Interview: Tori Amos
“Motherhood was a huge healer for me.”
by Amy Reiter
May 12, 2009
Where have you found your greatest joys in motherhood, and the hardest challenges?
There's so much fun in having one-on-one time with my daughter. That's when I really get to know her and begin to see that you don't have to be old to have wisdom. Because of their innocence, because they don't have all the responsibilities we do, sometimes
children can see something sharper than we can because we're so distracted by a detail. So I think, well, why can't an eight-year-old give me really good advice? She gives me good advice all the time, but not about "problems." Children can be so observant
and they know when things aren't right, and yet they don't always need to know the details. That's one thing I've had to learn. Sometimes that discipline has to kick in, that "I have to be the mom. She doesn't have to carry this burden. She doesn't need to
know what's happening yet. Let's see if the winds bring in a different result." And sometimes they do. Sometimes death passes your door. Sometimes what you think is going to happen doesn't happen.
How have you balanced your life as a mother with your life as a musician?
"A traveling circus can still be grounded." We share music, and she loves the wardrobe and high heels and all that stuff. Because of what I do, Natashya's not going to accept play makeup. She likes Dior. You can't be sitting there with great makeup artists and hair people and be using these products
and then say, "Okay, here's your Barbie stuff." She got rid of that at five. But now she's experimenting. She has her own makeup mirror and she does her own makeup. It's a balance, but it's about being a mother lioness and letting the cubs grow up. She wants
to explore with that, so instead of it being in a vulgar way, she sits and watches the best as they work on mom, and then she works on herself. Then she wants to go make people up, and they'll let her. She does a very good job.
That sounds like fun.
You know, I'll say to her, "Is there something you'd like to do?" She'll say, "Well, I'd love to have a facial at a spa, please." And, okay, so that's one of her favorite things to do. But because we travel the world, this is in context. If you ask Tash,
"So what's one of the places you like to go?" She'll say, "Well, I like Prague very much, and Rome, and I want to go to Moscow soon." That is just her life. Tash does see the world and she does visit places, so we can't treat her like we would if we didn't
ever leave a certain town.
So she tours with you. How do you create a sense of stability for her in the midst of it all?
A traveling circus can still be grounded. It has a center. And the bus is the home. But we go into hotels every morning as well. You have to make home where you are. She has her little special things that she takes with her. And backstage, she has her own
room, with her music set up. She's into music, and her books and her dolls and stuff. And there's tutoring on the road and structure and a routine. She wants to be part of the show, so she always sees the beginning, and then she gets put to bed at a certain
point, and she accepts that.
It's nice to hear she's into music. Does she make music, too, like you did as a kid?
She sings and writes her own melodies and lyrics and is really into acting and theatrics, so she's studying that as well. She goes to school in the U.K. I'm in London right now and her father is with her. England is really his stomping ground. We have a
beach house two hours north of Miami, and we tour so much that the home front changes. But it's just part of our life. It doesn't seem strange to us.
How do you and your husband split the childcare duties?
When we're out on the road, Tash and I share a bus with the band, and Mark is on the engineer bus, because we're all on different schedules. But when I'm doing a promo tour, setting up an album, I go off and he holds the fort down. He runs a recording studio
by where his house is.
Right, you guys built your own studio.
It's really his. England is his, and he lets me crash there because I'm not so bad.
Has becoming a mother changed your music?
Yes, I think it has. But differently at different times. You become interested in other subjects. Some continue through your career, but some shift. This emptiness that was inside me before Tash at a certain point completely got filled up. Motherhood was
a huge healer for me.
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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