Julianne Moore
“Motherhood doesn’t wipe out the person that you are."
by Amy Reiter
March 23, 2009
What about celebrity? Does it make it harder or easier to raise kids?
That's where there's an advantage to living in New York City. I'm not the only actor-parent my kids know. And there are lots of people who have big and crazy — eccentric — jobs in New York as well. So we fit in there. Our children don't perceive our family with a filmmaker father and an actress mother as being somehow different; it's just sort of more of the same. But I do think that sense of celebrity culture is much more prevalent now than it was even ten or fifteen years ago. It just seems to grow and grow. I'm hoping that maybe with the global economic meltdown, the celebrity culture will melt down somewhat too.
Yes, in some ways, politicians are the new celebrities.
I remember a conversation with my son. He said, "You're on the cover of a magazine because you're famous." I said, "No, it's because it's what my job is. If I'm on the cover of a fashion magazine, it's because I'm promoting a movie. That's just part of my job." It's very important for people to understand that your public face is tied to your work, but it's not who you are.
You and your husband got married when Caleb was five and Liv was one. Did having children change your concept of marriage and family?
Well, David Letterman asked, "Why did you get married?" And I said, "Well, one kid it seems like it's okay not to get married, and two kids it just starts to seem sloppy."
I think we ended up getting married just because we were like, "Well, we are here. This is what it is." It's a way of cementing your relationship and your family. Though I don't know that I believe that marriage is the be all and end all for everybody either.
"Ellen Barkin was with me while I was in labor."
I once met you and Ellen Barkin at an event, and your friendship seemed so warm and supportive. Parenting can really affect friendships. Has it changed yours?
I love her. I became much closer with my friends. Ellen was the person who gave me the most advice about having a baby. She was the first person who came to my room when Cal was born, and she was with me while I was in labor. My daughter's middle name, Helen, is for Ellen.
Somebody once said to me, "You're going to ask your mother, 'What do I do when blah-blah-blah?' And you're going to get really mad because your mother won't remember it. And that is not her fault!" You ask anybody who is too far away from having a newborn or whatever, and they won't remember it. The person you can ask is your girlfriend who's got a newborn or a five-year-old or an eight-year-old. They're the ones who say, "Oh, yeah-yeah-yeah, let me tell you how it works." And that's how you navigate it.
Early on when you have children, your female friendships do go, because you have a job, a baby, a husband. But they also understand. It's not like falling into a boyfriend hole. You fall into a baby hole, and everybody knows what that is. Then you get out of it and suddenly find you have a tremendous amount of support.
So what's the most important lesson you've learned about parenting so far?
That they're just other people. You have this baby and you have a relationship with the baby, and then you look at them, and you're like, "Wow, you're a whole person! You're just this whole separate being." And you get to explore that relationship, especially as they get older. Suddenly there are two separate human beings across the table from you and your husband. It's just like, "Where did these people come from?" There's so much you can do to develop them and teach them and take care of them, but in many ways they just are who they are. And that, I think, is the most wonderful thing.
©2009 Amy Reiter and Babble
About the Author
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Amy Reiter has written for Glamour, Marie Claire, The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Time Out New York Kids and Wine Spectator, among other publications, as well as the anthology "Maybe
Baby." A former editor at Salon, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children. |
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