Nannying While Building a Creative Career

It’s Friday at 4 p.m.

I’m on hour eight of an eleven-hour day.

The kiddo is asleep on the floor, one arm flung overhead, one stuffy tucked under. Sunlight moves slowly across the rug. The house holds that mid-afternoon stillness.

In that quiet, I can feel both parts of my life, including the creative work humming beneath the surface, waiting for its window.

The desk.

The canvas.

The sentence half-formed in my notes app.

Creative work hums alongside the daily rhythms of caregiving. It doesn’t disappear when I’m packing snacks or zipping jackets. It just waits its turn.

The Practical Truth

Creative work isn’t predictable.

Some months are full. Some months are lean. The rhythm hasn’t settled.

Nannying gives my life stability. It lets me plan ahead and breathe without calculating every hour in creative output.

The families I work for trust me with their children. That trust carries weight. It’s real work. It requires attention, patience, emotional steadiness.

I am building a creative career and caring for children at the same time.

Both are intentional.

What Nannying Gives Me

It gives my days shape.

Defined hours create focus. When I sit down to write or paint, the time feels specific. Chosen. Clear.

It gives me presence.

Children live in what is happening now. The worm on the sidewalk. The sock that feels wrong. The grief over a snapped crayon. They narrate their inner world out loud.

Being near that keeps me embodied.

It gives me observation.

The cadence of their questions. The logic of their games. The way imagination spills into ordinary space. It reminds me that language begins in sensation.

It gives me empathy practice.

You sit with big feelings. You regulate before you explain. You let the wave pass through the body.

Writing about trauma requires that same patience.

It keeps me connected to the texture of real life: errands, playgrounds, small conversations, laughter across a kitchen table. Creative work needs contact with the world it’s describing.

The Balance

There are evenings when I’m tired, from a full day of presence and care, and the page asks for more than I have left.

That’s the reality of doing meaningful work in two different registers.

Building two paths at once stretches time. It stretches energy. Not because the work with children isn’t worthwhile — it absolutely is — but because investing fully in two careers requires more bandwidth than investing in one.

I am learning how to hold that stretch purposefully.

This season feels like layering. Foundations set slowly. Depth forming under the surface.

Why I Need Both

Creative work takes time to deepen, and I want mine rooted in steadiness.

Working with the families I care for keeps me close to wonder, to curiosity that isn’t self-conscious, to growth that unfolds incrementally.

The trust they place in me matters. The relationships we build matter.

I witness development every day — new words, new confidence, new independence.

Alongside that, I witness my own growth. Discipline. Boundaries. The ability to protect creative energy while honoring my commitments.

Both roles shape me.

Both ask for imagination.

What This Actually Looks Like

Blog drafts on lunch breaks.

Voice memos between school pickups.

A notebook open in the passenger seat.

Weekends protected for studio time.

Occasionally saying no to extra shifts when book work calls, or rearranging creative plans when a family needs flexibility.

It is slow.

It is steady.

Layer by layer.

I am a writer and an artist who also takes care of children.

Both are real.

Both matter.

Both are part of the life I’m building.

This isn’t a before-picture.

It’s simply now.