it should be easier to make art for a living than it is, but for me personally, as it's not, I find I'm happier with a day job and not having to make money from my art and still make art.
I notice this especially with professional animators. They bring their roles home and reenact them instead of being the supportive parent, they be the director. Personalizing their experience and projecting it onto the child.
usually that animator had a parent. They didn’t meet directors until they were in already entrenched the industry. (Some didn’t and came from abusive house holds and might not know what a parent is or how a parent should be supportive but who hasn’t?)
And I get it, it is a brutal industry. they want to prepare their child but I think sometimes they don’t understand their role is different at home and how what their industry is doesn’t play well in a supportive home.
understanding when someone needs a parent and that’s a role you commit to. There will be enough bullying and directors in the real world. It’ll be nice to have that one person who’s always in your corner.
My rule for my kids is that they can have anything else, but what they need to have at all times is a plan.
I don't care if their long term plan is to be a NASA scientist or a desk jockey or a farmer, they just gotta always have the next step for how they're making that happen at the very least conceptualized, and if they can't figure that out, they gotta look for something they can make a plan out of.
I want my kids to grow up happy, but they also gotta have a roof over their heads and I won't always be around for them to provide that.
But I believe failure and mistakes should be normalized so that it doesn’t become a devastation.
They might make a mistake and maybe you’re not around and they gotta live in a car for a week or two of or a stint, that is not the end of the world. That can just be a fire lit under the butt. It doesn’t mean fail, it can just be a moment in time between and it doesn’t mean the whole life is a bust.
Worst is if they let it get to them and decide the world is against all their plans. That’s how you get into a rut and stay there.
Once Elon Musk was asked about how to find inspiration to continue forward in the difficult field of space exploration.
His response was that for anyone who needs inspiration, they should just go do something else, because it’s a hard enough field that it won’t be possible for a person who doesn’t have sufficient intrinsic motivation.