Creativity requires faith, and faith requires that we relinquish control. We are so intricately woven into the fabric of our children’s lives that it is easy to feel as though we must play God to our children. We need not. We can consciously bring positive people into their lives, and our own, but our children already have—and will always have—their own unique connection to a higher power. We can forever draw comfort from this. Learning to be of service, our children connect to a larger plan. Through practicing their creativity, our children draw closer to divinity. Each of us contains a divine spark, and that spark can grow into a steady flame. Lit by an inner radiance, our children’s lives become lanterns, showing the way for themselves and others.
Believing Mirrors are people who see the best in us, who mirror us back to ourselves as larger and more expansive than we may feel. They see our potential and respond to our ideas with excitement and faith. We must seek these people out for ourselves, and we must seek these people out for our children. That means not only that we must be a Believing Mirror to our children, but also that we must surround them with other people who will nurture their creativity—not people who try to overly domesticate it “for their own good.” Certain of our friendships will inspire our own artistic imagination, while others will deaden it. The same is true of the people we expose our developing children to.
This is not to say that we can control every influence in our lives or in our children’s lives. Of course we cannot. Our children are bound to encounter a dud teacher or a mean coach, and it’s not a bad thing for them to learn how to deal with people like that. The reality exists that not everyone will play nicely in the world. But ideally, we can work to make sure that the majority of people our children encounter are nurturing and supportive, and we can teach our children to be discerning.
There is a connection between self-nurturing and self-respect. As we nurture and respect our own inner artist, we understand how to nurture and respect our children’s inner artists. As we mirror back their largest and greatest qualities, they develop in kind, and grow to fulfill their creative potential.
Creativity is oxygen for our children’s souls. Cutting them off from their creativity makes them savage. We ourselves are no different—if we are pushed, day after day, through a schedule that leaves no room for us to stop and notice ourselves, or if we are surrounded by people who squelch us, we begin to react as if we are fighting for our lives. And we are. When we push our children into boxes that do not allow their creativity to evolve, they rebel, react with rage, and act as if they are fighting for their lives. They are.
In speaking to, teaching, and working with many people who have successfully continued a creative practice through childhood and into their adult lives, their answers are very, very similar. Somewhere along the way, a Believing Mirror—or several Believing Mirrors—encouraged them to move forward. Very often, it was a parent. And when it is the parent, the child is in a very good position indeed.
A student in my class is a professional musician. I ask him what allowed him to pursue his dreams, and he answers without hesitation. “My parents. Without a doubt. They have never made me feel foolish or guilty for having an interest in the arts and developing it into a career. They have helped me financially and spiritually in times when I have needed their support more than anything. My dad always tells me how lucky I am to have found my passions and creativity at an early age, that many people are still searching for something to pour themselves into.”
How true that rings. I would argue that everyone is searching for something to pour themselves into. We are all meant to create. There are many ways this can manifest, and those who can practice, model, and pass on the act of doing it are the Believing Mirrors we all need.
My self-respect as an artist comes from doing the work. Our children’s self-respect comes from taking creative actions, doing creative work. Consciously championing this, we are telling them, “Your unique perspective matters. I want to hear what you see and think.”
Small actions can make a big impact. Peter, an actor, describes his mother’s attendance at every single performance he did during elementary school. “I knew she was there to support me,” he says. “She never missed a show. Having her in the audience told me that she was happy I was doing this. Knowing she was happy about it, I was allowed to figure out that I was in fact an actor. I was allowed to admit that acting made me happy, too.”
Being a Believing Mirror can manifest in other ways as well. When we throw our children onto their own resources creatively, we teach them to look inside themselves. By doing this, we acknowledge that there is, indeed, something inside themselves that is worth looking for. “My stepmom had the most direct impact on my creativity. She would restrict our use of ‘lazy’ forms of entertainment,” says Michele. “We were forced to think of creative ways to entertain ourselves. Because we weren’t allowed to watch TV during the day and would rather not do the dishes on a Saturday afternoon, we found other things to do. My introverted brother and I would play ‘imaginary friends’ while my other brothers played football on the grass island at the end of our street. I didn’t have dolls, so I would make ‘paper people’ out of printer paper. I would spend hours drawing their clothing, little telephones, makeup, and grocery baskets.”
Creativity lies in the specific, in the well imagined. It is no coincidence that when people speak of their childhood memories of developing creativity, they speak of specific experiences and events. To be an artist is to recognize and appreciate the particular.
“My passion for comedy comes from my grandfather,” Michele continues. “When I was really little, he would sit in front of me and make faces. I remember taking the train to visit him when I was a bit older, and I saw him coming toward me, doing his ‘old man’ routine. He was there in the distance, limping toward the train, one eye half-closed. When I would do characters for him, at first imitating him and then inventing people of my own, he was my biggest champion. He acted like every face I made was hilarious. He laughed at all of my jokes. His belief that I was funny is what made me believe that I was funny.” Today, Michele is an improv comedienne. Her most popular character? The “limping old man.”
To kill creative dreams because they are “irresponsible” is to be irresponsible ourselves. The creator made us all creative. Using our creativity, and encouraging others to do the same, is accepting the deal. And accepting the deal is the beginning of true self-acceptance. Accepting others, and reflecting back to them their largest and most expansive self, we become a Believing Mirror. Encouraging our children in small and playful ways, we mirror their potential back to them.
BELIEVING MIRRORS
An Exercise 
Take a moment to reflect on your own Believing Mirrors:
A Believing Mirror in my life has been ___________________________.
This person showed me that I _________________________________.
Now examine the landscape of your child’s life. Are there Believing Mirrors already there? Are there more you could invite in?
BEING OF SERVICE
Jenna Schwartz was the neighborhood babysitter on a small street in suburban Minneapolis. She had four children of her own and not a lot of money, so she opened her home and offered her services. She would take in practically the whole neighborhood—her motto was “There’s always room for one more.” Dealing with children often numbering into the double digits, her rule was “Get messy—but clean up.” Kids knew that going to Jenna’s meant playing crazy games and making lots of mess. Some of the more straitlaced parents on the block questioned Jenna’s methods, but they knew their kids loved it.
For her part, Jenna loved her time with the neighborhood children. “The more, the merrier,” she caroled. She loved introducing kids to one another, especially when new families would move into the neighborhood. “There’s no faster way to meet the neighbors than to come to my house,” she’d proudly say. She felt a deep satisfaction as she watched friendships grow among the children, and she said her most satisfying moments were when she was able to make them laugh or help them understand their math homework a little better. “It made me feel so happy,” she related. “Like I was making someone’s day a little bit better. And that made my day a lot better.” Jenna was describing the deep satisfaction that comes from being of service.
My friend Maude says she believes that “teachers and nurses definitely go to heaven.” Maude is describing people who dedicate their lives to being of service. With nearly seven decades in a service profession herself, she has seen countless selfless acts of service—many done in silence, with no expectation of reward—that have changed lives for the better.
We can and should be inspired by people whose acts of service enrich our lives. When we are lucky, teachers fill this role for our children. Sharon describes the influence of her son’s drama teacher as “life-changing.” “Tyler got Peter out of his shell,” she says, her eyes immediately filling with tears. “He saw potential for my son to grow, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He encouraged Peter to try acting, try speech, try comedy. I knew Peter was talented, but I didn’t know what he was supposed to do about it. I didn’t know how to convince him to perform outside of our living room. Tyler knew how, and I don’t know how to thank him for it.”
We can look for those great mentors who will influence our children, and we can be of service to our children by encouraging their connection. We need not know how to teach them to dance, but we do need to work it into our schedule to get them to their dance lesson. A father in California tells me that “all” he did was drive his kids to all of their activities. Other than that, he says, he can take no credit for the extremely creative people they became. Well, driving them daily to many lessons over many years was certainly a noble act. His literal and liberal support—of money, time, and energy—made it possible for his kids to develop as they did.
One of his daughters speaks to me now of why she thinks she and her sisters all ended up making their living in the arts. “I think our parents were determined to immerse us in communities and activities where we would be surrounded by creative people. Though my parents are appreciators of the arts, neither of them fully pursued those endeavors in their childhood. My parents’ willingness to support me and my sisters through all of those experiences allowed us to be surrounded constantly by other creative people and peers our own age who were interested in the same things.”
Those sisters supported each other as well. Siblings can practice the act of generous service by passing down their knowledge to the next one. In the Cameron house, as soon as one of us learned something, we were eager to teach it to our siblings. This form of mentoring is its own reward. Encouraging other people’s creative endeavors, our own creative endeavors are fueled. Articulating our support for another’s dream, our own dreams are clarified.
HELPING ANOTHER
An Exercise
Today, look for an opportunity where your child can help someone with something. This can be anyone and anything. It may be helping his sibling with his chores, or helping an elderly neighbor in her garden. It may be helping brighten someone’s day with a smile or a hug. Let your child know that he may choose his method of help. When it is done, ask him how he enjoyed being of service.
GOD IS IN CHARGE
Creativity takes faith. Faith requires that we relinquish control. But we are the parent—aren’t we in charge? Not exactly. We make our best decisions, we listen, and we take action. But underneath all of this is the faith in something larger—the faith that something is guiding our every move, that our instincts are in fact reliable, that God is reliable.
We are not used to thinking that God’s will for us and our own inner dreams coincide. We often assume that God’s will for us and our will for us are at opposite ends of the table. We believe the message of our culture: Life is hard. Be virtuous. In fact, the opposite is true: Life is beautiful. Live bountifully. We are never alone and our children are never alone. We cannot be everything to our children, yet we can trust that good will come to them. The universe will always support positive creative action. Our truest dreams for ourselves and our children are also God’s will for us.
When Domenica was a preteen, she attended public school in Chicago. I had moved her there to place her at a distance from the limelight—her father was becoming more and more famous, and more and more controversial. He made a movie called The Last Temptation of Christ. It caused a big enough uproar to reach all the way from New York to Chicago. Domenica’s classmates began to tease her unmercifully. At first I didn’t take the situation seriously. After all, I reasoned, they were too young to understand. But whether they were young or not, whether they were simply repeating their parents’ prejudices, Domenica was the target of their cruelty. She would come home from school in tears. She felt like an outsider and an outcast, but wanted to defend her father’s good name. Fortunately, she had an empathetic teacher, Jeff Thornton, who called me in and explained to me that Domenica was indeed being singled out and attacked.
“I do what I can,” he said, “but I can only do so much. I’m afraid she sticks out like a sore thumb.”
After my talk with Mr. Thornton, I began to explore other options. There were two private schools where Domenica’s father’s celebrity would blend in with the celebrity of other students’ parents. I chose Francis W. Parker School as the best environment. With the support, too, of her father, Domenica transferred to Parker, where her interest in the arts was rewarded with positive attention. She became involved with theater tech, learning to run lighting and sound. She caught the eye of an older boy named Tony. But I still considered her too young to date. Twenty years later, Tony found Domenica again. He asked her to dinner, and a romance followed that led to a happy marriage.
“Mom, he liked me when I had glasses and braces!” Domenica exclaimed.
Creativity—like human life itself—begins in darkness. The process is guided by something larger than we can understand, and we must allow it to guide us.
Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise. We must trust the darkness. We must mull—and allow our children time and space to mull—instead of churning ahead like a little engine on a straight-ahead path. The truth is that this is how to raise the best ideas—and the children with the best ideas. Let them grow in the dark and mystery. Offer guidance, but allow them to take their own unique form. We are all born creative. We are all, forever, intended to create.
Today, my beautiful granddaughter, Serafina Rose, reminds me to be open to good, to invite mystery. Holding her tiny hand, I remember: God is the Great Creator.
PRAYER
An Exercise
Write a prayer. It can be short, long, casual, formal. It doesn’t matter how you envision or address God. Simply reach out as you would to a good friend. This is for you and you alone.
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