Mommybloggers Dish with Everyday Supergoddess
Mommybloggers: Hi Julie, the mommybloggers love your site wanna-cookie.blogspot.com. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk to us! Tell us about how long you have been writing and where the name of your blog came from.
Julie: I’ve been writing all my life. I journaled like a maniac from junior high through college. I never considered blogging until last summer, but it has proved to be a medium that works really well for me.
“I Want A Cookie� is the name of a song by a band called Evolution Control Committee. Basically it’s an audio sample from an anger management seminar set to very loud techno music, with a screaming voice in the background. The first words of the song are a woman’s voice asking, “Do you ever feel angry? Are you paralyzed by your anger?� At the time, my friend Liz, a.k.a. CombatGirl, and I were both dealing with troubled marriages. She played it for me because she knew I’d immediately understand why she found it so hilarious. She was right.
The original idea behind the blog was that she and I would do it together, as a back-and-forth sort of forum to vent about the insanity of dealing with our respective (by that time) ex-husbands. The title from that song seemed like the perfect name. For a variety of reasons, I ended up doing most of the posting, and now she’s in the process of developing her own blog. We’re totally still friends, though.
Mommybloggers:Julie, tell us a little bit about yourself. What kind of a kid were you? We mean, besides the kind of kid that cut off your sister Meghan’s Barbie-doll’s hair and then told her it would grow back? And we will definitely not talk about the time you rubbed her face into the sidewalk while she cried and cried. Or took all the cool stuff to collect (like horses) leaving Meghan with the lamest seashell collection imaginable. Those tidbits will DEFINITELY remain between us and you.
Julie: Well, I’ll tell you. I was the oldest of four girls in our family, and having to share a bedroom (and pretty much everything else) with a number two child who was very loud, very messy, and who demanded the majority of our harried parents’ attention, was often very, very lonely. Especially when that number two child was the sort of child would rip all the pages out of her older sister’s journals, and would allow her friend Janna to eat all of the Valentine’s Day candy that her elder sister had received as a gift from her boyfriend.
It was very trying, and I still have a few self esteem and rage issues to work out, but I think I’ve overcome a lot to become the highly-evolved human being I am today.
Mommybloggers:Thanks for the warning. The Mommybloggers will be sure to hide their candy from their fellow mommyblogger Meghan. And we will give her a very stern talking-to. Sheesh.
You are a single mother, and you handle single motherhood with grace, dignity, aplomb, and the occasional justified rant. What do you see as the biggest challenges of single parenthood today?
Julie: I think my kids would have something to say about whether or not I’ve handled anything with “grace,� “dignity� and “aplomb.�
But managing all the details is probably the biggest challenge right now. My kids are at an age when they’re involved in a lot of activities, and their social lives are becoming busier and more important to them. Trying to remember who needs to be where and when, and making sure everything happens on schedule, can be really overwhelming for a single parent.
Mommybloggers:What are the biggest rewards?
Julie: Just last night all three of us were in my bed, saying goodnight before the DemiGoddesses went to their own beds. My younger daughter (Demigoddess the Younger) said something like, “isn’t it cool that we’re friends?� And it’s really true. There have been times when it’s felt like the three of us against the world, and although there have been some real struggles, we have a bond now that I don’t think would have happened otherwise.
Mommybloggers:Your daughters are fantastic and wonderfully talented and well-adjusted. And smart and funny and beautiful. How did their Aunt Meghan have such a powerful impact on them?
Julie: Their who now?
All three of my sisters have been fantastic influences on my girls. They’re all incredibly smart, funny, independent women, each with her own unique sense of style and on her own path in life. I’m so proud that the DemiGoddesses have such solid role models.
Even though I am, technically speaking, a single parent, I always know that my sisters have my back. I’ve told my daughters on more than one occasion that if there is ever anything they need help with, but for whatever reason they don’t want to talk to me about it, they can go to any one of their aunts in confidence. And my sisters know they have my permission to not to tell me.
Mommybloggers:But seriously though, your daughters are phenomenal. What is your secret?
Julie: I don’t have a secret. Someone who didn’t have a lot of experience with kids once asked me for advice on how to interact with children. I said, “Listen when they talk. Look them in the eye when you talk to them. Be willing to act silly. Don’t make them do tricks or otherwise treat them like pets.� That’s pretty much been my parenting philosophy, and it seems to be working out so far.
Mommybloggers:Your writing is often very personal, and also very moving which we love. What kinds of things inspire you to write?
Julie: Usually it starts with a feeling. Something will impact me emotionally—by making me laugh, or pissing me off, or, sometimes, by making me cry. It might be something huge, but more often, it’s some little everyday thing that just hits me. I’ve learned that, when those things happen, it’s important to take a minute to enjoy the experience, and then to think about why that particular thing struck me the way it did. Most of my writing evolves out of those moments.
Mommybloggers:What is next for Julie the writer?
Who knows. For now, I’ll be happy if I can think of something halfway interesting to blog about tomorrow.
Mommybloggers:Back to the family. Julie, you have three sisters. Which one is your favorite and why?
Julie: Hah. Nice try, Meghan.
Mommybloggers:Julie, your daughters are in the teen and pre-teen years. How do you decide how much to reveal about them on your blog? How much say do they have in what gets published? Do the demigoddesses read your blog?
Julie: They do read it. I try to be respectful about what I put out there about them, and about the people they care about, too. But there have been times when they’ve been upset by things I’ve written. They’re not afraid to speak up when they think I’ve written something inappropriate, and we’ve talked about the things that upset them.
Lately when she’s done something that she thinks may have particularly annoyed me, DemiGoddess the younger has become fond of saying, “Blog about THAT!� To which I usually reply, “I already DID!� Sometimes it’s true.
I remember hearing Nora Ephron once talk about what a torment her writer parents were, because everything she said or did growing up became their material. So I try not to write anything that will be really embarrassing for them. But some things are just too good not to share.
Mommybloggers:Do you consider yourself a mommyblogger? What is your take on the term?
Julie: I myself went from being “Mommy� to “Mom� a while ago now. As I said before on my blog, I feel more like a “HeyMomINeedSomeMoneyAndI’mLateForGirlScoutsAndOhByTheWayIHave HeadliceBlogger.�
As far as the term itself, I don’t know. I think it’s very easy to pigeonhole a whole group of people by putting that kind of label on them. In reality, the “mommybloggers� I know of are a very diverse array of individuals, with widely differing writing styles and points of view. I guess my first instinct is to resist lumping them all into a single category, simply because they happen to have children AND sometimes write about them.
Mommybloggers:How has writing changed your life and the way you interact with the world?
Julie: Writing has always been a very important tool for me to work through things. The process of putting events and thoughts and feelings into words really forces me to look at them from all angles, which usually leads to a level of understanding that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
But it’s never easy. And trying to blog every day is a constant challenge. Every time I manage to put together something that I like, right after I hit that “publish post� button, I think, “Hah! Fooled ‘em again! But that is the absolute end of my abilities, and I will never have another interesting thing to say, ever again.�
Blogging has forced me to keep my eyes constantly open for those little moments to write about, which means I pay a lot more attention to everything now than I used to. And really, that is such a gift.
Mommybloggers: Julie, thank you for talking with us, and thank you for continuing to put out writing that moves us and makes us think and also makes us laugh.
Mommybloggers:And here are the questions we subject all of our featured bloggers to (With apologies to Bernard Pivot and Inside the Actors Studio):
1. What is your favorite parent related word?
Bedtime
2. What is your least favorite parent related word?
Headlice
3. What is your favorite creative censored curse word used around children?
Wait, you’re not supposed to curse in front of the children? Oh. Fuck.
4. What is your favorite hiding place within your home when you need to get away from it all?
I don’t really have to hide any more. They’ve been well trained to know that, when I’m in my bedroom and the door is closed, they risk life and limb if they come within three feet of that door.
5. What hiding place have you been found in too often and can no longer use?
In the basement, folding laundry.
6. If Oprah exists, what would you like to hear her say when you arrive at the Oprah Winfrey show when she features the Mommybloggers?
Enjoy your FREE CAR! WOOHOO!
Thanks Oprah!
Comments
Julie, I really like what you had to say about your parenting philosophy/approach. My aunt is a single mother to the most amazing young woman whom I personally know - and she'll be graduating from high school in a few months. My aunt has always served as my role model when it comes to parenting, and now that I have my own daughters, I hope that our two-parent family can do even half as good of a job as she did by herself. Likewise, you and your demigoddesses are an inspiration.
Posted by: Julie | March 16, 2006 8:47 AM