Millennials And Supportive Parents: Should We Feel Guilty?

 

A common narrative about artists is that they have it really hard. They’ve chosen a career without upward mobility, much money, or social clout, unless they somehow break into the stratosphere. There are scores of stories about artists who had to fight for their right to pursue their art as a career. Parents and friends and teachers and societies that collectively told these people: no, you are not allowed to do this. You have to put on a suit and go to a job and be a normal person. You will never make money, you aren’t good enough, you’re too fat, you’re a woman, you’re gay if you do that, you “should” be doing…fill in the blank.

We hear stories about people who had to go their own way and forge a path that diverged from their upbringing. We collectively understand that being an artist is hard work, and that the “struggle” is somehow a part of that.

I read the Patti Smith memoir, Just Kids, in 2013. In it, she details her entrance into poetry, visual art, and music. It is filled with strife, an unsupportive family, an unplanned pregnancy and subsequent adoption, poverty, hunger, drugs, and sex. It’s a stunning book, full of insight and wisdom. As an artist, I deeply connected with her story of discovering the creative impulse, though I didn’t relate to the narrative of her life.

I read the book while attending a summer program in England, where I studied Shakespeare. It was paid for by my parents (and a grant). When I got back from my summer program, I was in a show based on Just Kids that my wonderful parents attended.

After the show was over, I continued my senior year of college studying theatre at a prestigious, well-funded institution, paid for in part by (you guessed it) my parents. Over the course of that year, I often thought about Patti. She fought for so much. She went hungry. She was homeless. She put up with enormous amounts of shit, all for her art. As I lay awake in my apartment that my parents had indeed paid for, I thought of Patti and I felt ashamed and unworthy.

I’ve been an artist my whole life, but began pursuing it in reality at age nine, when I appeared in a local theatre production. My dad was the one who gave me the flyer advertising the audition for chorus members in Really Rosie. He drove me to the audition. He drove me to the callback, the rehearsals, the performances, and then later, every single audition, rehearsal, and performance of every show I was in until I could drive myself.

My parents attended all the shows I acted in, wrote, or directed, including the ones I did in college. They encouraged me to go to a performing arts high school, and to pursue a degree in acting and writing. They allowed me to live with them while I saved money to go to LA. They are incredibly proud of my little loser life that I’ve constructed for myself on the way to theoretical artistic success. They are awesome. They are dysfunctional (giving me an abundance of material to pull from) and interesting and very kind. Never, not even once, have I felt like they disapproved of my life path.

So, what’s my problem?

When I graduated college, I felt, like most do, extremely unmotivated. I did a lot of sitting and staring at screens and walls. I drank a lot of wine. I halfheartedly looked at casting calls and wrote some mediocre (at best) stuff. I was even bad at waiting tables, giving up shifts left and right, forgetting drink orders, and then whining about shitty customers. When people would ask what I was “doing,” I evaded it. I wanted to be the truest, most artistic version of myself, but instead spent my days curled up and waiting for Christmas.

Somewhere along the line, in the middle of all that love and encouragement (and pressure) I had lost the “for what” of why I loved art. I did all the shows, camps, education, etc because that’s what I did. That’s what my schtick in life was. I was “performing” the role of art-kid. I performed for my parents, peers, friends, teachers, and extended family.

In college I continued this, doing just enough to keep my part. There were no real obstacles. Going to a performing arts high school, I didn’t even really experience bullying because of it. My high school was poorly funded, but that was it. Theatre kids (at least to my knowledge) weren’t shoved into lockers or subject to any other tropes. Growing up in Austin, being artsy was the norm. No one was trying to stop me from doing this. No one was pushing back.

I graduated, spent a trying nine months in Chicago, and then finally moved back home to Austin to have a good, long, honest look at myself. I felt bloated from all the emotional support and encouragement. What was I fighting for? Being an artist is about the struggle, right? Why am I even doing this? Do I love it? Yes, but what do I love about it except all the positive reinforcement? Is it time to just accept that I should do something else?

The answer I got to that question was a resounding “hell no.” After about two minutes in therapy I realized I had plenty to say and also that support from your parents and community can absolutely make you lazy and unproductive, but only if you let it. You know what can also make you artistically unproductive? Untreated depression, working 60 hours a week at minimum wage, oppression, and hunger. There are people who have overcome all those things and have gone on to be spectacular artists. Maybe the struggle of all that gave them inspiration, and perhaps something to prove. But there have also been billions of people with the artistic spirit who have not been able to cultivate and pursue it, because of circumstances outside of their control.

The struggle can give us fire and a certain distillation of truth and knowledge of what is important—a closeness to life—but it’s not going to put words on the page. If you have time and space and emotional support, use it. Compassionately watch the people around you, push yourself to learn more about the people not around you, and interpret what you see in the way that feels right to you.

Don’t shame people (or yourself) for having support. Instead, try your damndest to give that support to people who don’t have it. We should be funding the shit out of schools like my high school; creating scholarships and communities for kids whose parents are unable or unwilling to support them. We need all voices. The artistic spirit transcends circumstances. If it’s there, it’s there, whether your parents are bankrolling all of it, cheering from the sidelines, or actively working against you.

We should not romanticize the struggle, because this validates society’s views about artists and puts arts funding directly at the bottom of the priorities list. Struggle isn’t cute or even necessary, especially when you desperately have something to say and can’t say it because you’re hungry and severely depressed. So, to my friends who come from families and institutions that gave you a chance: count your blessings, look outside yourself, and give a hand to help those who don’t have it. There is plenty, especially now, to fight for.

 

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Natalie Houchins is a graduate of Northwestern University, with
degrees in Theatre and Gender & Sexuality Studies. She is a writer and
actress based out of LA, who is perennially homesick for Austin, TX.
She currently spends her free time hiking, watching Battlestar
Galactica and resisting the Trump administration. For more information, visit her website: www.nataliehouchins.com.