The Tiger Mother: race, success and lessons on the wrong thing

The Tiger Mother is at it again. She's getting folks all riled up by saying that the parenting style of some groups (such as Chinese, Indians and Mormons) primes their kids for success more than others.  Personally, I can't offer any opinion on parenting, since we've not chosen to go the kid route. My only parenting advice is that liver treats work well for convincing Grace to not attack the neighbor dog. People are getting all flustered about the racial implications of what she's saying - but I keep coming back to one thing:

What the hell does "success" mean?

Tiger mom says it's clear - income, occupational status and test scores. That kind of makes sense. It's a nice, clean, empirical way of measuring something.

• Higher income = more success
• Higher status = more success
• Higher test scores = more success

That seems to be a widely accepted definition in our society. But I'm not sure I like it. By those measurable accounts, I was much more successful when I was 15 than I am at 35. Twenty years ago, I had:

• Higher income - I got paid more.
• Higher status - I was more "famous" (whatever that creepy word means).
• Higher test scores - I rarely went to school, but the movie marketing people told me that I "tested well" with screening audiences, which resulted in more work.

But what about...oh, I don't know...happiness? Where does that rank? What about passion? Purpose? Authenticity? How do you measure that stuff and roll it up into success? In our culture it's pretty simple: you don't. You toss them to the side because you can't buy yourself a boat with purpose.

I have so much more joy and passion now than I did when I was an actor, but those intangibles don't seem to carry as much weight in some circles.

I recently made a list of the things that equal a successful life for myself. It mostly had to do with my family and friends, contributing to the greater good and taking care of my mind, body and spirit. None of them had to do with being on the cover of People Magazine.

But it took me a while to develop this way of thinking. When I left my acting career, I was scared of what people would think. Would I get thrown in a pile of useless "has beens"? Was I, at 22, washed up and destined to never do anything as good ever again?

I went through a phase where I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. I even visited a law school to sit in on classes and went to their campus store and looked longingly at the sweatshirts. At least if I was a lawyer, I'd have a fancy degree I could wave around. Something that proved to other people that I was still worth something.

It finally dawned on me that I didn't want to be a lawyer (no offense to the lawyers out there...especially my dad). I was just trying to feel like I had a justified place in the world and people would think that I was still successful. But what I really wanted was to be a writer. That less prestigious, less financially rewarding occupation was what made my heart flutter.

Ambition is wonderful. But I was being ambitious about the wrong things.  What I really wanted was a life that really fed my soul - not just my bank account and other people's opinions of me.

Being successful now means that my life has meaning. Being "known" never made me feel successful. Doing interviews didn't do that. Getting invited to fancy parties didn't do that.

What does make me feel successful is volunteering to clean litter boxes and write thank you notes at the animal shelter. Or getting an email from someone who was touched by something I wrote on this blog - which I offer for free and get paid absolutely nothing. Or making my husband laugh.

So, what if we thought about success differently? What if we thought about:

• passion instead of income?
• authenticity instead of status?
• happiness instead of test scores?

I'm not sure that the Tiger mom would understand, but you couldn't pay me a million dollars to go back to being "successful." I'll take my poorly-paying, lower-status profession that makes me deliriously happy. And besides, I don't think lawyers are allowed to wear sweatpants to work.

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Money. Part 2.

Much to my surprise, people I've never met have opinions about me. Some are good, some are not so good, and I do my best to take both the positive and the negative with a grain of salt. But some comments I simply find fascinating. I am curious about the larger context and why the commenter might hold that belief. Someone referred to me as "privileged" recently.

I am privileged - I've had wonderful opportunities, I have a good support system and my health.

But judging by the rest of her comment, that's not how she meant it. She meant - She is Rich So She Can't Possibly Relate to My Regular Person Life.

I was kind of shocked by this. It's yet another indication of how much the whole Hollywood facade has fleeced the rest of the world.

Movie stars are rich. They pull in a millions per film and are booked on shoots back-to-back.

I was not a movie star.

I was a working actor.

Big difference.

I guess the assumption is that all actors cruise around in their Porsches without a care in the world. I drove my beloved Toyota for more than a decade and never knew when I was going to work again. For the vast majority of my acting career, I earned less per year than a telemarketer.

I never did it for the money, but I was grateful for it, because there is a significant investment involved in getting a job. Just like in any small business, you have to spend money to make money. There were flights from my home in Canada to Los Angeles and the bills associated with living at the Burbank Holiday Inn with my mother for three months so that I could audition for projects.

There were the rare times when I worked on a big film and for that year I got a financial upgrade. But even then, my dentist still out-earned me. And unlike normal jobs, where you can assume that your pay will be fairly steady, the year after a blockbuster, my income took a sharp downward turn. And if you think the residuals should be making up for that, read this. My residual income these days is below the poverty line, which makes me very grateful that my husband and I have other sources of income.

I'm not complaining, I was thankful that I had a job that paid me at all and it was a job that I enjoyed, for the most part. I have never worried if I could afford my next meal, and that is a significant luxury in this world.

But I think this is yet another way that the tabloid culture of celebrity separates people. It makes non-actors think that all actors must be on a different playing field, where there are no concerns about when the next paycheck is coming or how the mortgage is going to get paid. Yeah, that's not really a worry for Angelina Jolie, but most actors are not Angelina Jolie. They are working people. There are thousands of actors out there, many of whom you would recognize, who are just scraping by.

I didn't come from a family with money. We did fine, but to use the word "privileged" to describe us would be absurd. I was privileged in that I got a jump on a retirement fund and I had a passport full of international stamps. I suppose I was privileged in that I was invited to fancy parties (that gave me panic attacks) and sometimes got recognized on the street (which also gave me panic attacks.)

But this idea that my income has ever drowned out my ability to relate to "regular people?"

That's about as laughable as the cover of the National Enquirer.

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The last audition

When I left L.A. and moved to Virginia, I used breakup terms to explain my exit from the film industry. Figure out what I really want.

Find myself.

Get my head together.

It's a break, not a breakup. (Just FYI: it's always a breakup.)

My agent seemed to take it just about as poorly as my ex-boyfriends did.

I wasn't brave enough to make a totally clean break and leap head-first into the unknown Real World. If a script looked really fantastic... if the producers were really interested in me…you know…maybe….

I shoved a tiny wedge in the door and left it open, just a crack. It felt safer that way. Slamming that door shut tight would have left me all alone in the dark.

My agent slithered through that crack. A film was casting and the producers had requested to see me for a role. The project sounded interesting but if I agreed to this, was it just a matter of time before it seemed like a good idea to fly back to L.A. to audition for a guest spot on Everybody Loves Raymond? I really felt like I needed to get out of the film world, but I waffled, scared to leave behind the only moneymaking ability I had. My agent felt her 10% commission slipping away again.

“But, it’s Martin Scorsese!” She squealed.

Well, okay. This was a big deal. He was a big deal. (And still is a big deal.)

I agreed to audition and promptly started freaking out about the idea of going back to work. There was no offer yet, but it suddenly seemed that life needed to change. I needed to lose 4 pounds, get some color on my legs and not dye my hair “Mahogany 51” from a six-dollar bottle from the Rite-Aid. There were so many things to be done and they all sounded horrible.

But sometimes it’s hard to tell if a pounding heart indicates excitement or terror.

When an actor cannot get to the city where the audition sessions are being held, they can do an audition tape where they record themselves reading the lines at home and send it to the producers. They inevitably look like the most horrid home movies.

My boyfriend, Jeremy, was cautiously supportive of this audition. If he had been too supportive he would have been accused of thinking that me leaving L.A. was a mistake. Not supportive enough, and I would have said that he never truly loved or respected me. The poor guy was pretty much relegated to smiling and nodding.

My audition tape set up involved a bed-sheet duct taped to hang over a closet door, providing a neutral background. It always looked exactly like a duct-taped sheet. A complicated system of IKEA floor lamps and vertical blind manipulation created a lighting situation that made me look about 57 years old.

My dogs, having just moved across the country and into my boyfriend's flimsy, bare, grad-student apartment, were feeling a little needy and would bark and whine whenever they felt excluded. So, for the sake of the sound, one dog remained seated on my lap with the other curled up at my feet. We framed the shot close enough that the animals were cut out.

Finally we began. I had a lengthy speech before Jeremy had his first line. He said it and it was loud.

And it was British.

For some reason, he was using his from-the-diaphragm theater-training voice, although the microphone was mere inches from his face. He also had some sort of odd, Cockney accent. This character is not British. Jeremy is not British. There is absolutely no reason for this behavior. Ah! He is trying to make me laugh so I am more comfortable. He is probably not even filming.

“Stop, stop, stop.” I laughed and waved my hands in front of my face. Jeremy turned the camera off. Damn, he was filming.

“You were doing great. What’s wrong?” He asked.

“Yeah, I was fine, but what were you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Were you trying to be funny?”

“Did I say it funny?”

I explained to Jeremy that the mic is right near him and maybe he should be quieter so that our sound levels match. I assumed he knew the accent needed to go.

We started again, and again he was loud and even more heavily accented. I tried to get through the scene with the ridiculousness of the emotionally unsettled dog on my lap and the loud British man reading with me. It wasn't good. I wasn't good.

It was all just uncomfortable. I felt like a grown-up woman trying fit into the jeans she wore in middle-school. I was half-heartedly trying to recreate a moment whose time had past. 

When we finished, we watched the video back to see exactly how much of a train wreck the thing was.

“Wow,” Jeremy says  “I was really loud. And do I have some sort of accent? Oh, you did great, though.”

I did not get the job. I tried to imagine Mr. Scorsese watching this thing, squinting in confusion at the drooping sheet background, the dog ears that occasionally popped in to view and my loud friend from the British Isles. I could blame it on any of those things, but whatever the reason, there was no offer.

And that's how it goes. You usually don’t know the reason you don’t get a job. When it was released, we went to see The Aviator in theaters. Gwen Stefani played the role I read for.

It was at that moment, in the darkened theater, that I realized I didn't want to be Gwen Stefani. I wasn't longing to be up there, taking direction from even the great Martin Scorsese. I wanted to be right where I was. Living in a flimsy grad-student apartment, with a couple of neurotic dogs and a boyfriend who inexplicably broke into foreign accents. That was where I was truly happy. I didn't want the complication of trying to impress Hollywood with duct taped sheets and IKEA floor lamps. I wanted to have pasty legs and hair the color of Mahogany 51.

I had no clue what was next in my life, what might happen after those credits rolled, but I knew I was done with acting. I had done it already. It was that simple.

So, that was the last project I auditioned for.

That audition had been the breakup sex. It was the one more time that you go back and give the relationship that last chance...only to find it was as awkward and unfulfilling as you remembered. But we all need that one last fling, that experience that lets you finally walk away with a few good stories, but absolutely no remorse.

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Learning how to run

When I was 18, I was living in Los Angles, doing that thing that actors do - wait around for other people to tell them they are wonderful.  A friend of mine had just gotten that stamp of approval and was joining a hugely popular television show as a regular cast member. On her first day of work, she pulled up to the studio lot in her cute little Volkswagen Rabbit. One of the stars of the show saw her parking and said to her,

“Oh, honey, you're on a big TV series now. Get yourself a nice car.”

My friend felt flustered and embarrassed. She needed to fit in with her new co-workers. After they wrapped for the day, she picked me up and we went to the BMW dealership.

It didn’t take her long to pick the car that was suitable for her new job and new life. The pretty white convertible was sitting in the showroom, looking for all the world like the car a newly minted television star should be driving. It was sparkly and it smelled like leather and triumph. We collected the old scripts and discarded caramel macchiatos from the backseat of her Rabbit and she wrote a check. We sped off in the little white Beemer to test out the handling on the hills of the Laurel Canyon.

Being impulsive and a little extravagant was common in that world. I was never able to embody that fun breeziness with money -  yet another way that I failed at the whole Young Actor thing. I didn't come from money and was always unnerved by the large amounts of cash that would come and go in my industry.

But in truth, this confidently reckless behavior was kind of awe-inspiring. Personally, I was always convinced that Hollywood was done with me and I would never work again, so whatever was in the bank account had to last me until my actor’s union pension kicked in. I wasn't gutsy enough to be impulsive...except for this one time.

I had a call-back audition in Beverly Hills and stopped by the mall to get lunch at the Panda Express beforehand. At the Beverly Center, they had a very fancy pet store. (As a side note - I'm not advocating pet stores, it's all about the rescue dogs for me now.)

As I browsed, I locked eyes with this little dog. She was tiny, gray and shiny like a wet seal pup. She was an Italian Greyhound, which I had never heard of, but they are the dogs you always see at the heels of the Egyptian pharaohs in paintings. They are light, delicate little wisps of a dog who think that they can take down a Great Dane and they probably could, out of sheer determination. I needed her. She needed me. I held her in my palm and slapped down my credit card.

I called my agent and told her I was sick and couldn’t make the call-back. She said they would try to reschedule and I said something like “Whatever” as I signed the paperwork and they tried to cram my little ball of gray love into a cardboard box with holes punched in the side.

I hadn't really paid attention to how much she cost, I'm sure it was printed somewhere but I was too busy falling in love to really comprehend. How much could a dog be? $50? As they handed me her pure-bred lineage chart, which included names like "Chipwil’s Little Drummer Boy" and "Sandcastle Ginger D’Laviere,"  I started to wonder what I had just done.

A glance at the credit card slip stapled to her vaccination form confirmed that I had just bought a $1,800 dog.

At a mall.

In Beverly Hills.

My momentary freak out was followed by overwhelming joy. It seemed a small price for unconditional love. Support. Friendship.

In homage to her historic roots, I named the pup Cleopatra, as in Queen of the Nile. She was a balls-to-the-wall firecracker in a leggy, 11-pound package. Macho dudes who hated little dogs thought she was cool. She seemed to own every tiny little step and made no apologies for herself.

Cleo could run like the wind but very rarely cared to do so. Michael Richards (who played Kramer on Seinfeld) once approached us at a café and asked to see her run. Cleo refused, stood stock-still and glared at him until he awkwardly apologized and went away. It didn’t even matter to her that Seinfeld was at the height of popularity; she didn't feel like running. Fuck him.

I envied Cleo's self-assuredness. I was the passive one of the pack, the one who so desperately wanted to be liked. I would tuck my tail and roll over for anyone. But Cleo was someone, regardless of her size, who didn't care what others thought and she knew she had something to offer, simply because she existed. Her sense of self-worth was profound.

I had paid $1,800 and I had found my idol.

Cleo passed away 3 years ago and I still miss her terribly. She remains my example of what it looks like to be brave in the world. When I'm doubting myself and feel it's safer to just let the Alphas tell me how to live and what kind of car I should drive -  I try to embody my little greyhound, informing Michael Richards that she had no intention of running for him, or anybody else.

We run on our own terms.

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Money: how film residuals work

It's surprising to me that people actually ask me how much money I make. I guess they have heard about "residuals" and are just curious to know how that works, but it seems like a ridiculous thing to ask. I feel like they should follow-up by asking for my weight and the date of my last period.

But people wonder about these things so I need to come up with some sort of answer.

I heard that somebody who had worked on Jurassic Park went to their mailbox one day to find a check for $100,000. I'm not sure if that is really true, or just one of those urban legends that was intended to increase morale amongst us working actors in a sometimes brutal industry.

Just to be clear, I have never stumbled across such a residual check.

Here's how it works - when my movies or TV shows are rented or shown on television, I get a fraction of a penny. Those pennies get bundled together and the checks arrive randomly, sometimes a couple of them show up one week, other times there is nothing for months.

The amount has diminished over time, these days, the average check is about $4.71. Occasionally they are more and my husband and I get to have a nice dinner out. But then there are times when the check wouldn't cover the price of the stamp and it can be a little embarrassing to take a 23 cent check to the bank.

Foreign residuals are always fun; it's neat to get a check for $17 because one of my disease-of-the-week TV movies was on cable in Denmark.

It's nothing life-altering and it's certainly nothing that you can depend on. At some point, the term "residual" started to be reminiscent something that gets stuck to the bottom of your shoe rather than a legitimate source of income.

But regardless of the amount, it's appreciated, because what kind of asshole doesn't appreciate random money showing up for something that they did 20 years ago?

Even if it is less than they would get from babysitting.

Check back next week when I will be posting about my weight and the date of my last period.

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