Nikko Snyder Gets on Stage to Play the Damn Gig

Nikko Snyder (: 00:00

I've had this recurring dream for at least 15 years. It's always a variation on the same theme. I'm about to go on stage to perform a show and then I realize I'm missing something. Maybe it's my cello or my sheet music or the clothes I'm supposed to wear or something's wrong, a string breaks or I realize I don't even know the music that we're playing. Whatever it is, I always get stuck somewhere in the preparation. I end up running around and around trying to solve the problem. But one thing is always the same.

I can never make it onto stage to play the damn gig. Not surprisingly, I had this dream again in the last few days, just as I'm scrambling to launch the first season of this podcast. And it got me thinking, what if I could get over myself and just step onto the stage and play the damn gig instead of running around backstage fixing a problem that might not even exist? If you're hearing this, it means I did it. Take that subconscious.

I'm Nikko Snyder and this is Parenting Creative, a podcast about where creative life and parenting collide and all the magic, mess, and occasional existential dread that ensues. This first season, I'm talking to artist parents making everything from music and theater to poetry, journalism, and craft about how they make it work, how they keep going, and whether they too have recurring nightmares about public failure.

My hope is that this podcast helps create a sense of connection and community for parents trying to nurture their creative lives while also keeping tiny humans alive and thriving, which, let's be honest, requires nothing short of Herculean fortitude. If you want more of these conversations, here's how you can help. Follow Parenting Creative wherever you listen to your podcasts. Leave us a five-star review because anything less just makes the algorithm sad. And visit parentingcreative.com to sign up for our newsletter.

th,: 2024

But when I woke up to the news of Trump's victory, my first thought was, how could a podcast about creative life and parenting possibly matter right now? Thankfully, like a beacon of light in a dark, crumbling dystopia, I stumbled upon some words from the legendary writer and mom, Toni Morrison. She said, this is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear.

We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal. And I thought, well, shit. I hit send on those emails and here we are. Months later, after talking with six incredible artists about their creative and parenting journeys, I'm finally sharing their stories with you. And I'd love to say I did all this with grace and composure, but in reality, it involved a handful of panic attacks, some pricey couples counseling.

and at least one spectacularly ugly cry. If you listen to my interviews, you'll notice I always ask guests to introduce themselves, and not just their name and profession, but also their worldview and the lenses they experience the world through. So it feels only fair to share a little bit more about me. I'm speaking to you from unceded indigenous territory, the traditional and ancestral homeland of the Sinixt people in the Slocan Valley, BC. The Sinixt did not give this land away.

it was taken. My own background is a mix. Métis and Scandinavian on my mother's side, Ukrainian and Scottish slash Pennsylvania Dutch on my father's. So my ancestors were both Indigenous and settlers. I didn't grow up connected to my Indigenous culture. I am one of many people who lost my connection to my Indigenous heritage because of the colonial practices of the Canadian government over the last few hundred years.

And on the flip side, at some point, my grandmother decided and was able to pass as non-Indigenous, which means that I experience white privilege and I always have. So that's complicated. I'm also a cisgender woman. My pronouns are she, her. I'm in a heteronormative relationship, and I was raised mostly by my single mom and less so by my queer dad. Art was everything in my family. My parents met in art school. I spent my infancy in a basket at the art college.

And I grew up surrounded by art and a community of artists, hanging out with my mom in her studio, watching my dad paint the landscape of everywhere we went. I took up cello at nine and played seriously for nearly 15 years. And yet, despite having art in my bones, actually prioritizing and embracing my own creative life, turns out that is a whole different beast. And then I had kids, which is when life became a surreal mix of joy, exhaustion,

and negotiating for basic needs with tiny dictators who somehow always have the upper hand. I have two kids, both boys ages 11 and seven, and I love them more than words can say. But let's be honest, parenting is a relentless avalanche of demands that involves literal shouting through my every attempt at coherent thought or speech for 11 years. Unsurprisingly, somewhere in that chaos, I lost track of my creative self.

Frankly, I lost track of all aspects of myself. The drive towards a creative life was always still there and I did stuff. Need a creative project? Sure, paint a mural on the kid's wall or co-host a community radio show with your six-year-old. But as a parent, my creativity always seemed to operate through the lens of someone else's needs. What would add to my kids' lives? Never what do I need to thrive? So enter parenting creative. I've spent my whole life using creativity to make sense of the world.

And then I had kids and parenting, as it turns out, is an all consuming high stakes theater production where I'm playing the role of the exhausted stage crew chasing after the grand diva. And yes, my kids are major divas. My creative life, it got buried somewhere under a mountain of laundry and half eaten bananas. For years, I felt like I was just trying to survive, but I started noticing something. I could see that other parents were finding ways to make it work.

Somehow they were creating, thriving, and managing to string full sentences together without being interrupted by a demand for more snacks. Or at least they seemed to be. I wanted to talk to them. I wanted to learn from them. And I wanted to build a community where these conversations could inspire more parents to reclaim their creative lives. So that's how this project was born. But what does Parenting Creative actually stand for? Growing up with formally trained artist parents was a gift.

but it also left me with some pretty limiting ideas about what counts as art. Over the years, I've had to unlearn a lot of that, and this is what I've come to believe. Art is vast. It's music, craft, storytelling, film, dance, drag, gardening, you name it. And yes, your parkour line definitely counts. You don't need formal training or an income from your art for your creative life to be legitimate. And you don't have to choose one thing.

You can experiment, change your mind, evolve and let go of old creative identities. Life is short. Try the weird hobby. Who knows where it will lead. We cannot and must not be reduced to consumers. When we produce and make things, we resist the pressures of a culture that measures our worth by what we buy, end stop. Difference is beautiful. And when we seek out ways to communicate across our differences and learn from each other's struggles and magic,

We are all stronger for it. At a moment when diversity, equity and inclusion are at risk of becoming bad words, each moment we choose to live by them is revolutionary. And most importantly, we are not alone. The isolation that can be part of parenting and part of this wacky world is real, but community changes everything.

So if anything here resonates, here's how you can be part of this. Listen to the episodes. There are seven in season one, including this one, coming out over the next few weeks. Follow and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Share this podcast. Text a friend, post about it, whisper it dramatically to a stranger in the grocery store.

Follow us on social media. We're at Parenting Creative on Instagram and Blue Sky. But better yet, join our email newsletter. You probably know who owns the big social media platforms and guess what? It's not me. When you're on my email list, our connection isn't at the whim of Zuckerberg's or anyone else's algorithm. Instead, we can connect directly as human beings.

And if you're able, consider supporting Parenting Creative as a founding member. This is an independent project. No sponsors, no network, just me pouring my heart into this while my kids shout sing in the background and my problem cat poops a foot away from her litter box. Before I sign off, I just want to give a huge thanks to my partner in both parenting and podcasting, Jeremy Sauer, for making this show sound great and to Natural Sympathies for giving us permission to use

Her song, Hello, is the parenting creative theme song. The song asks, is anybody out there? And I hope that you are. Thanks for listening. I'll see you again soon.