Interview of Kimberley Little by Shelby Kinghorn

Where did you grow up?

I was born in San Francisco and raised in the East Bay Area after my parents moved us to the suburbs. We had much better summer weather (although rainy winters!) and a swimming pool – an above ground pool with a homemade sheet metal slide that my dad built. We had to caution our friends to watch out for the sharp edges and raise our arms in the air to avoid getting sliced up fingers! We walked or ride our bikes to school, piano lessons, and friend’s houses. There was a meadow at the end of our dead-end street and we used to cut through there to go to school, created forts and played for hours.

Tell me about your family? (what were your parents like, what did they do, siblings?)

My parents were both born and raised in San Francisco by poor immigrant parents from England, who came to the United States when they joined the church and wanted a better life for their children. My father was a civil engineer, often going to school at night to continue his education while my mother was a stay-at home mom after working in a bank for 5 years while struggling with infertility. They finally adopted my older brother through LDS Family Services and then got pregnant with me just a few months later. They went on to have five more children. We always knew our brother was meant to be in our family – and my parents named us all with “K” names (Kevin, Kimberley, Kari, Kirsten, Kurt and Kendall). They were devoted to the church and served in just about every calling you can think of (teachers, presidencies, seminary, organist, etc) while also being regular choir members. Music was a huge part of my growing up, we sang at home, in the car and had both a piano and organ at home. Sometimes my mother would play fun songs on the organ and we would sing and dance to it.

Everything changed a few days before Christmas when I was fourteen years old when my father was killed in an airplane crash on his way to southern California to teach an engineering class. He was also my seminary teacher that year and I had a 17-year-old cousin who went with him for the fun adventure and they were both killed. It was absolutely devastating, of course, and difficult to carry on without him, especially when my mother had never had the opportunity to attend college and had no regular career to fall back on. But we pulled together, got paper route jobs and high school jobs and saved our money, purchased the things we needed as teenagers, and always paid our tithing. My mother had a lot of faith and with God’s help most of us managed to get through college and have gone on to have successful careers and families.

Where did you go to school, what were your favorite classes, college?

I graduated high school from Concord High in Concord California, then attended Brigham Young University and majored in Piano Pedagogy. I loved BYU and my roommates from around the country, and we still keep in touch all these decades later. Of course, I also enjoyed my English and Writing classes and used to attend summer school just so I could take writing classes and participate in the drama club, despite being terribly shy. After getting married and graduating from BYU I taught piano lessons to about 20 students for many years while having my children and moving around the country a few times before ending up in Albuquerque, New Mexico for my husband’s job—a place we’d never been to, but have loved and enjoyed very much.

What did you like to do while growing up?

I read every day for hours, took piano lessons, swimming lessons, Girl’s Camp and Youth Conferences as well as had the marvelous opportunity to sing in the Oakland Temple Pageant. During the summer, my family went camping all over California, including the Grand Canyon and Utah where we also visited out Utah cousins, and spent many happy days at Disneyland often since we only lived a few hours’ drive away. We are a Disney-loving family! During elementary school, I played dress-ups with my friends and pretended we were people from a hundred years ago in “the olden days”.

My best friend, Starr, and I, even wrote a book together when we were in 6^th grade about two girls who were kidnapped by aliens from Venus. We also went to drive-in movies, Primary and then Mutual during the week, and I got the calling of playing the piano for primary when I was a teenager, walking the two miles to the church every Wednesday afternoon. I loved going to summer school, too, and being in the drama class that put on a summer play, as well as taking writing classes.

When did you first start writing?

I got the writing bug early because I adored books so much and began writing short stories and some poetry when I was about ten years old—and just never stopped.

When did you write your first book?

I wrote my first novella in 9^th grade, a gothic romance full of danger and murder. I sang second soprano in the high school choir (assigned the second soprano part because I could sight-read the music really well) and when the altos or sopranos were learning their part, I was scribbling pages of that gothic novel and handing over pages to my friends to read “hot off the press”.

Then I’d go home to my dad’s makeshift office in the garage and type them up on a bulky old typewriter.

What was writing your first book like? (How long did it take you? What was your inspiration?)

While attending BYU, I saved my money, bought my own typewriter and registered for a correspondence writing course through the Institute of Children’s Literature in Connecticut. I was paired up with a professional writer and learned so much about how to craft a good story and how to navigate the publishing world, query letters, submissions, and what editors were looking for, including how to target a magazine piece or book to what that particular audience wanted. The ICL course had 10 assignments and when I completed one, I’d send it to my instructor who critiqued them and gave me feedback and direction for revision. It was exciting to work with a professional writer or editor. And even more exciting when Assignment #6 sold to a music magazine for $25! I was thrilled to pieces! I went on to publish a couple of dozen short stories for various magazines which gave me great experience and paid for all the paper and postage I had to purchase. I even had several stories in The Friend and The New Era, publications of the church.

What was it like trying to get your book published?

I went on to take the Novel Writing Course through ICL and wrote a full-length novel, the first of many “practice” novels that were never published, but taught me about the craft of writing and all that goes into it, like developing characters, plot, setting, rising conflict, etc.

Becoming a published author is just like going to school to become a teacher, engineer, doctor, or lawyer. Writers must go through an apprentice period of writing thousands of pages before getting published. Each project teaches a writer about their strengths and weaknesses. Finding a critique group with other writers is invaluable for feedback and emotional support—because writing can be a lonely profession.

What goes into the editing and publishing process?

This is a huge, loaded question! Before a manuscript is ever sent to a publishing house or agent or editor who can give you a contract, I spend months or years working on a book project. Sometimes those manuscripts are shelved permanently and sometimes there is a book I can’t stop thinking about because I felt so strongly about the characters or the subject matter. Every few months, I’d pull it out and do another couple of rounds of revisions, get more feedback, and then submit again. This happened with my first book Breakaway, published by Avon Books. I wrote three completely different drafts and had numerous revisions on each version until I met an agent at a writer’s conference who took me on and sold it a month later. That agent and I did three books together, but then she stopped agenting and my books were “orphaned” – a term used to describe the unfortunate circumstance when an author’s editor leaving the publishing house. I lost the editors for all three of my first books.

Consequently, I went through a dry spell until I found a new agent. I had been working on The Healing Spell—one of those books I kept rewriting over and over again which eventually sold to Scholastic through my new agent after doing at least 25 revisions on the book. The heart of the book never changed, but my writing got better and better. That book has sold well over 100,000 copies.

After one of my books is sold to a publishing house, my editor and I go through multiple revisions, focusing on the big picture storyline, until we finally get down to micro revisions on smaller sections or paragraphs to pull out the emotion or characterization to make it as strong as possible. Then the editor line-edits the book and send it to a copyeditor. When I get the manuscript back from the copyeditor, we do a final, microscopic edit before it’s typeset. Then my editor, myself, and at least two proofreaders read it again for any typos before it heads off to be printed, bound, and shipped to bookstores and libraries.

 

What is your writing process like?

For me, a unique setting is usually my jumping off point. I’m interested in a certain place or visit somewhere that I fall in love with that I’m dying to write about and bring to life. Then I spend months or years researching to learn about the history, culture, food, and experiences of that area that I might or might not incorporate into the story. I imagine the type of person who lives there and what problems they would have and what their life and family would be like.

This is how I came to write four books set in the Cajun area of Louisiana in the swamps and bayous about faith healers and families in crisis. Or my ancient Mesopotamia trilogy about the roots of belly dance and tribal warfare and the frankincense trail and goddess temples.

I write a first draft, which takes anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. I usually write 1,500 – 2,000 words a day. When I get closer to the end, I start writing 3,000 – 5,000 words a day as I’m closing in on the climax of the story when things get pretty exciting for my characters. It’s easy to get so immersed that I find myself mentally living inside my current book project and it’s hard not to think about it during the day or dream about my characters at night!

After that it’s several rounds of revisions before sending it to my agent or editor. And crossing my fingers that they will like it, too!

What about your next books? Was the process different? Was it easier/harder?

Whether it’s easier or harder is up for debate! After I had successfully sold several books, I began selling my books based only on 2-3-page written proposal. Of course, an author trying to do this on their own probably wouldn’t get very far. This is where an agent comes in very helpful to negotiate the process and brag about your track record. The publishing house has to trust you to produce the book by a specified time period and to make all your editorial deadlines.

Selling on proposal intensifies the pressure to produce a book within a certain time frame, especially if you only have a couple of pages of notes. The writing process still means getting a good outline and fleshing out the myriad of characters in a full-length novel. In many ways, every single book has its own challenges and problems and there are times when sections don’t come very easily or I get stuck on plotting. This is where having trusted writer friends to help you brainstorm can come in very handy!

How do you pick an audience and how does your writing style and process change for the different audiences?

When I first began writing, children’s and Young Adult books had such an impact on my own life while I was growing up that I knew I wanted to write for that audience. Children’s literature includes some of the most powerful and well-written books on the market today and so many genres and wonderful authors to choose from so it’s been a privilege to have an impact on my reader’s lives and know that something I’ve written is meaningful to them.

Over the last three years, I’ve begun writing adult romance that are uplifting and wholesome and there is an enormous market out there. These readers want to escape from the problems of the world and be uplifted and entertained. I’m finding out how important they are for so many women who want to read about the problems and lives of other women that doesn’t have sex and violence in them, but are about women overcoming challenges while navigating their relationships and families. I had no idea how powerful and important they can be for so many readers, so it’s been an exciting and fulfilling adventure!

What is different about writing books in a series? Is it easier/hard?

A series can be great fun, giving me a chance to explore the same characters in more depth, especially if I have a bigger story to tell. That happened with my FORBIDDEN trilogy with HarperCollins. It’s an enormous storyline with clashing cultures and tribes, ancient cities and armies as well as the secrets and truth behind the goddess temples of the Old World.

At its heart though, it’s a family story about two sisters torn apart by religion and expectations—and it’s a forbidden love story about two people who will sacrifice anything to save their families and be together.

The difficulty in writing a trilogy comes from trying to keep track of so many characters, all the various settings within the story’s world and the threads of the plot to bring all three books together into a rip-roaring ride full of adventure, intrigue, danger, romance, and emotional fulfillment, too.

What is it like seeing your books at stores and on shelves?

The first time spotting my book in the bookstore and the library was super thrilling! Perhaps, the library more so because I was the kid who hung out at the library constantly. Seeing my books online at Amazon and B&N and having my own website was also very exciting.

The best thing is getting fan letters from adults, teachers, friends, and from kids. I’ve received some letters from readers who told me that my books changed their life and those letters make me cry!

Did you feel like there were any extra, different, or unique challenges because you are a woman?

A career as a writer has no confining restrictions, which is really great because it’s the quality of the story and the writing that matters most. In children’s literature, especially, most of the editors and agents are women, which is great, too.

I’ve read a few articles over the years about statistics that show that there are far more published women writers out there than men, but that men receive a greater percentage of the literary awards than female authors do. It’s almost as if men’s novels are subconsciously given more merit. But most male writers have wives that take care of the household while they lock themselves away in their offices all day. The majority of female writers also hold down outside jobs while also carrying the bulk of household duties and childcare more than their male counterparts.

I’ve been fortunate to have a spouse who has always been very supportive of my writing even during years and years of no sales—while spending money from the household budget for writing courses, conferences, mailings, and travel.

Do you feel like there is more pressure on you as a writer because you are a woman?

No, I’ve never felt that way personally. Any pressure I feel comes from within myself as I try to write the best story in the best possible way while trying to learn my craft and become a better writer. Often, I’ve had an idea for a book that seems far above my capacity to tell and that can be quite daunting, but sometimes those books turn out to be my very best—and the ones where fans tell me the book affected them the most deeply. Every day it can be a challenge to overcome my personal fears about doing the story justice, as well as the daunting hard work of writing two or three hundred pages—and to just dive in and do it. It takes a lot of courage, patience, and a bit of guts to write a book!

You have done a lot of traveling in your life, how does that work into your writing, do you travel specifically for writing books?

Travel has been a combination of stumbling across an evocative and magical setting that I want to set a book at, as well as going to a place that I’ve already written about. That happened with my Forbidden/Banished/Returned trilogy where it was difficult to travel to the Middle East after the 9/11 tragedy—and also very scary—but years later, after I sold the trilogy to Harpercollins, the advance money I received paid for a trip to Jordan and Israel so that was very nice! It was a spectacular trip—a dream come true. What was also very enlightening was the fact that I had spent so many years researching the setting and people and culture that even after my two weeks over there and exploring the desert and visiting the tent of a Bedouin family I came home to do final revisions on the book and only tweaked a couple of sentences. I was pretty proud of myself!

Tell me about book tours and conferences that you go to and speak or where your books are sold/promoted?

I did a two-week book tour on the East Coast when FORBIDDEN launched, pairing up with other Young Adult authors to do bookstore and school visits. We timed it to coincide with a huge Young Adult Book Festival in Charleston South Carolina (started at Washington DC and worked our way south.) It was wonderful to meet the other authors, booksellers and young people and talk books, as well as meeting people in person that I had only met previously online through Facebook, Twitter, and my website.

I do school visits where I do a hands-on writing workshop for students and get them excited about reading and writing.

I’ve attended many local and national conventions and conferences, including several book festivals, like the huge Tucson Book Festival and the Charleston Young Adult Festival (3 times!). I was a keynote speaker at the New Mexico Library Association, the Louisiana Book Festival, Book Expo in New York City, Romantic Times Booklovers Convention, and Battle of the Books events, as well as attending the writer’s conference, LDStorymakers, in Utah, Romance Writers of America, including attending and speaking at numerous local and national events with the Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators. It’s great to meet readers as well as other authors that I’m a fan of, too!

Tell me about your family? (Husband, kids, grandkids)

My husband is an electrical engineer at Sandia National Labs working in the robotics group, which he loves. He loves music, singing in the church choir, is a big reader about all kinds of topics, and likes to fix everything around the house, including our vehicles. He’s also a great dancer and was on the BYU dance team as well as played trumpet in the Cougar Band long, long ago. He serves others all the time and has held many callings in the church which he magnifies so fully and admirably. He also has a great sense of humor and a dry wit and relaxed personality.

We have three adult sons and three grandchildren that have been living with us since they were babies while our son and daughter-in-law attend college.

How does your writing fit in with your family life?

Having an active family in the community and church—and homeschooling for 12 years, too—has made the writing life a challenge. Too often life duties and travel and research and marketing and promotion and critique groups and family and church duties overtake my time, but I make notes when I’m away from my desk, take my laptop with me on long car trips, and just try to squeeze it in whenever I can, often writing late into the evening, especially when I’m on a deadline. Those deadlines can be very motivating!

Having a new set of grandbabies living with us proved a challenge, but I used some of my writing money to hire my brother who is a contractor to build me a writing cottage in our backyard and that has helped tremendously and has been a great blessing. I decorated it in a Victorian style and can crank up my inspirational music and pound out the words!

Is there anything else you can tell me about your life, being a woman and the challenges and problems that causes, being a writer, or anything else you think I should know?

Some people might say that I should somehow resent the time my family or household work takes away from my writing. They are wrong, because those hours have brought me joy and balance, and even more, have made my understanding of life so fuller, which I believe is why my books have been successful because the stories are about life and family as well as faith and overcoming trials and obstacles, after all.

 

Interview of Taffy Goold by Shelby Kinghorn

Taffy Goold

Where are you from?

Odessa, Texas

Did you live there your whole life?

Until I left for college

What was it like living there?

At the time I thought it was great, now as an adult I realize it wasn’t the best place to grow up. I grew up on a farm, so it was great for a kid but the town itself was not very family friendly.

You’re one of five siblings, youngest of all boys, what was it like growing up with all brothers?

My brothers were really rough, so I always felt a little outnumbered, but it led me to feel like I could do anything. Now as an adult I have a wide range of interests and skills and am not afraid to do or try anything.

Tell me about your schooling.

I got really lucky because our town wasn’t well integrated, so they started a minority inclusion program at my schools and you did Pre-AP classes from 6^th grade on and had lots of AP classes offered in high school. So basically, I got private school in the public education system and it was a great opportunity for me.

What about extra curriculars?

I did orchestra, choir, cheer, some academic competitions with speaking and current events testing. They kept me very busy and helped give me a wide range of skills.

What about college?

Both my parents had graduated from BYU (Brigham Young University) so I always just assumed I would go there. But in high school I realized that wasn’t the case because all four of my brothers went somewhere else for college. So, I applied there (BYU) and then also a whole bunch of other colleges where my friends were applying and going. However, it worked out that I got into BYU and got to go there.

How did you decide what to study?

I took a class in family life, but I can’t remember which one. It was really interesting to me, so I started taking more classes and I got to the point that I had so many I thought I should just major in it. If I had to do it again I would have minored in it and done something a little more marketable.

What would you like to have done?

I would have liked to have done something with computing so that first I could understand my husband’s world a little more and second it would be an easy thing to do at home and still take care of my family. My husband works in computer science and I would love to have a better understanding of what he does.

When did you get married?

May of 2000 when I was 20 years old at the end of my sophomore year of college. We met at BYU and it was great!

And you had kids before you were done with school, right?

Yeah, I had Hailey toward the end of my junior year.

How was that, having a kid and going to school?

It was a little hard to have a baby while going because I was so tired! But actually I think it was really good for my emotional state to have some other things to do and to vary my day. I still felt like I was progressing in my own life, but I wasn’t only focused on my schooling.

What do you do now?

I teach preschool out of my home and I have three kids, one in college and two living at home that I take care of.

How did you decide to teach preschool?

I had a great friend who did it and I saw how flexible it was with a family schedule. I subbed for her a few times and really enjoyed it. When I moved to my current city I had a lot of friends that were complaining about the high prices of preschools in the area. I saw a need and knew that I could fill it, so I stated my own preschool. It keeps growing every year.

Do you like teaching preschool and what do you like about it?

Yes, I love it. I like that the students are happy to see me and each other and they make huge progress of the course of the year at that age. They are really fun to watch and to work with.

Would you ever like to do anything else?

I haven’t really seen a career that appeals to me more, so I think I’ll stick with the preschool.

What about hobbies, what do you like to do?

I like making things, usually out of wood. I recently started a little business where I make unfinished crafts and we then have parties where people come over and get finish them however they like and that’s fun to do.

What do you like about making stuff?

I like that when it’s finished you can look at it for a long time. It gets to stay as a reminder of what you have accomplished. There is a great sense of pride that goes along with it.

What in your life has been the biggest thing that makes you feel empowered?

I’ve always felt like when I wanted to do something a little out of the box that I had the support to go and do. No one ever told me I couldn’t do something. I think because I grew up with all brothers I always had a strong drive. I never felt like I should be judged differently because I was a girl. I always did a lot of things that were not gender specific and didn’t feel like I had to be labeled one way or the other. So, when I did the small things it gave me the confidence to do the bigger things like working with power tools, backpacking, and a lot of the other things I enjoy.

Has there ever been anything that you felt was stacked against or that you couldn’t do because you were a woman?

I mistakenly thought when I was in college that I needed to finish quickly because I needed to take care of my family. That is why I ended up with a major that wasn’t exactly what I wanted. I wish that someone had pointed out to me that if I wanted to work later in life and help support my family financially that maybe my major wasn’t the best choice. Because I was a woman, no one pointed it that out to me or thought that it was wrong.

How does it feel knowing you provide some financial support to your family?

It feels awesome! I’m able to pay for my daughter’s tuition every semester and it feels good to know that it’s not coming out of our family’s budget and to know that we can save for the things we need and want to do. I’m grateful that I can help her, so she feels less pressure so that she can feel like she doesn’t have to choose the quick and easy major and can feel like she as more of a range of opportunities in college

You’ve grown up in kind of the middle of the 3^rd wave of feminism, which is equal pay and for all types of women including the lower class and minority women, do you think that has affected you at all?

I think it makes me lucky. I never really had to fight for the chance to do the things that I wanted. I haven’t been in the workforce a lot, but I never felt like my mother who had a professor tell her that he wouldn’t help her because she was just going to stop working and go raise kids. So, I appreciate it but not knowing the other I can’t really speak to how it has affected me.

With the changes and the Me-Too movement and all that that has recently been going on how has that affected what you are teaching your kids or what you want them to know?

It’s unfortunate that whenever a new movement for equal treatment of society comes up, that it always has to swing to far one way to begin with so that everyone will understand the problem before we know how to fix it. So, I try to teach my kids that even though the Me-Too movement and feminism can seem unfair to men. We can see how horrible women have been treated throughout history we have to make sure to treat everyone with love and kindness and we can’t let any extremeness dissuade us from its purpose. We try not to avoid having those conversations with our kids that might be uncomfortable to have with teenagers. Things like understanding consent and understanding how the media skews and plays a role in relationships and our lives in general. Especially because of our religion and where we live we see a lot of really conservative views and so I try to show them the other side, so they can have a more balanced view of what is happening. It’s frustrating when a song or things come up and show peoples extreme views when the overall idea isn’t actually extreme, it’s just some people who are extreme.

What do you want to be your legacy and what have you done to build it?

I would hope that people would say about me that I took the time to think deeply about all the important things in life, especially about how other people feel and how I can help. I try to ask people lots of questions to better understand their points of view. I try to investigate the reasons that people think differently than I do instead of discounting them as irrational or unintelligent. I know a lot of people who block others or argue on social media and I really try to observe, and I try not to say things that instigate defensiveness but ask questions that seem sincere and help with understanding and not just ones that prove my point. I try to take that approach with my own kids and also with everyone that I meet in life.

What advice do you have for the younger generation?

I really think that good things come from working hard and being kind and I don’t think there is a situation where those things don’t apply.

Interview with Enju Chou, My Mother by Linda Hsiung

When and where were you born?

I was born in 1964 in Tainan county, Taiwan, in a suburban town. I am the youngest of five in my family. I was actually born inside of my childhood home with the help of a midwife. Most people during that time were not born in hospitals.

Can you tell me a bit about your parents?

My father owned a pharmacy in our home. The first floor of our house was the store while the second and third floor were where we lived. We lived in the center of town, so business was very good.

My mother had been a nurse prior to this, so to help my father’s business flourish, she opened a small clinic behind the store to help people with any physical ailments that they had. I remember her being able to help and heal people who had already gone to doctors with their problems but were unable to recover with the treatment(s) they were prescribed.

Most of the customers would come after work which was around dinner time. My parents would work late sometimes till midnight. When I was young, I would always watch them work late into the night because I was too scared to sleep at night while my parents were still downstairs.

What was your relationship like with your siblings?

I grew up with three older sisters and one older brother.

I remember my oldest sister and my brother bickering a lot. Because he was the only boy and boys tend to be more rambunctious and dirty, he would always purposefully try to annoy and make the rest of us girls screech. My oldest sister Grace lived in the third floor attic. She always made sure to keep her space very clean by wiping the floors everyday. One time my brother after playing around outside and getting all dirty without cleaning up went up to her room to her dismay. The more she protested the more my brother would want to agitate her. He would even pick his nose in front of her to annoy her even more. My mom would often scold at my brother for causing trouble but sometimes she yelled at my sister by asking her why she had to be such a neat freak.

What was the relationship between your parents like?

My father was a very gentle man, very slow to anger.

My mother was busier because she was the one in charge, thus she got angry easier than my father. Every family affair like weddings among our extended family was taken care of by my mother. She was a very responsible and capable woman. So in our family, my mother was the “man of the house”.

One time my mother said something that I felt wasn’t very right or kind, so I asked my father why he didn’t argue against my mom about it. He responded by saying, “If I fight back then this home wouldn’t be a home anymore.”

What were they like?

My father lived a very simple life. He would read the newspaper everyday and drink tea while he waited for customers.

My mother loved experiencing with cooking. Whenever she saw a new kind of recipe she would always try it out and make it for us to eat. Every afternoon she would make a new dessert. Every year she would also take my sisters and I to a market to get matching dresses made.

What was your mother and father’s parenting style?

My mother followed a more Japanese style of parenting which is more disciplined and strict. My mother was so strict that any time she glared at us we knew we had done something wrong. We always had to sit up straight and properly. Both hands had to be on the table during dinner. We also had to be silent during meals. Our clothes had to be orderly and clean. When we would do homework, she made sure that each word we wrote was legible or else she would erase it. My father didn’t really care about any of this, it was mostly my mother that was in charge.

I personally never got hit by my parents while my other siblings did. For punishment, I had to kneel on the wood floor with my hands up for a long time. However, we often had other friends and family members that would stay at our home at times. They would feel bad for me and would secretly hand me a pillow to kneel on and give me fruit to eat.

My father was always happy and smiley. The only time I saw him get angry was this one instance while he was counting the earnings for the day, I kept pestering him and pulling at his pants because I was bored. He got angry and threatened to use an abacus to hit me. Other than that, he never got angry.

What was your favorite thing(s) to do when you were a kid?

Sometimes I liked to imitate the Taiwanese opera by placing a towel around my arms like traditional Chinese opera clothing. I would dance and sing around the house with my dolls.

Since we lived across the street from a traditional market, my friends and I loved to play hide and seek in the market. Sometimes the neighbors and I on my side of the street would play war with the neighbors on the other side of street. We would use rubber bands to flick paper at our friends across the street.

My brother loved to play card games that involved some sort of gambling. I was always so impressed by how good he was at it. One time my mother got so angry at him for focusing more on gambling than his studies that she threw all of his cards into the ditch behind our house.

Almost all homes back in the day had ditches behind them. One time when I was really young, I fell into the ditch and they had to chase after me to save me as I got washed away by the water.

You grew up playing piano. What was that like?

My mother wanted to make sure that we had some sort of talent. Back in the day when you got married, a woman would always have to give dowry to her husband. For my mother, she’d rather give up her daughters not with money but rather with good morals, education, and talents. So she made sure that we learned piano. I hated it! We had to get up at five in the morning to practice for piano lessons at 6 am. I would always be so sleepy that I would play wrong notes all the time. Once we got older and got a better teacher, my sister and I would have to ride a bus for an hour and a half into the city to go to our lessons. Saturdays were when all of our friends would go out to play and have fun, so I was always jealous and bitter.

One time, my sister Tina and I, instead of going to our lesson we walked around the city and looked at the markets. After a week, our teacher called our mother asking if we had stopped taking lessons. We got in such big trouble.

However, I am really grateful for my mother for forcing me to learn piano. It’s a skill that I’m still able to use today.

What were some of your dreams as a teenager?

During that time of my life, my mother was applying for us to immigrate to the U.S. One of my biggest desires was to ride a horse in America. Every Western movie we watched involved cowboys and the Wild West. I really wanted to come to America to ride horses and learn English.

I didn’t really have any career aspirations at this time since I was super busy getting ready for college entry exams. Taiwanese education system is very different than the American system. We studied all day and all night like machines. Just as long as we could get to any college, no matter what kind, was a good thing.

Why did you choose to study nursing in college?

I decided to do nursing because my mother had been one, and I wanted to take care of people and help others. I also felt that being a doctor required too much reading and studying which I didn’t enjoy as much.

After college, I worked at a Christian hospital for about half a year as a nurse in the delivery room. I enjoyed working in the delivery room because it was happier work to bring life into this world. There were, however, some tragic situations that I witnessed like miscarriages.

What was it like joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints?

When I was in high school my first year I had applied and gotten into the best high school in Tainan county. I’m the type of person that doesn’t like to go with the flow or conform to what others want me to do. So after my first year there, the school required all students to cut your hair into a watermelon bowl cut. I thought it was super ugly and refused to do it. Instead, over the summer, I got a more stylish layered short hair cut. When school started, my hair was not in regulation with the school rules, so I was scared to go back. So I lied to my mom that I missed home because I had to live away from home to attend this high school. I asked if I could transfer back to the high school closer to home. She was overjoyed to have me back.

The high school I went back to was still a prestigious high school. My grade was divided into different groups depending on what we wanted to study in college. In my nursing/medical program, was a male student who was also in my speed reading tutoring class after school. During a tutoring session, he invited me to attend free English classes that were hosted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He wasn’t a member of the Church, but he still invited me a couple of times with me turning him down each time. One day, I finally gave in and went with a couple other classmates.

Every Wednesday after the English class, the Church would host a fireside for the nonmembers to interact with members of the Church. One time a member of the Church asked if we had any questions. My friends and I looked at her and were curious as to why she seemed so happy. We asked her this and she offered to introduce us to two people who were even happier. She set me up with the sister missionaries and I started taking lessons.

My parents were nervous about me taking lessons and told me that I better not get baptized. I had foolishly responded that I definitely would not. I was around 16 or 17 which was around the time I was supposed to get baptized at the Christian church that my family attended. During this time, I kept wondering what the point of baptism was. After one month of lessons with the missionary, I got baptized. Everything about this Church made more sense to me. Before, I had prayed without knowing exactly who I was praying to and would do it simply because I was scared of of going to hell. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I began to pray and feel the spirit of warmth and love and knew it was right.

I actually got baptized secretly without my parent’s knowing. When they found out, they brought in priests who brought anti-Mormon books to chastise me. Even though I was intimidated, I still attended church and was noticing how the members of the Church were completely different from what the anti books said they were like.

How did you decide to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints?

Right after I joined the church, I decided that I definitely wanted to serve a mission. Seeing how the missionaries had helped me, I wanted to do the same. Once I finished college and worked for a year, I was ready to go, but I didn’t really know how to prepare or start my papers for my mission. So one day I prayed to Heavenly Father that if He wanted me to prepare for my mission now, that He would please let someone come find me to help me start my mission preparations. Almost immediately, the bishop came to talk to me about starting my papers and discussing my difficulties for going on a mission. I was nervous that I couldn’t afford a mission; I had only saved about half the amount needed. The bishop said it was fine and that the Church would take care of the rest. I went on my mission when I was 22.

My parents were opposed to it. Because my parents supported me financially for college, my sisters chastised me for using the money I worked for to serve a mission instead of giving some to our parents. I responded that a mission was more important at the moment and that afterwards I would save money for our parents.

Also around this time, we were preparing to immigrate to America. My mother wanted me to finish applying for my American nursing license before my mission. I didn’t want to because by the time I was finished applying I would be too old for a mission, but I promised my mother that this is what God wants me to do, and that immediately after my mission I would apply for my nursing license.

Our family immigrated to the U.S. in the middle of my mission. I originally served in the Taichung, Taiwan mission but had to relocate to the Provo South, Utah mission.

After you married Dad, did you two always plan to move permanently to the U.S. and raise your children here?

In 1991, after I got married to my husband, we wanted to move to the U.S. My husband didn’t want to work for his mother anymore and wanted to come to the U.S. to go to school. We bought a house in California in 1992 and were planning on moving permanently. However, during that time, the U.S. economy wasn’t doing great and in 1994 there was a big earthquake in California. So every time we came to the U.S. it was just to have kids and then go back to Taiwan. It wasn’t until the year 2000 that we made the decision to permanently move.

The most difficult part about moving was the language and cultural barrier we faced. For my kids it was dealing with bullying at school because they couldn’t speak English well.

Why did you stop being a nurse?

Once I got married, I felt that it was important to be a mother. Raising kids was one of my most important responsibilities. I originally wanted six kids, but because of complications with pregnancies I was only able to have four. I wanted to invest my life and use what I learned as a nurse into being a good mother.

Did your parents parenting style influence your own?

It definitely has influenced me, but when it comes to schooling, I felt like my parents were way too strict with me so I decided to be less strict with my own children. However, I was strict when it came to moral values like my mother was.

One of the biggest things my mother has taught me was being generous and kind to those in need. When I was growing up, we always had struggling family members or friends staying over at our house often when they were in need. Thus when I was raising my own home, I also would offer hospitality to struggling members of the ward or family friends that needed a place to stay.

Interview of Laurie Anderson Cunningham by Anna Cunningham, December 2018

 

 

Q: Where and when were you born?

 

I was born in Des Moines, IA – May, 16 1962.

 

Q: How would you describe your relationships with your parents and brother?

 

There is a genuine caring and respect for my brother and parents. We are all rather private people, so in my childhood, heart to heart conversations were a rare occurrence. As a child I was rather emotionally independent, but since marrying and having my own family have become more closely connected with my mother. My relationship with my father has always been a bit tentative and at times uncomfortable. He is a good man, but not having daily contact with him due to the divorce certainly had a negative impact on our relationship. I was less secure in my relationship with him.

 

Q: What are some poignant memories from your childhood?

 

I had a great childhood. I had good friends and had a lot of freedom. Our bikes would take us anywhere we were willing to pedal to. I was an extremely sensitive child, so often I would internalize or try to suppress my emotions when faced with situations that were unpleasant or uncomfortable. I lacked confidence and didn’t like voicing my opinion. I loved horses and was able to attend a summer horse camp 3 years in a row. One year I actually took first place in the riding competition. My Dad exposed me to water sports, and downhill skiing, and encouraged me in my participation in sports, namely basketball and volleyball. I also was into drama in High School. All these things helped to build my confidence. I’m not sure if this answer is sufficient. Many of my “standout” memories from my childhood were somewhat negative so I didn’t figure you would want much of that.

 

Q: What was your experience with elementary school and high school?

 

I went to three schools: Elementary (1-6), Junior High (7-9), and High School (10-12). I was always a good student and can’t really remember ever getting in trouble in elementary school. Junior High was the most painful. I was very self conscious and lacked confidence. In High School I became more involved, found my group of friends and had some successes.

 

 

 

Q: Where did you attend college? Why did you pursue the degree that you did?

 

I attended GrandView College in Des Moines, IA 1980-1984. I received a BA with an emphasis in Graphic Design. I always liked to draw and received a small art scholarship to attend GrandView. I was content to live at home and save money so that’s what I did.

 

 

Q: Can you quickly describe your conversion story to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?

 

I had a Christian upbringing but I didn’t seem to apply the things I was taught on Sunday to my daily life. Going to church was just something you did and I didn’t really understand why. I don’t recall many positive experiences or feelings attached to my church attendance. We did not attend weekly.

Sometime during my High School years my father was introduced to the LDS faith and eventually was baptized. This had a significant impact on him which did not go unnoticed. He quit drinking and smoking and seemed to have a religious zeal about him. I however, wasn’t interested. But after attending church with him on occasion and seeing the positive affect in his life I saw the value of living a life with faith. For those who wanted it. A couple years later I became acquainted with some people who were very active in living their christian faith. I met them at a time in my life when I was starting to question who I was and what I stood for. I didn’t seem to fit in with many of my fellow art students at school, and welcomed the exposure to a group of young people that had a strong set of values. I soon found out however that they did not think much of Mormons and in fact expressed disdain and distrust for the Mormon faith. I felt it my duty to defend the Mormon faith and attempt to dispel their flawed perceptions of the church, so I began meeting with the missionaries. The more I learned the more I liked what I learned. I found answers to questions I had and upon being challenged to accept baptism, could not think of a valid reason why I should not commit to a life of faith. I was baptized by my father on July 31, 1983. I received a very strong witness through the Spirit that my Father in heaven was pleased with my decision to be baptized and that he knew me and loved me. Not surprisingly, my new friends did not accept my invitation to attend my baptism and did not have much of any contact with me after that.

 

Q: How did you feel when you got your mission call to South Korea?

 

Shocked, quite frankly. I had not known anyone who had ever been called to serve in Korea. I wasn’t even sure where it was. All that came to mind was the Korean War. But I proceeded to prepare for my departure date which was in February of 1985. I couldn’t really imagine myself learning to read and speak the Korean language, but I had faith that it would all work out.

 

Q: What was your experience being a white American in South Korea at the time?

 

I was a tall, blonde white American. I really stood out and I have a personality that likes to blend in. So I had my challenges. But overall I was treated very well in Korea and found the Korean people to be a very gracious and hard working people. It became my home and I loved it there.

 

Q: How did you and Dad meet? What was your story between meeting and getting married?

 

I was about 6 months in Korea when I received a transfer to your father’s district. My companion at the time had served with Elder Cunningham previously and spoke very highly of him. Quote, “You’ll just love Elder Cunningham. He’s a humble and hardworking elder.” After getting to know him I came to the same conclusion. We served together in the same district for 6 months. He was easy to work with and I always felt as if I had always known him. There was something very comfortable about him. Anyway, after six months I was transferred to a new mission and would not have the opportunity to see any of my old mission friends. This saddened me a bit but I felt it might be for the best because I was becoming a little too fond of Elder Cunningham. Fast forward to the day I left Korea to go home. Your father was at the airport dropping off some missionaries from the Seoul West Mission so I had the chance to see him one last time before I left. I was about to board the plane so I reached out to shake your dad’s hand and told him I would see him in the states. I knew he lived in CA and I was returning to Colorado, but I had a very strong impression that I would see him again. In fact, there were a number of uncanny events that would bring us together several more times in the coming months. He returned to the States three months after me and after obtaining my phone number, decided to give me a call. I was super excited to hear from him and we must have talked for almost an hour. After hanging up I realized my cheeks were tired because I had been grinning from ear to ear the whole time we were talking. I decided that maybe there was hope for a potential relationship with him so we kept in touch via phone calls and snail mail for the next 8 months. Almost a year after returning from my mission I decided to fly to CA to visit Bob. It was the July 4th weekend and we had a great time. Up until that time I had been dating other people as well. But after the July visit decided to only date Bob. I felt there was a future there. He moved to Utah to attend BYU about 2 months later and we were engaged by the end of October.

 

Q: How did you feel when you discovered you were pregnant for the first time?

 

I was scared to death! And I mean that. Some things I don’t think you’re ever ready for, and that was one of them. But I knew God was with me and would not abandon me in my time of need. I prayed a lot, read books and did all I could to prepare for the life changing events that were coming our way.

 

Q: What were your fears about motherhood? What were you looking forward to?

 

I had NO experience taking care of babies. I worried that the baby would cry and that I wouldn’t be able to make him stop. I was very naive which probably worked in my favor. It was an act of faith, that If I did my best and tried to follow God’s plan for me, things would work out. What I most looked forward to was just having a family to spend time with. It didn’t matter what we were doing: eating, playing, cleaning, driving, whatever. I didn’t grow up with a mom and dad living in the same home and I wanted the kind of family that Heavenly Father intended us to have. And I certainly feel that I have been granted and blessed with that opportunity.

 

Q: What was the thought process behind you staying at home to raise your children?

 

Your dad and I took our roles as parents very seriously. It is our responsibility to love, protect, nurture, and teach our children. Too important of an assignment for a daycare provider. Your dad and I felt the same way and that was very important to me. There were times when we were financially very strapped, but your dad always carried the burden of providing financially for the family. He did not want me to leave our little ones in the care of another. Now once you kids were all in school it was OK for me to work as long as I could be home when you kids were home.

Q: What were the biggest challenges of motherhood (especially with young children)?

 

At the time I felt the biggest challenges were keeping the house clean and getting enough sleep. But looking back I see things a little differently. There were times when I felt I lost my sense of self. When we moved to California I was known as Bobby’s wife, and then I became Andrew’s mom and so on and so forth. When you are consumed in raising a family it is easy to put your own interests aside in trying to meet the needs of so many others. You really have to work to carve away the time to nourish yourself by taking care of physical, spiritual and emotional needs. I could have done better at that.

 

Q: What were the biggest blessings of motherhood (especially with young children)?

 

This is a good question and one that is hard to answer. The blessings come in subtle sacred moments when your little one smiles at you with that pure sweet smile that seems to start at their toes and crescendos up their face and explodes through their eyes. The blessings come when you see your little one help their little sister or brother climb into their carseat. To see another human being grow and develop, face challenges, have successes, find joy, make friends love life, and know that you had something to do with that, is an amazing blessing. This question kind of leaves me speechless. It brings a swelling of raw emotion in my bosom that leaves me feeling all warm inside. Thanks for asking me that question.

 

Q: Did you ever wish that you could take a break from being a mother to hold a traditional job?

 

No, not really. Being a parent is not easy. There were times when I wanted to hit the pause button on life just so I could take a breath. There were times that I wanted a vacation. But I honestly don’t remember ever wanting to set aside my full time Mommy job to hold a “traditional” job. Being a Mom seems to me to be about as traditional as you can be.

 

Q: Was it hard to transition from being a stay at home mom to working again?

 

It was hard to manage my time efficiently. I still struggle with that. It was hard to realize that I couldn’t do it all. I knew I was not superwoman. I could not work outside the home, and keep the house functioning in the same fashion that I was accustomed to. Once I started working I baked fewer cookies, rarely made homemade bread, and played fewer games with the kids. We had more money which alleviated some of the stress, but seemed to have less time. It’s a trade off. I have only held a part time job since having kids and that was my attempt at keeping a balance between Mom responsibilities and work responsibilities.

 

 

 

Maddie Glenn interviews her grandma, Sue Glenn

 

• When were you born, and where?

 

I was born in Santa Clara County, the city of palo alto in Cali. Aug. 14th, 1948.

 

• Did you grow up there or did you move around?

 

I moved around quite a bit, but it was in a fairly small geographical area. When I was about a year old, my dad got his first job in a town called Nevada City in Northern California. It was about 2 hours from where I was born, 2, maybe 3 hours. And then we returned to the Bay Area, the area where I was born and stayed there until I was a sophomore in College.

 

• What was your growing up experience like?

 

I was born into a religious family. We were regular church attenders and had prayers and read scriptures. We were middle class. My parents didn’t put a lot of stock in “things”. And so we didn’t have a lot of experiences, we didn’t do a lot of travel, we didn’t have many vacations, but we did a lot of reading, and a lot of family games and we did a lot of outdoor activities — golf and tennis — things like that. We lived in kind of a semi-rural area for the bay area at the time. It was a suburb of San Francisco, but it was kind of countrified, so we had a lot of room to be able to be outside playing. We grew up in an area where we said goodbye to mom after breakfast, and she’d call us in at dinner time, but between those 8 hours or so, we were on our own. It was fun. I grew up with 2 brothers and a sister, but we were not real close in age. My older brother and I were 2 and a half years apart, then my second brother was 5 years younger than I was. And then 13 years after I was born, I had a sister.

 

• Was that planning on your parents part, or did it just happen that way?

 

No, my mom had endometriosis, and it caused some problems with fertility. I think she only had one miscarriage that I was aware of, but I think that my sister was not planned. My mom was 40, almost 41. But my parents were very happy because they hadn’t been able to have more, and my sister was a real blessing to our family

 

• So did the age gap make it difficult to have close relationships with your siblings?

 

Yeah, I think the 3 of us, the three oldest were close. Nancy (my sister) spent a lot of time by herself without siblings in the house. I left for college when she was 5 years old. After my sophomore year in college, I didn’t come home, I went to sun valley idaho to sing at the lodge there, and so I didn’t see my family at all that summer. And then I had one summer home, and then the summer after my senior year, I got married. And so Nancy would come and stay with us for a few summers. But I don’t think we really got to know each other until we were adults.

 

• So when you when you went to college, how did you decide which college to go to, and what to major in?

 

My parents were Utah State Aggie alumni, and there was a strong push for me to go to Utah State. And so without question, that’s where I went to school. And then my younger brother and sister both went there as well. My older brother went to Stanford on an ROTC and golf scholarship. I was interested in what my dad did. He was in journalism for a number of years. When he was younger, he was a newspaper reporter. And so I would go to the newsroom with him sometimes, especially when he had to work long hours. Sometimes he’d have us come down and we could sit at the desks in the swivel chairs. It was a busy active place and I thought that would be fun. So I majored in journalism, but partway through my education, I switched schools because my parents moved to Southern California from Northern California. So I left Utah State and enrolled in The University of California: Santa Barbara, which was closer to where they lived. They didn’t have a journalism department, so I majored in political science, and then went right into a job working for a local newspaper while grandpa went to graduate school

 

• Did you notice a difference in gender representation in your major? Did you ever feel uncomfortable as a woman in a male dominated field or anything like that?

 

No, it probably was male dominated, but one of the first things I was able to do, I was able to hire my best friend from college to work in the newsroom with me. She was an excellent writer, so she didn’t go out and interview and do those kinds of stories, but she would do the copy editing and do a dummy. So she would type up the articles, and then she would paste them up, and then they would be photo copied. So it was probably a very antiquated way to put together a paper, but that’s how it was done back then. So she did all the copy editing, for which she was very good. Our editor was a man but he very much appreciated what we did because we worked really, really hard. And I think he was very respectful of us. We had a couple of guys in the back who were printers. They were a little bit on the rough side, but they were very friendly towards us, and we towards them. It didn’t seem like a lot of difference between the blue collared workers and the white collared workers in the newsroom. I think we got along pretty well. It was a small newspaper. I think there were only about 8 of us total.

 

• So once you started a family, how did you balance your work life and your family life?

 

You know, my role model for that was my mom. My mother had a college degree, but when she started having children, she stayed at home with the children. So I didn’t have the concept of working and being a mom at the same time. And as I thought about it I just thought it would be really hard for me. But I always had some sort of a partime job that I did from home. When my oldest was about 3 years old I saw a little flyer on the grocery store bulletin board. A fellow was looking for someone that would do some secretarial work for him. He was a civil engineer, who had helped build the Hoover Dam and he wanted to write his history and he had also done some etchings of the dam and the landscape around the dam and he wanted to make copies and sell them. And so I contacted him, and the fact that I had a college degree and that I had experience with a paper interested him, and so he hired me, and I just did that part time. Probably 10-15 hours a week. But it was something that made me feel good about using my experience and education. So he was kind of a mean, crotchety old guy, but I put up with that because I liked the work. So I would write letters for him and send out things that had been orders and I did it all from home.

When we moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico, we had an atrium in the middle of the house, and I sold plants. It was back in the day when you wouldn’t have a little nursery section in the back of a grocery store, it was a little bit harder to get plants. And there was a nursery in Albuquerque, and when grandpa would take the plane down — we had a small private plane — I would take the car that we had in Albuquerque, and I would go to the green houses and fill up the car with plants, bring it back and load our plane full of plants, and then I’d take them to our greenhouse and I’d sell them. I’d just send out a little flyer to people I knew, or put it at the school and it was really fun. So again just something to do, it was fun to have something to call my own

 

• Once your kids were out of the house, did you ever think about going back to journalism?

 

You know, through the years, I had done things like club fliers, I did the newsletter for the ward, for several wards, so I kind of kept my hands in that, you know, doing little interviews and things like that. When the kids were in school, I started teaching school. Grandpa lost his job when our oldest was in high school and I took a basic skills test for teachers in California, and that enabled me to substitute teach. And right away, because I knew a lot of the high school teachers, I started subbing long term sub jobs. But it was flexible enough that I could pick and choose what I did. So it worked out really well. Grandpa was out of work for about 6 months, so I was able to make us some basic money to get us through. And then after he found work again, I enjoyed it so much that I continued to substitute 2-3 days a week, depending on what was going on with family. We had a large family, it didn’t feel like I had the personal fortitude, energy, organizational skills, to have both a full-time career and a family, the way I wanted to be involved with my family. I did spend 11 years on a school board and that was a really big job. I would spend sometimes up to 20 hours a week on the school board. Reading up on issues, state laws, stuff like that. No pay. We went to 1 or 2 conferences a year usually in San Francisco which was really fun, and again, that gave me something to concentrate on that kind of helped me to stay in a professional loop a little bit.

 

• What was your experience being a mother and creating your home?

 

I loved it. I really loved it. I found that I was pretty good at multitasking in that way, and a lot of the skills that I had not picked up as a young person… you know cooking, sewing… I enjoyed decorating and landscaping, I picked up those kind of skills and really enjoyed doing them. I enjoyed real estate and grandpa always said I should have been a real estate agent. So we would fix up our houses and then sell them. I enjoyed being a mom. I enjoyed having the time to spend with the kids, reading with them and helping them with their school projects. That was always really a highlight for both me and grandpa, to take time to help the kids with whatever they were doing. I worked with them with scouting and whatever the girls were doing.

 

• Were there things in your family that you intentionally made different from your family growing up?

 

I had really good parents growing up. They were really conscientious. I think that I didn’t have a really close relationship with my mother. She was a bit of a perfectionist and it made me a little bit nervous. I always felt like I maybe underachieved in her eyes. But my dad was just the opposite. I could do no wrong. If I wanted to shoot for the moon, he was there to help me. When I ran for the school board he would call on a regular basis, “have you thought about this?” “have you thought about putting up posters here?” so when I got elected he said “I know this is just your first step with politics, but I think you might want to consider where this could take you.” When I told him we were moving and he said, “Oh! I had great plans for you!” He was that way with my mother too. There wasn’t anything my mom couldn’t do. And she was very capable. But he didn’t ever feel like we had limitations, and I think that was a good household to be in for a woman in that generation. So I really felt like I could accomplish just about anything I wanted to. Culturally I think we were expected to be at home and to make home our priority, and I’m glad I did. That feels good to me now as I look back on it. And I found outlets for myself. In this generation I’m not sure what I would have done. If I would have tried to have a full time career, or had as quite big of a family as we did.

 

• How do you think that a woman’s strength is different from a man’s strength?

 

I do think that there are strong differences between men and women. I’m not nearly as strong physically as the men in my family. In some ways that might limit me in what I chose to do. In our family I think…. We have between grandpa and I very distinct roles, and I’m not sure that happens in families any more, but coming out of a marriage in the 70s, i think that was very common. My strength was probably in working with the kids, and grandpa’s strength was probably in maintaining a household physically. He could earn much more than I could. His first paycheck coming out of his master;s program was about 4 or 5 times more than my first paycheck coming out of college, so he was the one that we needed to encourage to work. So he had a professional strength. To some degree that was just the major that he chose (rocket science). Journalism is a notoriously low paying field. He was a moral leader and a model in our home, though I was the one that would suggest that we pray and have family home evening. So a lot of those things I think I pushed more for than him.

 

 

Maddie Glenn interviews Stepmom Alison Ahern Glenn

 

• Where were you born and when?

 

So I was born in Paradise, California in 1975.

 

• What was your life like growing up there?

 

We didn’t live there for very long, we moved 6 times, all before I turned 7. So we moved around a lot, but I felt like I had a pretty happy and carefree childhood.

 

• Where do you fit in your family?

 

I’m the second oldest of 5, 3 boys and 2 girls.

 

• Was there responsibility for you as one of the older kids?

 

There was. That wasn’t really on my radar until I was about 7 or 8, but then I started to pick up more responsibility, helping out younger siblings and helping out around the house.

 

What was high school like for you?

 

I really liked high school. It was not a time of much angst for me. I enjoyed school. I had good friends and it was a good sweet spot for me. Not like I look back like they were the glory days, but I really liked it.

 

• You went to byu. How did you decide to go to BYU and how did you decide what to study?

 

I don’t ever remember deciding, and looking back I wish that I would have weighed that out more. I wish that I would have looked at other schools and try to find the right fit for me. So I think I just kind of thought, “BYU is just where you go if you’re LDS and you’re academic.” My brother went there and both my parents went there. And then I decided on psychology because I had taken an AP Psychology class my senior year of high school and really enjoyed it. Before then, I wanted to stay away from that, because that was what my dad did, but when I took that course I felt like it really natural fit for me.

 

• What was it about psych that made you want to pursue that?

 

I think I’m just fascinated by people, by behavior, by relationships, and so for me it was just incredibly interesting. I was raised to be really analytical, so I loved diving into that kind of research and studying about something I was already really interested about.

 

• And then you got married?

 

Yeah I got married really young. I got married at 19. So I met my ex husband 2 months into my freshman year. I was just dating to see what felt comfortable and just having fun and I was really surprised how quickly I connected with somebody, and then started into a relationship. The whole time I was thinking, “this is too soon, I’m too young, I’m not ready for this,” but I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t know what my other options were. I thought, “we could break up?” but I didn’t want to do that. Or I thought we could get married. So I didn’t really want to get married, but I didn’t really feel like I had another option, which seems silly now, but in my 19 year old mind that’s kind of what I came up with. We dated seriously for 6 months before he proposed, and then we were married 5 months later. Very quick.

 

• And then did you wait to finish school before you started having kids?

 

Not on purpose, but I’m really glad it worked out that way. I did try, and I was pregnant and miscarried during school. It was really tragic and sad for me at the time, but I think overall it was a good thing. So I finished school before I had kids.

 

• Were you planning on going on to get a masters degree, or just to work?

 

So the sad thing is, I wanted to, but in my mind, I kind of thought I couldn’t be a mom and pursue a career. So after I miscarried, I tried to get pregnant for over a year, and when nothing was happening I thought, Ok I’ll go to graduate school. And I wish that that hadn’t been my approach and philosophy. I wish I would have realized that that was available to me instead of feeling like… like I would tell people that’s what I wanted, but on the inside I knew that’s not how things were going to go down. So right as I was applying to graduate school, that’s when I found out I was pregnant. And I was excited and overjoyed and it was great.

 

• Did you ever think about starting grad school and starting a family?

 

I did not. I think it maybe has something to do with how I mothered and my approach. I think I was really not very good at multitasking. At that point we had started a music school, so everything we had went to our son and the music school, getting that ready. And I just felt like, from there it was my job to support my husband and the business, and I did work in the business for a couple of years full time, and then 15-16 years part time.

 

• So how did you balance your work life home life?

 

I felt a lot of guilt any time I did something away from the kids. Even just to go out on a date, I had a hard time being away from them. For many years I worked so hard at being a mom and supporting my husband and the music school that there was nothing left of me really. I didn’t feel like there was, I just kind of disappeared. And it was around 2011 that I decided that was not serving anyone, so then I figured out a little bit better how to balance things. And find interests that I had, getting back in touch with who I was and treat myself differently.

 

• What were those things you did to focus more on yourself and your interests?

 

It helped that my kids were a little bit older, because when I was home with little kids, there just was not a spare minute, night or day. It’s physically exhausting. So when they got older, I had more of an opportunity to go out and do things. I joined a book club and I started re engaging with some of my interests musically, and I lost a lot of weight. I started eating better and exercising. I started to recognize myself physically again. I developed different hobbies here and there and I just allowed myself to kind of have some self care time and engage in that.

 

• How has your relationship with the church changed over the years?

 

So when I got married, for some reason I just had these ideas in my mind about what that meant. That all of a sudden I needed to be like this perfect adult and wife and mother, and that I needed to act a part, and that really bled over into my relationship with the church. I wasn’t pretending, I was just trying really hard. I was trying to do everything right. And I was trying to silence a lot of doubts that I had, because I thought, well, the time for that is past, it’s over. That’s when I was a single college student, or teenager, but that’s not okay now. And so I think I was afraid too. I didn’t want to address doubts because I thought, “well what does that mean?” It meant a lot of really hard choices. And so I really just sort of tried to squash that. But then that was part of losing myself because even though I wasn’t trying to pretend, I really was. I wasn’t being a very authentic version of myself. I started to loosen up over time, it was sort of gradual, When I turned 40, you know, stereotypical midlife crisis, but it didn’t feel that way to me. I thought, “my life is half over, for the most part, maybe I’ll have less time, maybe I’ll have more, but I’ve got 40 years in and I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to pretend anymore.” So I did the scariest thing. I allowed myself to ask the questions, and I allowed myself to pretty much attend church as an investigator for about a year. I asked to be released from my calling, and I just listened, and allowed myself to be honest, and be true to what I felt. And that led to my eventual decision to leave the church and that caused a lot of pain both for me and for my family, but I felt like it was the right choice for me.