less talented, in our eyes, than we or our children are; (3) richer and more glamorous than we are.
As soon as we start comparing ourselves with a Hollywood norm, we are talking ourselves out of taking action. “I can’t catch up with that,” we think, “so why even try to do anything?” Or, “That’s totally unfair. Her daughter is not as talented as mine, but her family is rich because of the opportunity her daughter was given.” It is a short road from these thoughts to “What’s the use?” And as soon as we are thinking “What’s the use?” we are dangerously close to rationalizing ourselves out of making any effort at all.
This morning a friend of mine called. She is mid-divorce and soon to be a single parent to her only son. She is rightfully scared, and, to my ear, trying to focus on anything but the uncomfortable day-to-day requirements of her current situation.
“I need to write a book,” she tells me. “Or a screenplay. But it has to be a hit, and then I’ll be rich and famous and I won’t have to worry about anything.”
Hmm, I think. “I have to write a hit” is a slippery place to begin. “I have to write what I have to write” is where we have more secure footing. Maybe my friend will write a hit book or screenplay. But with this as the starting goal for her first writing endeavor, she is setting the bar unnecessarily high for herself. Does she want to write? Does she feel called to write and to express herself? Or does she want to be rich and famous so she “won’t have to worry about anything”? Perhaps what she really desires is a break from worry.
Earning money and gaining acclaim for our creative endeavors rarely gives us a break. More often, the opposite occurs. We are more in demand. There is more pressure. There are more requests, more people asking us for, well, more. “Fame is a by-product,” my literary agent friend says. “People are constantly asking me to ‘make them famous.’ Fame comes, once in a while, from doing the work. It can’t be the goal, and it’s the part of the equation we have the least power over. My job is to help artists do good work and be compensated fairly for that work,” she says. “Anyone who claims to be a star-maker is focusing on the wrong things and, frankly, making an empty promise.”
Fame exists at every level. It may be on the national or international stage, or it may be a perceived hierarchy within our small community. Focusing on fame interferes with what we are doing, and with what our children are doing. Instead of being proud of your daughter for being in the school play, you become obsessed with how she was partly cut off in the picture in the local newspaper, or how another girl got the attention that your daughter deserved. The goal becomes being recognized for being in a play instead of enjoying the process of being in a play.
By rewarding effort, praising process more than product, we instill in our children a desire to fulfill their own potential. No matter someone’s level of natural ability; to achieve great things, every person must put forth great effort. As Thomas Alva Edison put it, “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” As long as our children know that the work is never done, the depth of their potential is limitless.
It is more effective to reward daily piano practice than to overly celebrate the “win” at a local piano contest. Excellence is wonderful, but there is always another, larger contest. “Winning” is temporary and must be put in perspective as a joyful occasion, but not an end in and of itself. Growth occurs in spurts and is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. With ourselves and our children, we must be gentle. In the daily, conscious effort forward lies the magic of potential and the true power of action.
All of us like—and deserve—to be acknowledged for our efforts. We can’t guarantee that we will be acknowledged exactly when and how we want to be acknowledged. But we will never be satisfied as long as we are obsessed with outer praise for our actions. When we focus outside ourselves and compare ourselves with others who make us feel that we are coming up short, we are always focusing on lack. When we focus on lack, our joy in the process starts to wither. When we focus on lack, we discredit ourselves and lessen our excitement for the well-earned accomplishments of others. Fame is fickle, and fame can be toxic.
At every level, on any topic, the fame drug can disable us. A student in my class talks of her recent experience during the summer break.
“The other day I was at the pool with my kids. A bunch of moms were there, and I listened to them gossip about the rankings everyone had gotten at last week’s swim meet. I heard them whispering about one kid who won almost every blue ribbon. ‘His mom’s over there,’ a woman snipped, ‘probably trying to see if she can get his picture in the newspaper again.’ I looked over at the mom, and she wasn’t doing anything. Her son had beaten the other kids fair and square. I said as much and I wasn’t popular for it, but I’ll tell you, it got a lot quieter on our side of the pool. I’d rather hear an awkward silence than hear some mom complaining about another kid’s unfair advantage. All of our kids swim. All of our kids get ribbons sometimes. It’s just not the end of the world. I don’t want to become an ugly person because of the color of a ribbon.”
Focusing on generosity toward and encouragement of ourselves and others, we become strong. Allowing our children to know that we see and enjoy their efforts, they are seen and enjoyed. Small, concrete actions on behalf of ourselves and on behalf of our children lessen fame’s grip on our soul. When your daughter is in the school play, you can celebrate this by making a scrapbook of memories with her. We can save the ticket stub and a piece of fabric from her costume. We can help her rehearse her lines and clap from the audience. We can videotape the performance and send it to grandparents and friends. And when the play is over, we can ask her what she would like to do next.
THE WISH LIST
An Exercise 
When we are seized by the fame drug, we are focused on someone else. To break this painful obsession, we must turn our focus to ourselves. In this moment, we do well to quickly get in touch with our own true desires. The fame drug encourages us to be consumed with something outside of ourselves, something of which we will never get “enough.” But our true power lies in being focused within rather than without. One of the fastest ways I know to change our focus back onto our authentic selves is with a tool called “the wish list.” The wish list is deceptively simple—simply complete the sentence “I wish…” twenty-five times.
Examples:
I wish I had time to get a massage.
I wish I could lose ten pounds.
I wish I had clarity about Jeff and could move on, unconfused about that relationship.
I wish I’d take the time to really scrub the terrace.
I wish I could afford to buy a new car.
Try it now. Your wishes may be large or small, sublime or ridiculous. There is no wrong wish.
I wish __________________________________________.
When I use this tool, and when my students use this tool, a certain magic is unlocked. We cast our imaginations into the future and picture our desires as having come true. For a moment, we pretend that we have what we wish for. In that moment, we contact both our desire and the possibility of that desire being fulfilled.
Making these lists, we become in touch with ourselves. Because there is no wrong wish, our ideas are free to come to us, unconstrained. It is a powerful tool, and I urge my students to write their wishes down often—and save those lists. It is very common to return to the list weeks or months later and see that, indeed, many of those wishes have been “granted.”
COMPETITION
Competition, like the numbing haze of fame, is a spiritual drug. Competition compares our “insides” with someone else’s “outsides.” Competition focuses on winning and losing, succeeding and failing, rather than on the task at hand: are we doing our personal best? Are we taking the steps we know are necessary to take? Are we enjoying our endeavor? When we take our focus off ourselves and place it squarely on someone else—the competition—we block our own good and impede our own progress.
It is a paradox that those who are not focused on others usually make the swiftest progress and easily hold their lead. When we focus on ourselves and our own next right step, we are satisfied. We are moving at our own right pace, and we are fulfilled by the journey.
When we fall under the spell of competition and focus on someone else’s progress instead of our own, we are indulging in the myth that it is one or the other—either his child will succeed or my child will succeed. Either I am the better mother or she is the better mother. We must be careful to create an environment where there’s plenty of praise to go around. As we show our children that we appreciate their efforts as well as compliment the efforts of their peers, we teach them to do the same. Creativity is not about winning. Creativity is about creating. But when we ask the question “Why does her daughter have the advantage?” or “Why is his dad making more money than me?” we talk ourselves—and our children—out of creating, and successfully avoid taking our own right action.
Focusing on the competition, to be blunt, is a stalling device for the creative. Because our energy is focused on someone else, usually someone we know, it is especially effective. When we’re busy staring at the other person, asking ourselves why things are so unfair, it is hard to turn back to ourselves and ask, “Did my child finish her homework and practice the violin today?”
The truth is, the other person’s life has nothing to do with your life. The truth is, the accomplishments of your child’s friend do not disempower your child. Your child is empowered by action, and action is always available to take. Anytime we hear ourselves asking, “Why does he have X?” or complaining, “Isn’t it unfair?” we must immediately ask ourselves, “What action am I avoiding?”
I have often said that competition lies at the root of much creative blockage. As much as we can model maintaining a healthy focus on ourselves, we help teach our children to avoid the many hours wasted obsessing over what they cannot control (another person’s actions) versus what they can control (their own actions).
A woman I know speaks of growing up in the shadow of her talented older brother. Three years his junior, she was always following in his footsteps, but “three years behind,” as she put it. She saw herself as less talented than he and struggled not to compare herself with him. Things seemed to come easily to her brother, where her attempts felt belabored, like work. The sibling competition was reinforced in the household as well. “Your brother is very creative,” her mother would tell her. Wanting to be like him, she kept following in his footsteps, exacerbating the underlying sibling rivalry. Seeing him study piano and theater, she also studied piano and theater. “He was always supportive of me,” she says of her brother. “It wasn’t his fault that I saw him as the wunderkind and compared myself to him in everything I did. His success made me second-guess my abilities and creativity. How could I pursue music seriously when I didn’t have the same talent as my brother? How could I call myself an actress when I was chorus member number five to my brother’s King Arthur?”
Her story is very common, and it is of course human nature to look at those around us and see how we stack up next to them. But we do ourselves a disservice when we decide that another person’s path is the model for our own. My friend is, today, an artistic director of a theater. She is a visionary who oversees a large company and her background allows her to often jump into the action herself, helping to light shows, contribute lyrics, adjust costumes when, as she puts it, “someone needs to step in.” She appears, today, to be a highly functioning creative professional. “How did you overcome your own insecurities?” I ask her.
“I probably didn’t quite overcome them,” she says. “But I learned to rely on myself more and more.” She tells me the story of the first summer she went away by herself and stayed with her cousins in Pennsylvania for a couple of weeks, participating in their local community theater. “With my brother nowhere near, and no one in the theater knowing me as ‘Sam’s sister,’ I was free to be myself. I was seen for my own talents and value. I loved the independence and, at age ten, I felt like I had really become an independent woman. I was in rural Pennsylvania, and the theater was near my cousins’ house. We were able to walk there on our own and I loved having that kind of autonomy. Growing up in car-dominated suburban Detroit, under the watchful eye of my parents, I felt so free during those summers, personally and creatively.”
Focusing on competition, we poison our own well. Focusing on positive effort as opposed to results, we can make great strides. Creating an environment where children are praised for their right actions, we teach them to value the step-by-step nature of accomplishment. Following our example, they learn to take pride in each forward motion of their own, and to appreciate the efforts of their peers as well.
THE NEXT RIGHT THING
An Exercise
There is only ever one action we need to take: the next one. When we are consumed by what someone else is doing, it is time to look at what we are doing. One hundred percent of the time, for us as well as our children, an unhealthy focus on someone else is simply a distracting technique to avoid what we need to be doing ourselves. The good news is that it is very simple to break the spell. The answer to what our next right action is usually well within our awareness.
Fill in the following:
I am distracted by _______________, because he/she is __________________________________________.
I suspect that the action I am avoiding in my own life is __________________________________________.
SIBLINGS
With its two pianos, one for study, one for fun, the Cameron house was filled with music. Mother Dorothy played the “Nutcracker Suite” when she was happy and the “Blue Danube Waltz” when she was not. We seven siblings learned quickly how to read her musical cues. My sister, Connie, played music of her own devising, as did my brothers, Jaimie and Christopher. Lorrie preferred classical music, which soothed her when the household became too hectic. The household was seldom without music. Those of us taking music lessons went to the keys to practice. The pianos were almost always “taken” in the Cameron home, and we would have to negotiate with our siblings to get a turn. The rest of the siblings played to the sound of our efforts. Music soaked into our very bones. Both Jaimie and Christopher had a particular knack with the piano. They could improvise by the hour, sometimes making up themes for us girls to dance to.
Once a week we had a piano lesson from Sister Mary Jane. From her, we learned more formal musical skills, such as reading notes and what to do with our left hands. I was good at playing by ear but not so good at reading music. My sister, Connie, read music fluently but couldn’t play much by ear.
Since artists need, above almost all else, support, we must be conscious that we are both receiving this support ourselves and giving it to our children. Unfortunately, many homes allow a natural hierarchy to form, where those children who are excelling receive more attention than those whose efforts are not immediately paying off.
We must all be alert to the tendency to compare our children with one another. Of course, each child is different, and it is natural to note similarities and differences among siblings. Labeling one child “the musical one,” however, can knock other siblings out of the running in an area where they may have found joy, and, in time, even excelled.
It’s tempting to derail potential sibling competition by simply preventing children from pursuing the same endeavors, but in so doing, we limit our children’s freedom of choice. Just because the oldest sibling plays the clarinet does not mean that the clarinet is now “taken” and that the next one must choose something else. By the same token, just because the oldest sibling plays the clarinet does not mean that the next one must also play the clarinet. Encouraging free exploration in our children, we allow them make discoveries and grow as individuals.
My colleague Michael talks about growing up in a family of four. “My siblings and I were all four to five years apart,” he says. “We all learned an instrument at some point, and my dad is a sports guy, so we all were required to participate in sports. The ground rules in our family were understood. We all study music. We all play a sport. We all aim to get good grades. And we all had those things in common. Past that, though, we couldn’t be more different.”
The four of them, now grown, share a clear set of values, but they have indeed gone in very separate directions. They live in four different parts of the country and are pursuing different things. The oldest teaches at a college in Boston. The second is a nurse in South Carolina. The third stayed in the town where he grew up, teaching second grade at the elementary school he attended. And the fourth is a screenwriter, living in Hollywood.
“They’re all different, yes,” says their mother. “A couple of them were good at sports, and a couple hated sports. Only one really took to the music, but they all enjoyed it to some degree. I think what I did right was to try to determine their true talents and interests, and encourage them to follow them.”
I let her know that her firm insistence on individuality is unusual, and probably accounts for the great success that each of her children now enjoys.
“I don’t know if it’s unusual,” she tells me, “but I knew I had to do it. The worst thing I could do is try to make a kid someone they’re not. And just because they’re siblings doesn’t mean they want the same things. Four people are going to make four lives all their own, eventually. Bottom line, though: everyone has to support each other. That rule is nonnegotiable. No cattiness allowed in my house. If someone wants to try something, don’t judge them before they’ve started.
“Oh, there’s fighting,” their mother continues. “Still. But there’s respect for everyone’s voice. We all know that we can trust that.”
Making room for—and having respect for—everyone’s voice, we allow impulses to find their way into action and interests to develop into passions. If we set an example of openness, our children will learn to do the same. Older siblings reach out to younger ones, and younger ones inspire the younger still. As we keep a firm grip on instilling an attitude of generosity in the house and a loose grip on how each sibling expresses himself, we raise our children to act on their own behalf while also making way for the ideas and desires of others.
GIFT GIVING
An Exercise
Together with your child, choose someone to whom you will give a gift. The only requirement is that it be something you make yourself. It may be a poem, a song, a drawing. If your child has siblings, assign each of them to give a gift to one other. All will give, and all will receive. Among the Cameron siblings, to this day, we rotate “who has who” and each give our assigned sibling an ornament every Christmas. As a result, we all have full and happy trees adorned with family memories.
PRESSURE
Pressure is put on our children from many angles. In school, teachers may distribute large amounts of homework without any apparent regard for the volumes of work our children are being given in other subjects. Schedules are packed and extracurricular activities abound. Today we have a voice lesson, soccer practice, chores, homework. And we’d better get at least a half an hour of guitar practice in there, since the lesson is coming up on Saturday morning and we missed yesterday. Oh, and by the way, we’d better be excelling in all of these areas. We do want to get into a good college, now, don’t we?
In a time where entry into a private-school kindergarten is becoming as competitive as applying to a top college and parents are having their children tutored to get into public school “gifted and talented” programs, we have to protect our children from the endless expectation that more is better, and better is more. When a child has the pressure of being a “great” violinist put on them while they are still learning the basics, they can lose their joy in the process and start to feel that if they aren’t already great, they must somehow be a disappointment. When we reward achievement with attention as opposed to rewarding effort and interest, our children start to feel that they deserve our love only when they succeed.
Kristin, a writer, grew up in Manhattan, where her banker parents, with the best of intentions, wanted the best for their only daughter. She was enrolled in top schools from kindergarten through high school. She was exposed to writers and often was able to share her work with authors whom she admired. While she was still in high school, a short story of hers was published in a prominent magazine.
Looking back, she speaks of her experience: “I am grateful. I appreciate that I was lucky. But it was so much, so soon. A lot of the opportunity I had was because of where I lived and who my parents were more than it was because of my own actual talents or interests. It made me grow up so fast. I was a little adult. I wasn’t a kid.”
Kristin went on to a very selective college, which she describes as “so much easier than high school.” Now in her mid-twenties, she is organized and professional. She teaches at a gym while also looking for work as a writer. “My number one problem, though,” she tells me, “is that I put so much pressure on myself. Every day, it’s like I start at zero. I’m always chasing an impossible, imaginary standard in the distance that I’ll never be able to reach.”
As Kristin works on her creative recovery now, becoming aware of her right to play and experiment, she reasons that the pressure to succeed, above all else, has made it hard for her to start new endeavors with humility. “I’m only twenty-six,” she tells me, “but I feel too old to try something new. I don’t want to look bad.”
As we raise our young children, we must be alert to the language we use and the messages we pass on. Children are not self-conscious. They are not afraid of “looking bad” as they experiment with new things. Our job is to maintain this environment for as long as possible. And when outside pressures distract them, to remind them that they are valuable and lovable regardless of what they accomplish.
Eric holds a Ph.D. from an Ivy League school. Raised in Philadelphia by first-generation Japanese immigrant parents, he describes the pressures to succeed in his house.
“We all had to excel in school, and we had to excel in other areas, too. We were put in lessons from an early age. For me it was music. For my brother it was golf. Our household was very disciplined and regimented. We were in bed by ten, up by five. We practiced our instrument or sport; we did our homework ahead of schedule. We read books and our parents added all kinds of additional education to our schooling. We were taught, above all, that hard work pays off, and that we had to go to good schools. We both went to Ivy League schools. My brother is a lawyer now, and I became a research scientist. Would I say we are creative, though? I don’t know.”
Eric now has a daughter. “I am very aware of the academic elitism and of the intellectual snobbery that exists in the world. I hate to say it, but I am not sure I really buy into it—and that comes from someone who spent ten years in postgraduate school!” Adorned with academic privileges and honors himself, Eric rethinks the path he will encourage for his daughter. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this,” he tells me. “I, of all people, know about advanced degrees. But I actually don’t really care if my daughter even goes to college. She’s only seven now, and she talks constantly about wanting to be a pastry chef. She’s very creative, and I don’t want to ever put a lid on that. If she goes to culinary school and opens a bakery like she dreams of, does that make her worse off than me, with my many degrees? I don’t think so.”
It takes courage for a parent to not pressure their child. Parents often want their children to have what they had or didn’t have, they want them to have the “best,” they want them to achieve. But if we sit back and observe long enough to see how our children are doing—and not just how well they are doing—we let them know that their unique voice is heard, and that what they say is worth hearing. Putting pressure on our children to achieve, we are focusing more on the result than on the process. And it is the joyful participation in the process that we must encourage in our households.
BLOWING OFF STEAM
An Exercise
Our children have lots of energy. As much as we may work to relieve the pressure they inevitably gather outside of—and sometimes inside—the home, it behooves us to occasionally plan a family adventure with fun as its only goal. It’s best if this adventure is a physical one—visiting the beach, going to a new park or playground, touring a working farm, even going to a theme or water park. Large or small, this adventure should encourage physicality and play. Planning the outing ahead of time as something to look forward to, we can arrange our schedules to make it a priority. And when it is done, it is likely to have rejuvenated—and refocused—us all, thus making us more able to handle, and even thrive in, the inevitable daily pressures we face.