SEPTEMBER 2010 
O Magazine’s
Writer-At-Large, Lisa Kogan, on imperfectly perfect city parenting. —
What’s being a single
mother in New
York
really like?
Nature isn’t stupid. Two people getting together to make a
third person and take care of them is a pretty good plan. I find that the dirty
little secret of being a single parent is that you don’t have to answer to
anybody-you don’t have to explain why you put her in those clothes or why she
can’t have an ice cream cone 26 minutes before dinner. And New
York City is a double-edged sword. There are so many
amazing things going on; there’s always something to do with your kid. But
things move fast here, things are tough here, and very aggressive. And Manhattan
comes with its own set of challenges; you aren’t really a parent until you can
say the wheel has come off your stroller in the middle of rush hour on Lexington
Avenue.
OCTOBER 2010
Fashion photographer
and dad of two, Nigel Barker, focuses on
beauty from the inside out.
Many of our readers
are busy city moms. Can you give one piece of wisdom from your book [Beauty Equation] that speaks to moms in
general?
One of the chapters in this book is Compassion. And the
reason that it’s in there is that through the humanitarian things that I’ve
done in my life, I’ve grown in confidence, grown in strength, grown in
direction. And I think that for any mom, if you can do anything outside your
home that’s charitable, whether it’s working at a soup kitchen once a week for
two hours or helping in the community, you feel good about that, and it’s an
incredible sign for their children to see their mothers working in the
community, and knowing their mother is a beautiful woman, as I do mine. It was
through my mother’s behavior that I grew to be the man I am today. And that’s
something to feel beautiful about, something to feel strong about, and
something to feel proud about. It’s about realizing who we are and what we
have.
NOVEMBER 2010 
Actress Julianne Moore
on the harmonic overlap between the professional and the parental.
In your experience,
is there anything about being an actress that has made you a better parent?
Well it’s interesting; somebody recently asked me what have
I learned through acting and what I have learned in films, and I said, it’s
really what you learn in your life that adds to what you do in your work. You
know, I think everything you do, including being a parent, all the life
experiences you accumulate, all the relationships you have- that makes you a
better and deeper actor.
DECEMBER 2010 
The New York Times
‘Motherlode’ Blogger Lisa Belkin weighs in on what it means to have everything.
Over the years, has
your opinion of the phrase “having it all” changed?
I no longer think that “all” means to be the highest,
wealthiest, most famous or most powerful. I think “all” means a feeling of
basic satisfaction and sanity. You’re never going to have a hundred percent of
all the factors for your life; it’s mathematically impossible. So, yes, I’ve
changed my view of what having it all is because I’ve changed the definition of
what “all” is.
JANUARY 2011
Emmy-winning talk show
co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck on answering her kids’ (she has three)
larger-than-life queries.
What’s the hardest
question you’ve had to answer from your kids so far?
My daughter said to me, “Mommy, if God is so big, how is he
in my heart?” Of course these questions come at 8:05
at night, when I am nearly asleep myself. That bedtime talk is so precious, but
this was one time that I thought, “I don’t know if I am capable of answering
that in a way that it needs to be answered right now.”…I said God has the
ability to be both big and small and that no place is too small and no place is
too big. Seemed to satisfy her-she rolled over and went to sleep.
FEBRUARY 2011
The New York Times
‘Well’ Blogger Tara Parker-Pope says that marriage isn’t what it used to be—and
that it’s for the better.
You say that couples
today are asking far more from our marriages than ever before. What do you mean
by that?
One hundred years ago, marriage was a social contract and an
economic contact. With the current model of marriage, couples really are
partners; they are both working in the home and they are both working outside
the home. Even when you have one partner that does stay home and doesn’t earn
money, you still have a lot of sharing. So the new model of marriage is that
we’re spending a lot more time with the person that we marry, so we have higher
expectations for the relationship. We want to be with somebody we like to be
with; men and women are both looking for a partner to make life more
interesting.
Fashion designer Lela
Rose on the growing joys (and temporary traumas) of motherhood.
Did you always know
that you wanted to be a mom?
I remember when I got pregnant with Grey, I was traumatized.
When it’s the first time you’re pregnant, there’s a certain group of people who
love to tell you how you will never sleep again, how life as you know it is
over. And really, life as you did know it is
over, but in a good way. It’s
such a joy and it always has been, it’s always been a ton of fun peppered with
some tough stuff. It’s not that bad!
MARCH 2011
Katie Brown, PBS’
domestic extraordinaire, gives the scoop on adoptive parenting.
Tell me about being
an adoptive mom? What impact has the adoption experience had on your family,
and on you as a parent?
It is a brutal process, but it’s all worth it in the end.
You know how with birthing they say you don’t remember the pain? Same with
adoption. And there’s something about my bond with Meredith that I think is
wrapped up in the fact that I almost didn’t have her. There’s something about
that feeling of, Oh my God, how did we
luck out to find you? that is just otherworldly and so precious and so
great. I feel like I have the family I was meant to have; I think you find who
you are supposed to find. That’s part of the reverence that I have towards
Meredith and our connection-its like, “Well, there you are!”
APRIL 2011
‘Scream-Free’
parenting guru Hal Edward Runkel urges parents to connect with kids by putting
themselves first. No, really.
You claim that one of
the best things we as parents can do for our children is to focus more on
ourselves. Can you explain?
If we don’t take care of ourselves, we end up needing our
kids to care of us by behaving and by making us look good. Then they are the
leaders of the family, not us. What kids need most are parents that do not need
them-I know this is a jarring statement, but it’s true. Focusing on yourself is
one of the best things you can do because you are communicating to your kids
that you don’t need them to take care of you.
But shouldn’t we
insist that our children do what we, as parents, say?
So many parents think, “I should say it and they should do
it.” I always ask them, until when? How long do you want to be responsible for
telling them what to do every step of the way? When do you want them to begin
to think for themselves? It’s our job to let them know the choices they don’t
have-kids don’t have the choice between going to school or playing in the
street-but also the choices they do have. One of the best things we can do is
get to a place where there is nothing our kids can do to embarrass us. When we
allow them to embarrass us we’re taking too much responsibility for them. We
are not responsible for our kids;
we’re responsible to them.
‘Let’s Panic About
Babies’ author Alice Bradley opens up about making mama mistakes and owning
them.
What do you find most
challenging about motherhood?
I think there’s an illusion that you have before you’re a
parent that when you become a parent you’ll automatically know what you’re
doing. For me, the hardest part was encountering situations and having absolutely
no idea what to do. It’s realizing
you’re going to make mistakes, and you have to be okay with that. And learning
to apologize to your child-I feel good about doing that, because I’m modeling
what I want my child to do.
JUNE 2011
Film mogul Spike Lee reflects on the constantly
churning cog in the parenting wheel.
When you think about your journey as a father, what
comes to mind?
All the stuff that you didn’t want to do as a kid that your
father tells you to do? You end up telling your kids the same thing. Always
works like that. You try to tell them, look I did this already, so just do it
this way–but they never listen. And they’re going to end up doing the same
thing with their children. It just keeps going.
