Because of my music I had an unusual upbringing, with more responsibilities and pressures than my peers. Now that I’m able to look back on it, I see my childhood experiences as an incredible gift and wouldn’t change them for anything. But when it came time to decide what I would carry forward into my own parenting, I had to make my own way, just like every other parent. In spite of my special circumstances, it feels as if my childhood in Anoka took place in a simpler time when values were closer to the surface and easier to express. Faith was a source of meaning, comfort, inclusiveness, and spirituality, not a political bargaining chip. I’ve heard people say that these are different times requiring new rules, but I wonder if that’s true. There are new challenges, to be sure, but I view values as a stable force, not something to be swayed by politics, technology, or any modern contrivance. Rather than bend our values to fit the times, we need to fit the times to our values. When I ask myself what I need to do to be a good parent in any given circumstance, chances are I reach back to Anoka for guidance.
I know a lot of parents who want to be friends with their kids. As one told me, “We don’t do consequences.” I think she’s fearful that her kids will stay mad at her. She wants them to think of her as a cool parent. I prefer the age-old wisdom by none other than Dear Abby: “If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.” The kids aren’t always happy about it, but as I recently told my mother, “My kids don’t like it at the time, but at the end of the day when I put them to bed at night, they still tell me they love me.”
No question it’s more difficult to be that kind of a parent. It’s a lot easier to say “Okay” than “No.” I thank my parents for saying “No” to me at times and providing me with a model of how to parent well.
It’s the job of parents to teach children how to behave in the world, how to be kind and treat people with respect. If you don’t teach them, they won’t learn. I try not to let my kids get away with bad behavior. Recently, our family made a trip to Minnesota to visit my folks. I returned to New York early for work, and Casey brought the kids home. Later, my mom told me that after I left, Christian had been naughty one day when she took them out to lunch. I pulled Christian aside and said, “I heard about your behavior. Do you realize how lucky you are to have your grandparents in your life? They’re my parents. Do you know how lucky I am to still have them in my life? Do you know how much they do for you in love? There’s going to be a time that comes when they’re not going to be here. You better be nice to them while they’re here.” Christian was tearful and ashamed by this point. I said, “You are going to call Grandma right now and you are going to apologize for your behavior.”
Christian got on the phone, and he was very solemn and remorseful. “Grandma. Hi, it’s me. I’m so sorry, Grandma. I didn’t mean to treat you that way at lunch. I’ll never do it again, Grandma.” I hope he doesn’t forget that lesson.
I believe that kids crave structure. They might fight it, but they do better with it. Actually, parenting experts have repeatedly said that this is true—that structure makes kids feel safe and allows them to build competence and confidence. That’s one reason I have introduced music to my children at an early age. I’m not trying to force them into a role as concert pianists, but I believe studying music is a way to learn discipline in life. As I discovered, the skills learned practicing and perfecting a musical piece can later be used in how you do your job every day.
A few years ago, I found a great idea online for a sticker chart, which was a disciplinary tool, and I used it effectively for years. It was posted on the refrigerator, with a list for each child that included things like making their beds, practicing the piano, and not fighting. I could change the list with a dry erase marker, depending on the day. For each accomplishment I pasted on a sticker at the end of the day, and both kids watched my every move to see how many they would get. Four out of five stars earned them each a half hour of technology the next day. Less than four stars meant no Wii or iPad. Whenever they fell short, I’d hear a chorus of begging, but I held firm. It also gave me a way to control the use of technology, which has become one of the biggest issues parents face.
Personally, I have ambition for my kids to excel, but these days it’s a challenge to define for them what excellence really means. My recent experience with Christian shows why. I took him to his hockey tournament at 5:45 in the morning, but I had to leave early to be with Kaia, so he came home with another family. When Christian walked in the door he had a medal, but he didn’t seem as happy as he should have been winning the tournament. He said, “Mom, I don’t get it. We won, but everybody got a medal, and they were all the same size, even for the kids who were on the fourth-place team. Everyone got the same medal and ribbon and you can’t tell the difference between those who won and those who didn’t.”
I mumbled, “Welcome to 2014!”
I don’t buy the idea that the way to build a child’s self-esteem is to give him or her a trophy that isn’t deserved. Having been a young competitor, I can’t imagine how I would have felt had everyone in competitions been awarded the prize, whether or not they won. I know from experience how wonderful it is to compete and win, and while it is disappointing to lose, it’s also an opportunity for parents to teach kids a very important lesson—that failure in life is a key to success.
When I teach this lesson to my children I tell them about an experience I had in the seventh grade when I ran for a student council position. My slogan was “Stretchin’ for Gretchen,” with a drawing of a person with an extra-long arm reaching up to put a vote in the ballot box. My dad helped me with the posters and the slogan. It wasn’t easy finding a word to rhyme with “Gretchen.”
When I lost the election, I was devastated. But my grandfather sat down with me that day and told me the story of Abraham Lincoln—about how many elections he lost before winning. I never forgot his advice and now I pass it on to my kids and use the example when I do motivational speeches.
It’s come in handy. In the third grade Christian ran for treasurer of the lower school. His slogan was “Christian the magician. You can ‘count’ on me.” He was so disappointed about losing that the next year he told me he wasn’t planning to run for fourth-grade lower school president because he didn’t want to risk losing again. So out came the Abraham Lincoln story, and he did run. He didn’t win, but he gave it his all.
Losing is hard, but it’s as important for kids to experience having to cope with failure as it is for them to win. When we praise mediocrity and give everyone a trophy, children don’t learn how to deal with setbacks. They don’t learn the meaning of taking risks. We rob them of the chance to participate fully in life.
When I was Miss America, I gave a speech to a huge Christian conference for teenagers. I spoke to them about failure, wanting to impress upon them the idea that you don’t have to give up if you fail. It can be a learning experience that leads to success. I told them about being in the tenth grade and how all in one day I had three big failures: I didn’t get the part in Oklahoma! I auditioned for a song and dance group called the Whirlwinds and I didn’t get picked. I ran for homecoming attendant and lost. Failure upon failure. Then to top it off, the guy I was interested in called me fat. I could feel the audience responding. All kids know what it’s like to not be picked, to be embarrassed, to get left out. I related my grandfather’s Abraham Lincoln story. Then I turned it around and told them that it was those losses in tenth grade that spurred me to say, “I’m not going to be losing anymore.” In the next two years I grew from the experience, and I got the lead in the play, I became a homecoming attendant, I won Miss T.E.E.N. Minnesota. I didn’t let failure hold me back. Instead, it was pivotal to success.
Believe it or not, my favorite book as a kid was The Little Engine That Could. I actually use the story in my speeches now, because it ties in with my life story. That little engine didn’t think he could get up th
e hill on his own, and the other engines didn’t help him. They were mean and teased him. But it’s all about perseverance and struggle and finally getting up that hill. That’s the way I’ve lived—no matter what happens, I’ve kept pressing on, climbing that hill.
The truth is, even at this stage in my life I’m not immune to self-doubt. We all have those moments when we’re afraid we’re not measuring up or are worried that other people are judging us harshly. I still have bouts of insecurity when I have to give a speech or appear in public. Even when I’m the featured speaker, I feel butterflies walking into an event. Is it going to go well? Are they going to laugh at my jokes? Will they like me? The nerves never completely go away.
And I’m capable of having my feelings hurt. As a new trustee attending a dinner for my daughter’s school, I heard that a woman in the room pointed to my name in the program book and said to her friend, “What do you think about this?” Her tone made her disapproval clear. It hurt me that because of where I worked or what I’d done in my life, I was automatically being judged as unworthy of being a good trustee, or, worse still, a positive role model for the girls at the school. Such judgments can feel cruel, and no matter who you are they sting. I imagined myself calling the woman and saying, “You don’t know me. How do you know I won’t be a good role model for your kids?”
I’m just like everyone else in that respect. I realize that there’s a tendency for people to see public personalities as fair game for criticism and scorn, and our media culture feeds that. But I’m happiest when people see the real me and accept me for who I am outside the spotlight.
I have aspirations. I have future goals. Who knows what I’ll do next? Maybe I’ll find myself in the pulpit. Or in politics. Maybe I’ll get that long-delayed law degree, or return to music. I do know one thing: I’ll never stop growing. And I have a standard reply to people who downplay my efforts by saying, “It’s easy for you. You’re perfect.” Well, guess what? Nobody’s perfect, least of all me. I always joke that there are plenty of things I can’t do. I can’t parallel park. I can’t drive a stick shift. I can’t whistle. I’m lousy at doing makeup. I never learned to type correctly. And before I had two rounds of braces, I could fit my little finger between my two front teeth. But I embrace my imperfections, knowing I don’t have to be perfect to follow my dreams.
Funny story. I also don’t have fingerprints on my left hand. I found this out the hard way—by airport security. Casey and I were applying for security clearance at the TSA so we could go right through customs without all the rigmarole. Part of the process was getting fingerprints taken. Casey did his, then Kaia and Christian, and when the officer got to me there appeared to be a problem. She kept pressing my fingers down, over and over. “What’s going on?” I asked. I had no idea.
She said, “Ma’am, I hate to tell you this. You have no discernible fingerprints.” I stared at her agog. Kaia burst into tears. Did all those years of playing the violin shave off my fingerprints? I ended up getting a big X on my form, and Kaia was inconsolable. I tried to make a joke about it. “Hey,” I told her, “I could have been robbing banks all this time.”
Kaia howled, “Mommy, you want to be a criminal?!”
“No, I don’t want to be a criminal,” I assured her. The security agent was serious, but saw the humor of the situation. It all just goes to show that we really are unique as individuals. Just because I was missing that most common sign of uniqueness didn’t mean I wasn’t me. I’ve carved out my own path, shaved fingerprints and all.
I know one day—I’m sure before I’m ready for it—my children will carve out their own paths, just as I did. They will discover their callings. Ready or not, like it or not, this reality is as old as time. It is our job as parents to make sure they are equipped with a solid foundation that will hold them steady through the inevitable ups and downs they’ll face.
And while my kids are making their way in life, I will be growing and changing too. I always want to be a person who seeks new challenges—who never feels too old to try something new. Or maybe even to rediscover something old.
Epilogue
The Music of My Life
Alone in the house one Sunday, I was puttering around thinking about this book and my music. I was looking through some old musical scores, and on a whim I went over to the closet where I keep my violin and pulled it down. I hadn’t taken it out in years, and now I carefully opened the case and got out my instrument. After such a long rest period, it was out of tune, so I spent some time tuning it. Then I went ahead and played a few notes from “Adoration,” my old favorite. There was no problem remembering the notes, which were burned in my memory. But I knew it would take time to get my vibrato back. The vibrato is what sets you apart as a musician; it’s your special quality, and I would have to practice steadily for months to restore it. Playing the violin is not like riding a bike. You can’t pick it up years later with no effort and return to your previous level of accomplishment. And that was my great fear and frustration. I wanted to play like I used to. I wanted to feel the way I used to feel. Running my hands over the instrument, I felt that longing and the sadness of knowing I couldn’t easily capture what I’d once had—if at all.
Writing this book brought up so many emotions. It made me realize how much the spirit of my music still lives in me. And as much as I love my work, nothing I’ve ever done in TV—even my biggest interviews on the world stage—has ever come close to moving me the way that some of those performances did.
I returned my violin to the case, and began going through a pile of CDs of my early performances. I grabbed a couple of them to play in the car that afternoon when I went to get a manicure. One was the Lalo performance with the Minnesota Orchestra when I was thirteen, and I put it in the player in my car. Probably not a great idea, because as I was driving through our little town, the tears were flowing while I listened to myself as a young girl playing my heart out. My sunglasses were fogged up, and when I reached my destination I sat in the parking lot listening to the end.
The entire time I was getting my nails done, my mind was a million miles away, remembering. I was eager to get back in the car and put in the next CD, which was my second performance before the Minnesota Orchestra when I was fifteen. For the life of me I couldn’t remember that performance or why I was playing for the orchestra again, but the quality of the tape was much better and I could hear how much I had matured in my playing since the first time. I think by then I had moved to a full-size violin, and I could hear the depth of the notes and the improvement in my vibrato.
That night we were going out to dinner as a family, and I decided to leave the CD in the car player for my kids. They’d never heard me play before. Casey, Kaia, and I got in the car; we were picking up Christian from a birthday party before heading to the restaurant. When I turned on the player, Kaia asked, “Mommy, what’s that music?”
Filled with emotion, I replied, “I just want you to hear this. This is Mommy playing with the Minnesota Orchestra when I was fifteen years old.”
“Oh,” said Kaia noncommittally.
Then Christian got in the car, and he asked, “What’s that music?”
“That’s Mommy playing.”
“It is?”
“Yes. You want to listen to it?”
“Uh, okay.”
Then the kids began chattering in the backseat, and Casey turned to me and started a conversation about the next day’s schedule, and I realized that I was the only one listening to the music. My wonderful husband and my beautiful children just didn’t get it. I was transported back to the emotions I felt as a child—that feeling of being alone with my gift that nobody else understood.
Briefly, I felt sorry for myself, but then a light broke through. I had an epiphany. The music that poured from that CD was music that forever played within me. It wasn’t necessary for my husband or my children to listen, or to appreciate it at that mom
ent. I knew it was there. I knew what the music represented and what it had meant to me. The young violinist I once was informed the adult that I had become, and it was all good.
Rarely does a day go by that I don’t visualize myself playing out my original dream. I’m standing on the Carnegie Hall stage as one of the greatest violinists in the world. That didn’t end up being my real life, and I don’t regret it. But all those years dedicating myself to the violin shaped who I am. Someday I just may pick up the violin again and bring my story full circle, dust off the strings for good and let the music sing. But for now I am content, and immensely grateful for everything I have, including the gift of being the real me.
I had a big personality as a baby.
|David Bank Studios, MN
Living in the Halloween capital of the world and being a ham, I dressed as a pumpkin one year.
My parents were a stunning couple. The car was pretty cool too!
Four generations of women: Grandma Berenice Hyllengren, Kris, mom, me, and my maternal great grandmother Nora Newstrom (Gramsie).
I had a special connection with my grandfather, who called me “Sparkles.”
I loved my softball team, the Lincoln Logs. Mom was the coach, and I played second base.
Playing a violin solo with the Minnesota Orchestra was a thrilling event for a thirteen-year-old. Once I started to play, I didn’t feel nervous, only euphoric.
Mary West and Ken Davenport gave me the gift of the violin.
After full days of work at Aspen, Hope Easton and I played for tourists at night and made a little money.
Getting Real Page 23