Don't worry that you won't be able to get started or that it is something that you will have to put off until your children are grown. Just make your art a priority. If you were to list all the things that we as parents are busy doing, we'd see that there are probably some things that could be left undone or ignored completely and no one would suffer.

If it makes you come alive, then don't try and avoid it! Everyone will benefit from you making time for your art because it makes you happy and that happiness radiates into family life. The artist wants to be loved and acknowledged and that has to start with you before anyone else can see it. A fulfilled parent has more of themselves to give and is more enthusiastic about encouraging their children to go after their potential too.

Stop watching television.

Make it easy on yourself. Just as you would never leave the house without a sippy cup or some toys for your baby, you can also say the same for your toys! Try to pick one or two things that you can do while your children are around. Bring a camera with you. Photography is an easy medium to practice when you are busy parent and you can even include them in your subjects. Or if you are a writer, have your pen and notebook ready and write a sentence or two as they come to you. Throw your sketchbook in the diaper bag and use it in between shuttling children to and from their various activities, begin drawing while you are waiting in line at the post office or just waiting in the car. Make it a part of your day, just like meals and exercise and sleep. Think of it as your spiritual survival.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember when balancing your art and family is how your children can be a great source of inspiration for your work. They too love to paint, draw, take pictures. You can set up an easel for them right alongside yours and paint together. Children create naturally. Every waking hour they have they use their imagination and play. I learn a lot from my boys and we make a good creative team together, and I try to remember that compartmentalizing myself into different modes doesn't work. If you are an artist, you will be one regardless of what "role" you are in at any given time. Ideally, you can lose all the roles society teaches us to have and just be entirely yourself! That is something that I am always working on, :).