Interview

GO: You’re making a movie now with William H. Macy?

MJ: Yeah. Bill Macy is going to be directing his first feature film this year.

GO: Have you worked with him before?

MJ: I haven’t, but we met through this project and we became friends. He’s one of my favorite actors in the world, so I was very honored when he called me. I hope he doesn’t have as many problems as so many people are having right now with getting movies off the ground. But he’s very passionate about it. We went out to lunch a couple of weeks ago and, now that I’m a mom, it opens up this whole new world with people with children. Half of our conversation was about schools and bringing up kids, this philosophy and that philosophy. He and Felicity [Huffman, Macy’s wife] are really into the RIE [Resources for Infant Educarers] system. Have you heard of that?

GO: No. What’s that?

MJ: It’s this philosophy that’s based on allowing kids to reach their potential without too many of your opinions involved, where you support them but at the same time you let them deal with things on their own. It starts from when they’re babies. You don’t force them to walk. You don’t force them to do things. You really let them naturally do what they’re going to do. They have RIE preschools and they’ll have groups of parents there and the babies will be playing on the floor, and they’ll have some sort of confrontation. And rather than jumping in and solving the problem, you let the babies deal with it. You only jump in if it escalates.

GO: To violence!

MJ: [laughs] But you give your kids the opportunity to make decisions, which is really interesting.

GO: I bet you’re an RIE parent without even knowing it.

MJ: Yeah. When I was pregnant I read so many different books on parenting and philosophies on bringing up kids, and I guess I haven’t really connected with one completely. I find pieces from a lot of different ones that I relate to.

GO: Well, the thing I learned was to let go. I was thinking, My God, he’s never going to get out of diapers. And then, like, the next day he was totally in control. It just happened.

MJ: Russians are pretty serious about potty training. We’ve had Ever on the potty since she was, like, 4 months old. The pediatrician is like, “Don’t do that.” But I come from a different place. We just believe in starting super-early with all that stuff.
Every time she drinks, every time she eats, like half an hour after, she’s on the potty. I just have to be super on it. And my mom was super on it. I’m telling you, now, at 14 months, Ever will come up and be like, “Uh-uh-uh.” And I’m like, “Oh, potty?”

GO: That’s perfect.

MJ: She’ll literally tell us. I mean, it’s not all the time, but she does it. And now it’s like a game, because she’ll do that, and then I’ll say, “Potty?” and she’ll go, “No,” and run away. And then we’ll, like, chase her around the couch . . . She’ll probably hate me in 10 years. [laughs]

GO: I’m having the same thing with the dog now—“You have to go out? No? Yes?”

MJ: [laughs] Before we got Crommy, I’d only had little tiny dogs. But we always knew he was going to be a big boy, and I felt like I really wanted a big dog, because we live on a big property with a backyard and a lot of space for him to run around. And with a big dog like that, you’re not going to use a pee-pee pad. You’ve got to get him out. So we would be waking up a few times a night to let him out so he wouldn’t go in his cage.

GO: I tried the pee-pee pads, and they just wound up getting shredded into little tiny pieces. The best thing about a dog is that the kid can sleep with it instead of climbing in bed with mommy and daddy.

MJ: The hardest part of all of this is not spoiling the kid. It’s so damn hard to not get that cute little doll, because, like, I want to play with it, too. My husband is like, “Oh, thank God we didn’t have a boy, because there’s this train set that I’ve always wanted, and these Star Wars spaceships . . .” They say, “Don’t spoil your kids,” but it’s one thing spoiling your kids, it’s another thing spoiling yourself.

GO: It’s an excuse to spoil yourself. I’m going to go play with my electric trains now . . .

MJ: [laughs] It’s an arduous, convoluted road, parenthood—with so many twists and turns that you really never expected.

GO: Wait till you get this one: “Can I have a babysitter tonight?”

MJ: [laughs] Oh, my God.

GO: It’s like, “What? I’m not good enough? You want a babysitter?” That hurts a little bit.

MJ: Ever is so into me right now . . . It’s going to be so weird when she’s not.

GO: Wait until you have two kids.

MJ: I was reading in some parenting magazine that statistically you take thousands of photographs of your first kid, and then with your second kidyou take about half of that. And then with your third kid, you, like, pawn off your first and second kids’ photographs and tell them they’re theirs. “Yes, this is your baby picture.” “But that looks like my brother.” “No, it’s you.”

GO: Well, at least you can easily retouch the baby pictures now.

MJ: Yes. “That’s really a heart. That’s not a policeman on his T-shirt.”