Discussion»Questions»Celebrities» Looking back to your childhood, if you had been a child star, what kind of stage parent would your mother and/or father have been? ~
My father would have been a tyrant. He was super crazy about everything, to the point I wasn't even allowed outside the house when they weren't home. Not even in the front yard. It would have been awful. He probably would have inserted himself into every interaction I had with everyone, like a bodyguard protecting a member of the royal family.
My mother... eh... she would have been an absent stage mom. She wouldn't have cared what I was doing or what was happening, so long as the money hit the account and she could buy booze with it.
I would have had to find a ride to the studio. I grew up with what I needed and the house was a happy one even though we were poor. But we didn't have activities outside of school and Church. Mother could not afford for us to be in Girl Scouts but I did get to have piano lessons. The pianist from our Church gave me lessons for four years. I always guessed that mother didn't have to pay for them. I would not ever ask her because she would not talk to us about money or finances other than to say we couldn't afford things sometimes....things we asked for or money to go somewhere with a friend's family. So I grew up knowing there is no shame in saying "I can't afford that." I on occasion told my own children that we could not afford something they wanted. That was intentional because it isn't something to be ashamed of when you are doing the best you can do. That is the key.
I never would have been. My Mother and Father wouldn't have wanted that for me. Both of my parents were very protective. They had two children before me, one of them a girl and she was wild. I was not allowed to date until 17 (never dated). I wasn't allowed to wear makeup until 16 (still barely don't). I never had my own car like both of my siblings.
Did I say protective? I meant controlling. Guess what I did at 18? I ran away and married an older man. Guess what he was? Controlling and domineering.
My Mum thought it was okay for a kid to perform in the end of year school play or ballet, or okay for a kid to be a member of a local drama or dance class once a week outside school hours, and okay to let kids play dress-ups and play-act in the backyard.
But she thought putting a child into any professional role was unmitigated folly. She thought using a child to make an income was the equivalent of child slavery, that it would artificially inflate the kid's ego. Pushing a child so that they had no free time outside school work was a recipe for stunted social development, and sucking vicarious pride from one's child's performances was proof of the parent's inadequate ego.
