From time to time I come across people at gigs who took a cue from the imminence of parenthood to quit music completely. I don’t mean they altered their career path (stopped gigging, or cut back on the number of gigs), I mean they sold all of their instruments and called it a day. Maybe there is more to their stories than they are willing to let on in casual conversation at a bar between sets with a sweaty, partially buzzed, bass player with a “Peace Through Superior Firepower” t-shirt, but if a good part of these anecdotes (and I have met many different people who tell the very same story (“I used to play guitar in bands. We played all over [insert region] and then I had kids and I sold my guitars. The end”). The years prior to my wife telling me she was pregnant, I took these anecdotes for face value as something people just do. You have a family, you get a job you don’t like so much and you don’t get to do the things you love as much as you’d like to do.. but hey that’s life.
But, when we found out my wife was pregnant my thoughts never swayed in this direction and now my daughter is due in July and I these stories still don’t make any damn sense to me..
For me, music is such a huge part of my life that even when I am going through a “dry spell” (either creatively or professionally or just opting to take a break from the bass) I am still so aware that my relative world view is affected by my life as a musician that it never feels like I am truly away from the fold and just about anything could pull me back in– even if I don’t really want to go. I’ll do some stupid gig because someone offered me $100 to play some bad songs and I’ll bitch and piss and moan to my wife and she’ll ask me I even agreed to do it in the first place and I will make some excuse and bitch and piss and moan some more and then, when I get on stage, playing this horrible music in front of horrible people, I’ll find some way to love it; some how, some way. It’s nothing I can really explain to someone who doesn’t make art, but those of you that do know what I am talking about. Even when it sucks, playing music still better than so many other things I could be doing with my time.
My time spent studying the martial arts this year has been an eye-opening experience, and from what I can tell a lot of the martial artists I meet go through similar motions when they have kids. Apart from being time consuming, I don’t see why this lifestyle too can’t be a part of a child’s development. I am 33 years old and I have been studying Filipino Martial Arts for 9 months. I’m not too old but I am clearly a bit late to the party. I am telling you that I feel better about myself than I have… ever. I’m a overweight but I am in better overall physical shape than I have been in years, I have confidence, discipline and motivation and peace of mind that just wasn’t there for the past decade. It may be easier to quit everything you are interested in and plop junior in front of the PS3 but that isn’t what I want my contribution to the world to be. I don’t see why this part of my life should cease when it could be something that continues to enrich my world and the world of my daughter. I can’t wait to teach her some of the cool stuff I’ve just learned a few weeks ago.
While this pontification might seem a tad selfish in light of the title of this post, my question it brings forth the following question: Why on Earth wouldn’t I want to share this lifestyle with my daughter? In addition to playing music, teaching has become such a big part of my life. I love teaching kids and seeing the lightbulb go off, but selfishly I know that I am also at my best when I am teaching. I am the most aware of my actions and words when I teach a student. Parenthood seems, to me, a challenge to me to be at my best for a much longer and consistent amount time.
But I am not deluding myself into thinking I have it all figured out, I know that the stark fist of reality is going punch me in the gut very hard and very soon I am going to be back on this site retracting some of these ill-bred philosophies, but I know many parents who have nothing to offer the world except the ability have children. They have kids and they work in an office and they are just miserable, miserable people. I know they love their kids but they just seem lost on the treadmill and dragging their feet to provide fiscal nourishment without any thought to what they are actually teaching their children. I can’t afford to send my daughter to a top notch private schools, I would if I could, but like most things provided by the government for the public good, I know public schools won’t meet 100% of my needs and I am going to have to supplement the rest myself.
Maybe I am just setting myself up for a series of rude awakenings, but I am ready to challenged and then ready to prove the world wrong. My wife and I are intelligent people with our own standards for how we think the world and life should be and having a child seems, to me, the ultimate test for us to put our money where our mouth is.
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