Does having children ruin great artists?

A topic that interests me a lot these days is marriage and children. I’ve sort of become accustomed to hearing the occasional announcement of a new baby on the way or about so-and-so getting engaged. I’m also at a point in my life where technically I should think about settling down into a life of domestic monotony, complete with mortgage payments and PTA meetings, but the want just isn’t there. The only thing motivating me in that direction is the desire to give my parents a grandchild, but actually raising that child, being a father, eff that ish. 

I’ll admit this attitude is very selfish with a tinge of snobbery attached to it. I roll my eyes at the sight of yet another couple’s ugly kid on my Facebook newsfeed. But there’s also a sad realization involved as well at not being financially or emotionally ready to have a kid (an even sadder realization: I probably never will). So I don’t really look down my noses at people with kids; I kind of envy them.

All this is sort of weird way of saying I don’t want children, but I’m fascinated by people that do, especially artists. A reoccurring pop culture debate I’m interested in concerns whether or not artists get better or worse as they get older. Certainly no one would compare the stuff U2 produces now comparable to their work in the 80s, or Ice Cube’s work today even coming close to his early-90s heyday. But why does this happen? Does artistic genius decline over time? Are there only a certain amount of good years in an artist’s catalogue before they start to wither and die? 

The AV Club posed a similar question with regards to horror movie directors. John Carpenter and George A. Romero haven’t made decent films in well over a decade, certainly nothing as good as when they were in their prime. Noel Murray suspects that part of the reason for this is their children. There’s a ruthlessness, he says, to making movies like Assault on Precinct 13 that a single, childless man might be comfortable making (like, say, shooting a little girl in the chest), but a father of three might not. 

When they think about their children and their standing in society overall, maybe that pushes them away from fully contemplating the cruelty of this world. Or maybe it makes it so that they can’t even conceive of it anymore.

Steve Martin sort of made the same observation, saying how there are less taboos when you’re younger, but as you get older, and start losing friends to things like cancer, it’s kind of hard to go on poking fun at the stuff you took for granted when you were young and rebellious. 

It’s easy to think Martin's doing crap like The Pink Panther to pay for a new boat, but there's something to be said about lived experience, aka having a family, and how it can change an artist’s perceptions, and therefore “soften” their artistic output.

The exception to this, of course, is Louis CK. His career has pretty much sky-rocketed in the last few years, one could argue, because of his children. And he isn't making some Tim Allen, Home Improvement crap either. He talks about his children in a way that sees the joy and the sorrow as a package-deal. He can in one minute talk the absolute love he has for his daughter and call her a fucking asshole in the same breath. I'll never forget his interview with Marc Maron on WTF? when, talking about his first daughter's birth, he breaks down crying.

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I’ll admit I was put off ever having a family after watching the first season of Louie, but it’s clear from the brilliance of his humour that his kids are partly the reason why Louis CK is one of the best, if not the best, comedians alive right now. And the fact that all this is happening when he’s in his 40s, when comic legends like Eddie Murphy hit their peak in their 20s, tells you that children, and growing older, made Louis the genius that he is today.

So does any of this make me want kids? Not really. It will take more than one brilliant comic to change my outlook. But I’m more open to acknowledging their capacity to inspire, motivate, and embiggin the most heartless cynic. And I include only myself in that category.