Editing While Parenting
Many of us have found ourselves busier than usual over the last couple of years, and the situation for parents has been even busier. Covid-19 brought with it concerns about childcare, lockdown, safety, and remote schooling, as well as changes to the way many of us do our regular jobs. The Northwest Editors Guild Blog Team recently had a chance to chat over Google Docs with five busy editors who are also parents, to find out how they’re making it all fit together.
Q: To start with, could you each introduce yourself, and tell us how old your kiddos are and what kind of editing work you do?
Kara Frazier: I'm Kara (she/her), and I have two children—Helena (age 5) and Miles (age 2). I am a freelance fiction editor who specializes in video games, web comics, and genre fiction.
Katie Richards: I'm Katie R. (she/her), a book development editor (project manager) for Girl Friday. My son is almost 3. When I freelance, I specialize in fiction.
Rochelle Deans: I’m Rochelle (she/her). My daughter is 7 and about to start second grade, and my son is 5.5, gearing up for kindergarten. I started my career almost 12 years ago as an editor for an engineering firm. Nine years ago, I began my freelance work, and when my oldest was 9 months old, I quit the engineering firm to freelance full time. I now specialize in developmental editing for nonfiction, fantasy, and humanities doctoral dissertations. I also do a lot of work in formatting and started teaching webinars in formatting for the Editorial Freelancers Association.
Katie Atkins: I’m Katie A. (she/her), and I have two daughters (ages 4 and almost 2). I’ve recently returned to freelance life after spending the past five years working as a technical editor at an engineering firm (like Rochelle!). Before that, I had another five years of editing experience in a mix of freelance and in-house capacities. Most of my editing experience is in nonfiction publishing or corporate settings, and my current clients include an engineering firm and a nonprofit publisher of K–5 math curriculum.
Dawn Schuldenfrei: I’m Dawn (she/her), and I have two kids, 15 and almost 18. My 15-year-old is starting high school, and my 18-year-old is finishing it up. I’m a freelance editor of primarily genre fiction and biological sciences. I started editing about five years ago, but with the Covid-19 lockdown I decided to put a full-time effort into building my business.
Q: What changes have your kids brought to your career and the way you work?
Katie R.: I used to work constantly and have weeks where work was nonstop. With a kiddo, that's not something I can physically do anymore. By the time he's in bed, my brain is DONE. It's forced me to be mindful of how much I commit to (which at the moment means no freelancing gigs).
Rochelle: Before kids, I was able to juggle a full-time position with freelance work. But once I had a baby, I realized that taking up all my free time formatting dissertations meant I’d missed months of my daughter’s life… and she was only 6 months old at the time. I decided to pursue freelance editing full time because I became a mother. Doing this has allowed me to have more flexible work hours, and I’ve realized that I’m just as/more productive in 20 hours of focused work as I was in 50-60 hours of working two jobs.
Katie A.: Having kids definitely shifted my thinking about work. While I still enjoy editing, I have much less patience for the kind of corporate hoops I had to jump through in my previous role (e.g., quarterly performance reviews, meetings that run way past their end time). With the pandemic moving EVERYTHING into our small house, that got way more amplified, and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I quit my full-time job for the freedom of choosing how to spend my precious work (and family) hours.
Kara: Yes! I started editing after I had my first child because I needed a job that gave me the flexibility to care for my daughter while still pursuing my own interests.
Dawn: I stopped working outside the home when my oldest was a baby so I could focus on her. When I started editing the best thing about it (besides, you know, getting paid to read) was being able to do it on a flexible schedule around whatever my kids were doing. If I could only find time to work in the middle of the night, that worked just fine (Sleep? What’s sleep?). Even now that they’re older, I find the flexibility a huge help with dealing with family life. If something comes up at the kid’s school in the middle of the day, I can handle it and come back to my work later, no problem, no permissions from a boss, no office hassles.
Katie A.: I agree with Dawn that the flexibility that can come with editing is a huge perk. I love the idea that, as long as my brain stays sharp enough to do it, I can maintain my editing career in some fashion, whatever else life throws my way.
Q: What’s the biggest challenge you face in your work/life balance, and how do you overcome it? (It’s okay if you haven’t really resolved the issue—we’re all figuring this out as we go!)
Katie R.: I always think I can squeeze more hours into a day, but I can't (or at least not well). I've had to accept that I can only work if I have childcare. There is no such thing as a consistent nap in my house.
Rochelle: I’ve been through so many stages of this. But the most recent iteration is trying to remember only to work in my scheduled hours, and make evenings and weekends guilt-free time being a parent and nothing else. I have friends who hold me accountable to this, which helps immensely. When my kids are home (on non-school/day care days, or when the world shuts down for three months), I’ve learned to be okay with allowing more screen time so I can get some work in, but also working less than usual so I can enjoy my kids as well.
Q: Do you think your work in editing has impacted your parenting in any way?
Rochelle: Definitely, and not least because I read a lot of self-help for work. Before I had kids, I had this subconscious belief that my own goals and ambitions would fade and Mother would be my biggest identity. But that didn’t happen. Instead I have gotten to show my kids what it means to do a job you love and work toward goals you have, and I love that they get to see that.
Kara: I had a similar experience, Rochelle. I thought mothering would take over my life, but it turns out that I'm a better parent when I spend some of my time NOT being a parent.
Photo of a woman taking a picture of her daughter by PNW Production from Pexels.
Katie A.: I think so. Editing is so much about being aware of the message an author is trying to send, as well as the message that a reader is receiving, and I think my years of analyzing how communication works (or doesn’t) has helped me to be mindful about the messages I am sending to my children through my words and actions as a parent. That also might just be my natural personality and care for language coming through as well.
Dawn: Not really, because I was a parent before I was an editor, and the parenting (at least until the kids are off to college) takes highest priority.
Q: What’s the best thing about being a parent for you?
Kara: Sharing my love of reading with my kids has been an honor and a joy. My daughter has just started reading independently, and I have discovered some really lovely books through reading with her (shoutout to Dori Hillestad Butler!).
Rochelle: Kara, the reading part is absolutely the best! My kids are both independent readers now and some of my favorite memories are the three of us curled up in the living room with our own books.
Katie R.: My kid is hilarious and sweet and prickly and I love watching him learn. Right now he is all about the ABCs.
Rochelle: Beyond the love of reading, I LOVE watching my kids’ imaginations and sense of self grow. The way they play together and make up games is a highlight of every moment I spend with them. Watching them cooperate, and think, and become their own people is an absolute joy.
Katie A.: As others have said, reading with my kids is a big one (my oldest has recently started to enjoy chapter books, and that’s opened up a whole new world for bedtime stories). I once heard someone say that bedtime reading is when you fall back in love with your children (especially after a particularly rough day), and that has rung true for me.
I also have loved watching the whole process of learning and, especially, language acquisition with both of my daughters. With my almost-2-year-old, I love seeing what new word (or words) she is going to learn each day, and I love the sweet mispronunciations (“popsicles” are “pop-so-lul-luls” in our house, and “blueberries” are “be-boo-be-boos”).
Dawn: Just enjoying being with my kids and them sharing their interests with me. Over time they’ve been into bugs, rocks, space, volcanoes, fish, wolves, Pixar movies, and anime, and I love the enthusiasm they bring to all of it—that excitement and pure joy of finding something new that they just adore more than anything. I’ve had a variety of things like that in my life, but I think it happens more often for kids because more things are new to them.
Katie A.: Kids’ enthusiasm for things (both big and little) is really amazing, isn’t it? One of the joys of parenting for me is gaining a new perspective on things by seeing them through my kids’ eyes.
Q: What’s the hardest thing?
Katie R.: Loss of autonomy comes to mind.
Rochelle: I need a lot of alone time in order to be the best version of myself. I don’t like taking that time during work hours, and I don’t get it any other time. It can be frustrating for the whole family when I am not able to parent from the healthiest place.
Katie A.: Both of my daughters are/have been mommy’s girls. They always want “mommy to do it,” and that can be very difficult, both for me and my husband. By the end of the day, I can be totally spent from trying to meet all of their needs, being constantly touched, or whatever. I can lose my cool and yell at times, and I hate when I do that.
Q: How do you relax and take care of yourself (in your copious free time, of course)?
Kara: Early on as parents, my partner and I developed a system where there are three nights per week that are sacred: game night (for him), bath night (for me), and date night (for us). It has been so helpful to know that I have at least one night a week that I will be able to relax in a hot bath, no matter what.
Rochelle: Kara, I love this idea!
Katie R.: Kara told me about her system before I had Quinn, and we adapted it so that one morning on the weekend, my husband gets up with Quinn and keeps him busy while I drink coffee, read books, and hide in our room.
Kara: I have also perfected the art of hiding in a room. It’s amazing how hard it is to find a place where the children won’t just bust in!
Rochelle: I also do a bit of hiding. My husband and I also have a partnering system. I handle mornings on weekdays because he’s already gone, and he handles evening routines while I read or take a nap after dinner. I go for walks when I can during my workday, and I have an adult gymnastics class once a week that keeps me sane.
Katie A.: Kara, Katie, and Rochelle, your systems are inspiring me! We have had no system in our house, and Covid-19 only made that worse. Establishing some more rhythms and modeling taking care of yourself is something I would really like to prioritize. I honestly feel like I haven’t really taken care of myself for about a year now, and it’s not sustainable.
Kara: The struggle is real. At first, it felt kind of silly to be so rigid about something like watching a movie together, but I'm so glad we had that system in place when the pandemic hit. But it's not easy—we've had to shift the nights around if kindergarten open house falls on bath night or something. Flexibility and self-forgiveness are so important in parenting, I've found.
Dawn: I’m a single mom; the kids’ dad is involved, but we’re divorced. My parents live nearby and have been a huge help with watching the kids & transporting them to/from activities to decrease some of the demands on me. When I was married, I was the stay-at-home parent. I’ve found it’s really important for me to have some kind of outside activity to keep my brain happy and to give me a scheduled event to go out for. Martial arts classes have been great for that: physical activity, social time, and a pre-scheduled class time. I’m a writer too, and getting together with other writers (in person pre-Covid-19, and mostly on Zoom these days) has been a great me-thing. It’s also been important for me to recognize when I needed to take a break from those outside activities. There have been times when family life was so overwhelming that doing other things at that time was way more stressful than helpful. In those times, I had to remind myself I couldn’t do it all, and I could come back to my other activities later. Then I’d find smaller ways to do things for myself, like ordering pre-cooked meals that took less effort, staying up extra late to just sit quietly on the couch, and letting myself nap the next day (assuming the kids let me). And sometimes doing things for myself involved doing things for my kids: if they needed extra mom attention, finding ways to give that to them and help them in the ways they wanted, made life happier and for all of us.
Katie A.: Dawn, thanks for mentioning the bit about how trying to do something “for yourself” can sometimes cause its own stress. I have certainly felt that as a mom with two young children. I love the idea of finding other ways to be kind to yourself (e.g., a nap), even if they don’t include taking up some grand new hobby.
Q: What advice would you give a fellow editor who is about to bring a child into their life?
Katie R.: Be kind to yourself. Ask for help when you need it and take it if it is offered. Recognize that you have limits, and that is okay.
Rochelle: Do what works today. What works is going to change often, and give yourself grace to flail a little bit until you find the thing that works. Thrive within boundaries that you set for yourself. If you haven’t seen the glass/plastic ball analogy by Nora Roberts, read it. Remember that sometimes you have glass work balls and plastic parenting ones, and that’s okay.
Katie A.: Sleep deprivation, hormonal changes, and the transition to life as a parent can have some real effects on your editing abilities, initially. As Katie R. and Rochelle said, it’s okay to set some smaller goals for a while and be a little more forgiving of yourself. There is a real adjustment period, and the more grace you can give yourself as you get acclimated to your new life, the better.
Kara: I agree with all of the above. A child changes every single aspect of your life—your relationships, your physical health, your career, the arrangement of your living room—and that kind of upheaval can be very overwhelming at times. It's important to figure out what works best for your family, realize that what works today may not work tomorrow, and forgive yourself when everything falls apart.
Dawn: Everything changes. What works today, may not work tomorrow. Adjust as necessary.
Q: What do you most want your child to know about your career?
Katie R.: I want him to know it is possible to love your work.
Rochelle: I want my kids to know that it’s okay to have ambitions and to work hard and be proud of what you accomplish.
Katie A.: That editing, like life, is full of learning, and that makes it new and exciting every day. I am always learning new things as I read and edit, and I hope they will share my love of learning.
Dawn: That you can take charge of your own career. You don’t have to do the same old thing and follow the usual paths. Figure out what works for you, and make that happen.
Many, many thanks to Kara, Katie R., Rochelle, Katie A., and Dawn for taking time out of their very busy schedules to chat with us!
Kara Frazier (she/her) is a freelance editor who specializes in genre fiction. She has edited over 35 video games, including titles from the Mystery Case Files, Labyrinths of the World, and Phantasmat series. She has also worked on several web comics, including I Wish I Were You, which has over 35,000 subscribers on Webtoon. She lives in Kirkland, Washington, with her husband and two children. She enjoys drinking tea, playing board games, and watching Critical Role. Her website is www.karafrazier.com.
Rochelle Deans (she/her) is an editor and formatter with more than 11 years of experience, formatting everything from engineering reports to dissertations, and from epic fantasy to branded study handouts. Her booklet “Advanced Features of Word: How to Easily Format Theses and Dissertations” is published through the Editorial Freelancers Association. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband, two young children, and a cat who is bad at being a cat. Her non-bookish hobbies include playing piano, singing, solitaire, and gymnastics. Her bad habits include mispronouncing words, eating ice cream right before bed, and spending too much time on the internet. You can find her at www.rochelledeans.com.
Dawn Schuldenfrei (she/her) is a lifelong lover of all things literary. Her favorite books are frequently fantasy, science fiction, and queer romance (Tolkien, Asimov, Cherryh, Bradbury, Riordan, Charles, Hawk). She very much values each author’s unique way of looking at the world and telling their story. It doesn’t have to be the way it’s “always” done. Different is awesome!
Katie Atkins (she/her) is an editor specializing in nonfiction, technical, and educational content. She has over a decade of experience and holds a master's degree in book publishing from Portland State University. From museum exhibits and voters’ guides to remedial investigation reports and math curriculum, she loves working with authors to make sure their messages are delivered clearly. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband, two daughters, and a cat in a small ADU (accessory-dwelling unit) next door to her parents. You can find more about her editing experience at her LinkedIn profile.
Katherine (Katie) Richards (she/her) is an editor with Girl Friday Productions. Prior to joining GFP, she was a freelance copy editor and proofreader specializing in fiction. She lives in the Puget Sound region with her husband, son, and two zany dogs. Connect with her on LinkedIn here.
