TM
magazine
The Normal Life
by Bonnie J. Wallace
When I talk with young
The biggest source of
anxiety for many parents of
actors who are either still under
young actors is that their kid will
18 and pursuing their passion
miss out on a normal life.
full time, or young adult ac-
I’m not sure what a normal
tors remembering their own
life really is, but I do understand
unorthodox experience of
this worry. When our children
balancing school while pursuing
are born, we wish certain
things for them: happiness, rich
experiences, life-long friendships,
memories they can treasure. We
expect that those things come
the dream, none of them wish
Normal is like a one-size-fits-all piece of
they had opted for the normal
clothing that only seems to fit a few people really
life. Normal may be wonderful for
well. The rest of us feel like we are either lost in it,
some people, but for some kids,
or constrained by how tight it is.
the normal path is miserable.
from familiar places: school, school-based activities, school friends… there’s a
Happiness, rich experiences, life-long friendships, memories our kids can
pattern here!
treasure: it turns out these are all available through different paths. Some less
When a kid starts to get serious about being a professional actor, it
often disrupts their normal school experience, and along with it, many of those
normal experience we hoped they would have. Parents worry that their child
will miss out on what was important to them in their own formative years.
This is only human—we want for our kids what has been meaningful for
us. Or even if our experience was not great, we have a vision for how it could
be better for our kids—but it still tends to look like an idealized version of our
normal than others.
Normal can be sweet. But the good news is there are many different
kinds of sweet out there when it comes to living a life—and normal is only one
of them.
PS—my girl DID make new friends in LA, and we all have given up on
normal as a standard. It never did fit us well anyway.
own, normal experience.
When my daughter Dove was 13, she campaigned me for the entire year
to move to Los Angeles so she could have a shot at her dream of being an
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
actor and singer. One of my many concerns was about giving up the so-called
Bonnie J. Wallace is the author
of "The Hollywood Parents
Guide," and founder of the
Hometown to Hollywood
Podcast on iTunes. She speaks,
writes, and teaches workshops
to help parents help their child
become a professional actor.
Mother of Dove Cameron, star
of "Liv and Maddie," and "Disney Descendants," Bonnie is dedicated to
inspirin