Thoughts on Parenthood

Thoughts on Parenthood is an interactive arts project examining the unique experience of parenthood. With the help of 14 community partnerships, and activist and photographer Tonika Johnson, Lyric's Learning and Creative Engagement team connected with communities across the city of Chicago and gathered personal stories of parents—their greatest wishes, biggest needs, and proudest moments.

Lyric will feature select stories of 13 parents from across the city in December. 

Beginning in January 2020, Lyric's Learning and Creative Engagement team invited parents to share their thoughts on their experiences in Chicago. Lyric is grateful to receive more than 200 responses, and is inspired by the honesty, love, and concerns that parents shared. Examples of survey questions included, “Is there anything that you wish you could provide your child?” and “What do you take pride in being able to provide for your child?" Following this initial survey process, we selected respondents based on the desire to collect a wide diversity of stories and experiences.

With the onset of COVID-19 in March 2020, the project came to a halt. In July, Thoughts on Parenthood was rebooted, reconnecting with community partners, and reintroducing the project to respondents with new questions to address the current times. Artist Tonika Johnson conducted one-on-one interviews with selected respondents, and their audio stories will go live in December.

For the purposes of this survey, a “parent” is defined as anyone who has taken legal and/or social responsibility for a child. The goal of this project is to include as many unique stories of parenthood as possible. 

Examples of parents include, but are by no means limited to:

• Biological parents
• Adoptive parents
• Step-parents
• Foster parents
• Caregivers (grandparents, aunts/uncles, family friends, etc.)
• Parents who conceived through alternative means (surrogacy, IVF, IUI, etc.)
• Parents whose children are adults
• Estranged parents or parents separated from their children

Thank you to our community partners involved in helping us build this exciting project: 

• Center on Halsted
• Chicago Children's Museum
  
• Chicago Jazz Philharmonic
• Chicago Public Library
• Chicago Urban League
• Erikson Institute
• Heartland Alliance
• Inner Voice
• KIPP Chicago
• Puerto Rican Arts Alliance
• Rebuild Foundation
  
• Urban Gateways
• Year Up
• YWCA Metropolitan Chicago

Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival