Episode 9: The Unlikely Journey

Soooo, it’s been quite some time since my last entry. Six months to be exact. I didn’t intend to have this much time between posts when I started but the “project” that I’ve been working on consumed most of my free time. I’m happy to say that the project of which I speak is finally complete. The Unlikely Journey is a book that chronicles my family’s journey in the entertainment business from the time my son started taking acting lessons, through October of 2010 when we moved to Stamford, CT to shoot 90 episodes of the TBS sitcom, Are We There Yet?. I decided to write the book for a couple of reasons. First, I simply wanted to share our experience. A lot of people we know were asking us the same questions: “How did this happen?” “How did he get here?” “How did you guys do this?” “How did you guys do that?” It occurred to me that it was an interesting story. Not because it’s our story, but it’s just interesting. Second, I hope that it inspires people to follow their dreams. That’s really what our story is all about. Our son was brave enough to tell us his dreams and we did what we could to help him pursue them.

For those of you interested in reading it, the link to the right will take you to LuLu.com where you can order a copy. (use coupon code: LULUBOOK305 to recieve a 25% discount through Jan. 31st.) It will also be available on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com in the coming weeks.

Now that that’s done, I plan to blog once a week with information about what’s going on with us. The 90 episode order of Are We There Yet? was completed on Dec.15. TBS has an option to order more episodes if they so choose. In the meantime, my son and I recently arrived in LA for pilot season in search of his next project. It’s an exciting time for our family. Who knows what’s next. Stay tuned…

Episode 8: The Purpose Of It All

Hello All. This week, I’d like to talk about something that’s not directly related to our experience in this industry. But it is something that affects us nonetheless.

 As I mentioned in an earlier post, our son started acting kind of on a fluke. Just looking for something interesting to do for the summer.  It wasn’t long before we realized that he had a gift. Now, we don’t think that our child is any better than anyone else’s child because he is on television. We still raise him to believe that all people are equal and deserve to be treated as such. We also teach him that it is our responsibility as Christians and as members of the human race, to contribute to the society in which we live in a positive way.

This “gift” that we realized our son has, does not make him special. I believe that we all have gifts that have been given to us by our creator. Some people are natural leaders. Some are gifted teachers and educators. Others are great writers who inspire us with their stories. Then there are those whose gifts give them the opportunity to touch more lives than you or I ever could. Tiger Woods, Will Smith, and Beyonce, to name a few, are people whose gifts have made them wealthy beyond our wildest dreams because the world that we live in allows for that. But I think their gifts are meant for something else.

I refuse to believe that LeBron James has been blessed with his athletic ability just so he could be rich and famous. I refuse to believe that Denzel Washington became one of the most talented actors of our time, just because. I think that their gifts, just like yours and mine, were given to them so that they could be of benefit to others. Plain and simple. Our son has been blessed with a natural ability to do what he does. It is this ability that has allowed him to reach the position he is in right now, and it is this position that will allow him to be of benefit to others.

A few weeks ago, our family watched a 60 Minutes segment that dealt with the issue of child homelessness in our country. This program had a profound effect on our son, as he watched kids his age talk about having to sleep in the family car and wonder where their next meal would be coming from. He said that night that he wanted to do something to help. To that end, we recently got involved with an organization that has set out to provide assistance with one of these issues. No Kid Hungry is a non-profit organization that is committed to ending child hunger in America by 2015. They offer a variety of ways to get involved and help end this particular crisis. Our son is very excited about the opportunity to be a part of something so important that can impact so many.

In addition, he recently had the honor of doing a PSA for The Family Place’s “Be Project”. The Family Place is a Dallas, TX based organization that provides services to women and children who have been victims of family violence. Through their Be Project, they strive to "provide community wide change to build healthy relationships among youth and to promote bully-free schools." There are links to the websites of these organizations in the right column of this blog. Take a look for more information.

I have been inspired by my son to take a more active role in doing what I can to help others. We all have gifts that are meant to help make this world a better place. What’s yours? Stay tuned…

Episode 7: I'm Back!!

Hello All,

It’s been about three months since my last post. I apologize for the hiatus but it was necessary in order to complete another project that I was working on. The book that I mentioned in my last entry is finally complete. As I stated then, it chronicles my family’s journey from the time my son started taking acting lessons, to where we are now. Much like this blog, the purpose of the book is to inform and inspire. Our journey has been interesting to say the least and we have gone through some things that many who know us will be surprised to hear about. It hasn’t always been easy, but then again, most things worth having never are. I am currently shopping the book around, searching for a literary agent who can help sell it to a publisher. If that doesn’t happen, I intend to publish it myself. In any case, it will be coming out…one way or the other.

In the meantime, I will be getting back to posting a new entry on the blog every week as there is ALWAYS something to talk about. Stay tuned…

Episode 6: “And the award goes to…”

So it’s been about three weeks since my last post. It wasn’t intentional. I’ve been in what I like to call “writing boot camp”. You see, I’m working on a book that chronicles our journey from the time my son started acting. I have a self-imposed deadline so I’ve been focusing on that for the last 2 or 3 weeks. I’ve been trying to get to the blog because I have something interesting to talk about but, you know how it is.

A few weeks ago, my son was nominated for a Young Artist Award for his work on the show that he is currently on. The Young Artists Foundation was founded in 1978 by Hollywood Foreign Press member, Maureen Dragone. The purpose of this non-profit organization is to recognize and reward young artists for their contributions to the entertainment industry, which are regularly overlooked by the SAG Awards, the Emmy’s, and other more prominent award organizations.

We were excited to get the news but soon after, I found myself searching the internet, looking for episodes of the shows the other kids in my son’s category were on. Initially, I had no plan to do so but before I knew it, I was watching their shows, trying to compare them to my son. When I realized it, I immediately stopped and asked myself, What the hell are you doing?? We tell our son all the time that he doesn’t need awards and accolades to define who he is. Just try to be the best you can be. Set goals for yourself and work hard to try and reach them. You define yourself by doing that.

Well, that all went out of the window for me before I even realized it as soon as I heard that he was nominated for this award. I thought it was interesting though because it showed me how quickly one can get caught up in this industry. So much emphasis is put on things like how much money an actor’s movie made at the box office opening weekend, or who is going to win the Academy Award this year. When I took a step back and thought about it, I realized that at the end of the day, all of that stuff doesn’t really mean anything. Here’s why…this is all a form of art, which means that it’s all subjective anyway. Everyone is not going to like everything. Just because a movie doesn’t make as much money at the box office as was projected, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t good. Just because an actor wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award for their performance in a movie, doesn’t mean that they weren’t great. If my son doesn’t win this award, (he did by the way) it doesn’t mean that he’s not good at what he does.

This was a great lesson for me and I hope that other parents in the business can relate. With everything that goes on in this industry, it’s very easy to end up on a path that will have you and your child looking for validation from other people, which can lead to decisions being made in an attempt to get that validation. It’s up to us to keep a proper perspective and guide our kids in the right direction. Stay focused on the work, the rest will take care of itself. Stay tuned…

Episode 5: Happiness vs. Happiness

This past weekend, we got a chance to spend some time with some good friends of ours who happen to live just a few miles from where we are currently located. They have a daughter who is the same age as our son, who is also in the business. They worked together on a project for two months this past summer and our time spent sitting on set gave us all time to get acquainted with each other. Her father and I had some really good conversations about our experiences in this business and it was really refreshing to be able to talk to someone who understood what our lives had become. There was one issue in particular that I thought would make for a good topic for this week’s post.

When we are between the ages of 5 and 18, going to school is our top priority. In addition to getting our education during this time, we are also learning how to behave socially. How to deal with other people. How to behave in social settings. It’s also where most of us meet and socialize with our friends. But what happens when school isn’t there? Or when it is there but you’re not able to experience the socialization process like everyone else because there’s something about you that sets you apart from the other kids? This is another great example of something that parents of child entertainers deal with on a daily basis.

Our friends’ daughter is in junior high school. She has been in the business since she was about 6 and has done numerous projects, including television, feature film, and Broadway. Though she does have a couple of what one would call “true Friends”, her adjustment to junior high has been more difficult than the average kid. No other child at her school does what she does so it’s difficult for them to understand what it’s like. Think back to your junior high years. That time was difficult enough, what with the ever-changing hormones, the need to fit in, and the feeling of being “stuck”. Not quite a little kid anymore, not yet a teenager.  Now, imagine that in the middle of all of this, you are also an actor who gets more attention than any other kid in the school. Not that you want the attention. You don’t think you’re any better than anyone else. You just love to act and happen to be good enough at the age of 11 to do it professionally. So, whenever you complete a two month national tour of a play or finish a three month stint on Broadway, you return to school as an outsider. Some kids avoiding you because they aren’t quite sure how to take you. Some being mean to you simply because they’re jealous. That’s pretty tough for a kid to deal with. But as a parent, what do you do? Do you remove the child from the school and place them in another? Won’t the same issues eventually arise? Do you take your child out of school altogether, going the home school route? What if you’re not able to home school?

My son’s issues concerning school are on the other end of the spectrum. As I stated in an earlier post, we have relocated to another state, so him going to his junior high school with his friends wouldn’t be an option to begin with. But more importantly, the show that he is working on requires him to be on set Monday thru Friday. Therefore, his “school” is an 8x10 room (ok, it’s a little bigger than that) that he shares with his 13 year old cast mate and their tutor. We get to the studio between 8 and 9 am and during the day, he is either on set filming, or in the classroom. There are no other kids on the show and his schedule doesn’t allow for him to be in situations where he would meet other kids his age. On the few occasions that he has been places where there are other kids his age, i.e. the mall or the movie theater, they already know who he is and instead of interacting like kids normally would, they are asking for pictures and autographs. Every so often, he talks about missing his friends and his desire to just be a normal kid at a normal school. But in his next breath, he mentions how much he loves what he’s doing and would miss this if it were to end.

My wife and I tell him often that this isn’t something that he has to do. (Although he must fulfill his obligation to this show because he made a commitment) He can stop acting anytime he wants. But he always says that he doesn’t want to stop. He loves it. He just wishes he could do it while living in our house, going to his school. Now, knowing that you only want what’s best for your child and that you want them to be happy, what do you do? In our situation, there aren’t many options. Whenever it comes up, I talk to him about how sometimes we have to make sacrifices to achieve the things we want to achieve. About how there’s a price for everything and that the price for him being able to live his dream, may be that he has to spend time away from his home, his school, and his friends. My wife has been looking into activities that he can do on the weekend, but again, how does a celebrity make “new” friends?

As I always mention in my posts, this is not a complaint. It’s just another issue that parents in this business have to deal with. While I’m not happy that our friend’s daughter has to go through what she goes through at school, it does make me feel good to have them in our life.  As parents of these child entertainers, we share a common bond. Our kids are happy doing what they do. They would also be happy just being normal. Maybe together, we can figure out the answer to the question: How do you weigh your child’s happiness against your child’s happiness? Stay tuned.

Episode 4: Not better…Not Worse…Just different

So, one of the things I want to accomplish with this blog is to give some insight into what life is like for a showbiz parent. Not only the ups and downs, (there are plenty), good and bad, (plenty of that as well!), but also some of the typical day to day stuff. Once your child enters the business, you are presented with a whole new set of responsibilities in addition to being a parent. You see, kids like Justin Beiber, Victoria Justice, and Miranda Cosgrove may generate more revenue than the Gross National Product of some small countries, but at the end of the day, they are just kids. Unable to enter into a contract, not old enough to sign a rental agreement, not mature enough to make decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives. Therefore, it is our responsibility to handle these things…in addition to being their parents. Here are some examples of what I’m talking about…

In the two years that my child has been in the business, he has had jobs in three different states. His current job required us to relocate permanently. Now, while he is the one people see on television every week, he isn’t the one who signed the lease for our apartment. The utilities aren’t in his name. He doesn’t write, sign, and mail his commission checks to his manager and agent. He can’t call the Actor’s Credit Union to check on his Coogan Account to verify that the proper amount is going in every week. These are some of the added responsibilities that the parents take on. Also, one parent must be present with the child at all times while on set.

Some parents will hire outside help to handle these things. Business managers for the financial things. Lawyers for the contracts. Some even hire people to act as legal guardians to be with their child on set. While hiring help is an option, my wife and I never considered it. We felt that it was our responsibility to do what was in the best interest of our son. What’s best for him is that we are involved with everything so that we are always aware of what’s going on. Not to mention the fact that extra help brings extra expense. When this is all said and done, I want to be able to look him in the eye and tell him that we did the best we could at protecting him and his interests through all of this.

Like every other parent on the planet, were are also making decisions everyday concerning our children. These decisions are no more important than ones made by parents who don’t have kids in the industry, in terms of how they may affect our kids. We just seem to be judged more than other parents. Some examples…

A project comes in that looks like it could be a major career boost but the dialogue is not something a 12 year old should be saying. Does he do the film or not? I mean, he is an actor.

Your child wants to buy something that costs more than a lot of people make in a week. He works hard all week on set and in the classroom and he can afford it. Do you let him buy it, or not?

Child labor laws restrict children to working a certain number of hours per day. The 2^nd AD on set comes to you and asks if they can keep your child for 20 extra minutes in order to finish a scene. You pull your child to the side and ask how they feel. They say they feel great and want to continue. What do you do? If your child was attending a regular school and played on the basketball team, you would encourage them to stay after practice and work on their game. Is this any different?

Whenever you visit your hometown, there are always requests for appearances and interviews but your child just wants to be a kid and hang out with his friends. You want him to understand that it’s important to give back but at the same time, you want him to be happy. What do you do?

These are just a few scenarios that we have experienced. It’s interesting because as parents, you have certain rules that you raise your children by. You will not use that kind of language…If you want to buy that, you have to do extra chores and save your money…you have to be willing to put in extra work if you want to be successful…etc. But this industry is a different world and the key is to try and raise your child, by your rules, while trying to survive in this world. It’s not always easy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. Those of you who have kids know that it’s tough being a parent, no matter what! I just wanted to share a little bit of what it’s like for us. How we worry about the same things every other parent worries about. How raising our kids in this world, is different. Not better…not worse…just different. Stay tuned.

Episode 3: Hollywood vs Parenthood

Let me preface this post by saying that I hope that I don't come off as judgmental. I simply want to chime in with my perspective.

So this morning while getting ready to head to the studio for the day, I was listening to a story on the Today Show about Lindsay Lohan's latest troubles. People seem to revel in her misery but whenever I hear anything about her, I always think about the little girl in The Parent Trap and wonder, what happened? Most people are quick to say that it is the Hollywood curse of child actors. The "industry" is not made for children and they will all end up damaged in some way. This is interesting because from the outside looking in, it seems to be this way. But recently, I have had the opportunity to have this very discussion with two very popular former child actors. At the height of their careers, they were among the most popular in Hollywood. What they both said, at different times mind you, challenges the general consensus.

The first, who has had highly publicized run ins with law enforcement that included stints in jail, said that his problems had nothing to do with Hollywood. He said that his family life was out of order before he even got into acting. "In fact, I would go so far as to say that Hollywood probably saved me from self destructing sooner because it gave me a focus and a sense of stability that I never felt at home." He said that there has always been a misconception, in his opinion, about his troubles and how they related to his success as an actor.

The second didn't have the same issues. He credits his parents for providing a stable environment at home that allowed him to grow up as normal as one in the public eye could. He said that his father was on set with him every day, allowing him to grow, while setting and enforcing boundaries that all children need. "There's nothing in Hollywood that a kid can get that he or she can't get anywhere else. It's all about the foundation that you come from. If it's solid, you'll be alright."

So where does this leave us with Lindsay Lohan? As a parent, it pains me to see someone's child go through what she's going through. While at some point, we all have to take responsibility for our actions and choices, aren't the choices we make rooted in the foundation from which we come? If it seems like I'm judging the Lohan's, I'm not. I simply want to explore this issue at its core in the hopes that I can guide my child in the right direction. Stay tuned…