One of the things I enjoy most about visiting a book store or a library is reveling in the vast variety available there – variety in writing styles, plot themes, narrative voice, and author backgrounds, to name just a few. Some authors write gritty and realistically gruesome crime scenes, others build suspense through holding back key information and doling it out in tantalizing portions. Some write moving memoirs in first person, others offer sage life advice via hilarious third person observations. What all writers have in common, however, is that they are attempting to get people they’ve never met to understand what they’re trying to say and also to understand the psyche of the figure they’ve placed on the page to do the talking, whether they’re fictional or real.
For this reason, I suspect that most writers have a strong, possibly co-dependent relationship with empathy. I’m not aware of any large-scale psychological studies to support this hypothesis of mine, but by nature of the writing process—trying to put yourself in the shoes of a character in a particular moment to capture what he or she felt, experienced, observed, or said, and simultaneously trying to understand your reading audience so you can describe those character moments in an accessible way – it would be extremely difficult to write effectively without a strong sense of empathy.
In my experience, even some of the most dry reading I’ve ever encountered (I’m looking at you, sophomore year medieval history textbook) got a flash of oompf from explaining the psychology at work behind the decisions or actions of historical figures. Because trying to share history, ideology, or plot developments without creating a context for understanding how or why the events might have played out the way they did would be just a recitation of words, not a successful transfer of ideas.
So why am I writing about empathy for a motherhood blog instead of for a psychology blog? Because becoming a parent has given me a new appreciation for the value of empathy, which I think has in turn directly enhanced my abilities as a writer. In some ways, the role of parent – either directly to your own children or as a parental figure to a child connected to you in some other way – is the best training for empathy. For those first few months, successful communication cannot rely on words. There’s something far more basic and physical to the communication. By the time rudimentary verbal communication enters the mix, patience and the ability to try to understand what your child is feeling or experiencing is critical to understanding why he or she is having a melt-down in the paper goods aisle. I’m still learning what comes next with regard to raising a child, but the through-line to enhanced empathy and its influence on my writing is already there.
There have been trade-offs, to be sure. Instead of writing for periods of 8-10 hours on a Saturday or for a few hours right after work, I’ve had to get comfortable with slowing my pace because making time to be with my son is too important not to. I’ve also had to get comfortable with no longer having guaranteed structure and order to my writing time. I can’t rely on him napping at exactly the same time each day for exactly the same amount of time. On a day I’ve planned to get a lot of work done, a stomach virus from daycare might keep him at home and delay that work.
I consider myself very fortunate in that I have an extremely involved and supportive partner. My husband actively prepares meals, does laundry, changes diapers, and reads The Very Hungry Caterpillar 14 times in a row as much as I do. This makes an enormous difference in how I navigate the impact of parenthood on my writing efforts. It also allows me the space to step back and appreciate how parenting has positively influenced my writing, not just how it has complicated it.
But as much as empathy is key to understanding your child and understanding your characters, I’ve also come to recognize that you have to apply that same understanding to yourself. As women, we often develop high standards and expectations for ourselves and hold ourselves accountable to them, sometimes mercilessly so. We also often assume 100% responsibility for a perceived failure and only 10% responsibility for a success. Balancing time among writing, a full-time job, being a romantic partner, and a parent leaves very little time for individual self-reflection, but it’s important to find and preserve that time. Based on my experiences and observations, sometimes the only way to achieve a balance of understanding and kindness to yourself is to step back and view yourself as a third party empath would. I challenge myself to apply the same attempt at understanding and patience I invest in my son and my characters to myself. I’m not always successful, but meeting myself part of the way is better than meeting none of the way. The annals of great literature (and the offices of therapists around the world) are littered with the impact of mothers who were unkind to themselves and, in turn, unkind to their children despite their best efforts not to be.
So if asked to offer any advice to my fellow literature lovers, as either a writer or as a mother, I’d say this: treat yourself with the same compassion and love you show to your children and to your favorite characters. The value of doing so for ourselves as well as others is too great not to.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
C.S. Farrelly was raised in Wyoming and Pennsylvania. A graduate of Fordham University (BA, English), her eclectic career has spanned a Manhattan investment bank, the NYC Department of Education and, most recently, the British Government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She was a 2015 Presidential Leadership Scholar and obtained a master’s degree from Trinity College Dublin, where she was a George J. Mitchell scholar. Her master’s research on immigration in contemporary Ireland has appeared in domestic and international journals and she has also freelanced for The Irish Echo newspaper.
A playwright and producer in her spare time, she served for 10 years on the board of the Origin Theatre Company. Her one-act play, Exit or Transfer Here, was staged by the Looking Glass Theater and another work, Arklow Blue, was produced by Turtle Shell Productions. Her most recent play, Relief, received a staged reading as part of the annual 1st Irish Theatre Festival.
Farrelly has lived in New York City, Washington, D.C., Ireland and England. She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her family. THE SHEPHERD’S CALCULUS is her first novel. For more information, visit Farrelly on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ csfarrellyauthor/ or Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/ csfarrelly/.
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