I want to talk about following your dreams and being yourself for a sec. 

I’ve been posting a lot on Facebook* about playing music lately, but there really are no words for the miracle I feel inside myself since returning to making music. I haven’t done anything so earth-shattering—a few practices, a couple very short performances, one song written—but the difference inside of me feels like a miracle. I get tears in my eyes trying to explain it. (And I thank you for sharing these kinds of things with me online. As a stay-at-home mom and someone who works part-time in an office where I am the only one there, it means a lot to have a space to express myself.) 

I was pretty happy before. But now that playing/creating music is part of my life again, I feel like my best self. It’s easy as a parent, especially a mom, to use up all your physical, emotional, and mental energy on caring for others. And that’s important stuff. I wouldn’t trade it. But I just want to say to everyone, parent or not, that I hope you will listen to that voice inside of you that tells you who you are. And if you’re not doing that thing you truly love, if you’re not using one or more of your gifts, at least a little bit on a regular basis, maybe find a quiet place to take a good look at your schedule and figure out how you can get back to it. 

You don’t have to get back to it today. But just having a plan, knowing you are on the path back to that beautiful part of yourself, is empowering. My first step back to music came when my husband and I went to a Carrie Contey workshop on setting goals and making this the best year ever. (We took a leap of faith on even attending in the first place.) I wasn’t remotely thinking about music when I walked in the door. But within a couple hours, I was up front, with a mic, telling the room how badly I miss rocking out. It took me by surprise, but that’s what happens when you set aside time to really listen to what you love, what you need. I was amazed and saddened by how deeply I had submerged my need to perform.

On the way home from the retreat, I stopped and bought new guitar picks. When we got home, I went to the computer and registered for Ladies Rock Camp. I didn’t touch my bass in those 6 or so weeks before camp, but I had signed up and I knew the change was coming. I am so grateful for those first steps and for the support of Patrick and friends along the way who heard me and kept telling me to go for it. I’m not a kid anymore. I’m more realistic about my time and commitments than I was when I first joined bands 10 years ago. Thankfully, I understand now that the joy for me is in simply playing, singing, making music, and sharing it with other people who love music. 

Connecting with that feeling again has opened this place in my chest and I feel like Iron Man, like there is this glowing thing there powering me to fly and feel badass. 

This is the longest thing I’ve written in a while—which goes to show that inspiration is contagious, since I used to write all the time too. I just felt compelled today, especially after seeing a friend achieve her dream last night in her ministerial ordination ceremony, to tell all of you that I know YOU have amazing things inside of YOU, ready to be created. I hope you know this glowing, powerful Iron Man feeling too, if not today then soon, and for the rest of your life. I believe the world needs as many people as possible, lit up with the joy of what they were meant to do.

-Erin Walter, theadmirationsociety

[*NOTE: I wrote this very quickly on Facebook today and thought I’d share it on my blog, too, since it will be easier to find here over time and because what I’ve written below partially explains why I haven’t had as much time for this blog in 2013.] 

I usually use this blog for interviews I conduct myself. Instead today I’m using it to seek your support for the nonprofit Texas After Violence Project, which uses interviews and community discussions to promote peace and justice. It is an organization very close to my heart. 

I ask you to consider making a financial contribution TODAY, no matter how small, as part of a one-day philanthropic event called Amplify Austin. From 7p.m. today to 7 p.m. tomorrow (3/4-5) I am fundraising for TAVP. If you would like to skip this blog post and go straight to giving (yay! thank you! and yes, there is more info at the link), please click here now. 

A book lover and veteran of for-profit startups like SitterCity.com, Chicagoan Stacy Ratner founded social venture Open Books in 2006, envisioning a “literacy community center.” It was her first nonprofit.

Ratner started small, collecting donated books until they filled up her South Loop basement—and then multiple bursting storage units. Now the organization includes a host of literacy and volunteer programs, a colorful bookstore, book-centric events, and a contagious positive energy that is much-needed in a city that made headlines last year for gun violence and a teacher strike.

I know firsthand how much work (and fun) Open Books has been for Ratner and everyone involved. I volunteered for the organization in its early days, then became its first literacy director and second employee. Not long after my daughter was born, I left Open Books and Chicago, but years later, talking to Ratner still makes me want to jump up and make the world a better place.

Today Stacy and I discuss what she’s learned on the rollercoaster ride of running her first nonprofit and where she and Open Books are headed. Thanks for joining us!

ERIN J. WALTER: Hi, Stacy! How are things at Open Books these days?

STACY RATNER: Hi! This is Open Books’ seventh year in operation, which is a big year for me. It’s longer than any of my previous projects. It’s becoming an independent place to be, which is really nice. 

EJW: What surprised you about founding and creating a nonprofit? 

SR: Two things were huge surprises to me. One is how much like a for-profit business it is. You think because you’re doing something that’s great for the world, everyone will come along with you on this train of peace and love and glory. But in fact it’s just as difficult as—maybe more difficult than—running a traditional business. Not everyone will get it and you still have to deal with all the financial and legal parts on top of everything.

But just as surprising, in a way, is how many people do want to come along on the train with you. And things happen at Open Books that would never happen in the for-profit world. A lot of people want to make the world a better place. And fortunately they still see nonprofits as a way to do that. They still sign on to help a kid they’ve never met learn to read.

EJW: What has been the biggest challenge so far?

SR: Every day a different huge challenge! One of the biggest challenges right now is settling into a middle-aged identity as an organization. Part of the Open Books personality always has been as a startup, trying things out, but we’ve now reached a point of size and longevity where it’s not easy to try any and every idea that comes along.

We are startup people at heart, but now we have 12 full-time staff, 10 interns, a volunteer network of 500 people in a given year, and 4,000 students in a year. That’s a lot of people. You have to think really seriously before you try something new. It’s very challenging. It’s hard to grow up.

EJW: What strategies have you found for making that transition? 

SR: The best way we’re finding is to say we can’t reinvent everything we do. We’re probably not going to open a clothing store or some other kind of store. We’re going to stick with a bookstore. But we can try new things within the box of “we run a bookstore.” We can try new sales, new displays, and new events in the bookstore. And we can do the same with our existing literacy programs, trying new things within the framework of what we already know we can do well.

EJW: Do you have advice for other folks who might dream of starting a nonprofit or working in this field?

SR: Oh my gosh, yes! Some tough, honest advice. [Laughs.] But I’ll keep it family-friendly. 

EJW: I don’t know that a lot of children read my blog.

SR: Then I’ll just go for it! [Laughs.] The number one piece of advice is to understand that you are going to work really hard. You might even work harder than you did in a normal job.

But the other piece is that you will never feel better about yourself in the work world than if you do this, if you try it. You’ll be working hard like your friends, you’ll still work with difficult people because there are difficult people everywhere, but the difference is when you go home you’ll be able to say, “today I worked with a student, I changed a life, I made a difference.” I think that’s why there are so many volunteers at Open Books at all levels – program, bookstore, board, associate board – because maybe that sense of making a difference is not present in a lot of day jobs.

Of course, there are plenty of for-profit jobs that are just as satisfying. Like running a preschool.

EJW: Ha, thanks! My new job has a lot going for it, but I’m guessing the line between for-profit and non-profit is pretty thin in this case.

SR: There’s not a lot of glamour in nonprofits. People don’t put you on the cover of Forbes unless it’s a scandal. “They Actually Paid Their Director Some Money!” Whoa!

EJW: No kidding there. So, how does a volunteer find a good match as far as an organization or a volunteer role? 

SR: Ooh, that’s a good question. The first thing is to ask yourself, “What do I really care about?” That sounds really self-evident, but it’s so important. I think in January you get a lot of New Year’s resolutions folks who may not care about your cause. I myself, who should know better, made that mistake. I agreed to be on a board of a cause I didn’t really care about because I knew someone there and it fit my schedule. Of course, it didn’t work out and I stepped down. Anybody can be seduced by parts of volunteering that are not the right parts.

EJW: So you need to think about what you have to give and what the organization needs?

SR: Definitely. At Open Books we try to have a range of opportunities, from working with kids to working in the warehouse. Make sure the organization you want to work with has the position that fits your interests.

EJW: Obviously the funding climate for nonprofits is tough and has been for a while. What is Open Books’ funding strategy these days? 

SR: We are still chasing the financial strategy that we said we’d have in year one. We want to be supported by earned income—book sales online, in store, at events.

The funding climate is no easier than it ever was. It gets harder every year. We are lucky to have the earned income part. The goal is to be at 90% in the next five years. 

EJW: So things are going well with the bookstore?

SR: The bookstore is going well. The online sales are going tremendously well. We are no longer doing every farmer’s market. We’re only doing events that we know we can make a significant about of money. Though I do miss those little weekend events.

EJW: I remember those days. I also remember needing to slow down. Attending every community event isn’t sustainable, even if it’s fun or heartwarming. You have to make choices or you’ll burn out.

SR: Absolutely.

EJW: So, when Open Books opened, we had students and schools from the Cabrini-Green housing project nearby. How has the demolition of those towers changed the area or Open Books’s student demographics?

SR: It was very, very instructional and rewarding to have as our base school Schiller Elementary [located across the street from the last remaining Cabrini towers and within walking distance of Open Books]. They really needed us. We’re still working with Jenner and other nearby schools. We still work in Bronzeville and in neighborhoods with a similar need, and schools from everywhere across the city coming for creative writing field trips. It’s a criterion for where we put our Buddies reading program and when we give field trip scholarships. Schiller gave us a remarkable ability to test things out, and we continue to test things out with students who need them most, even if we can’t walk there.

EJW: You mentioned field trips. I loved those writing workshops so much, and I miss seeing the kids dressed up in the pencil costume. How many field trips are you doing now?

SR: We host field trips four days a week, usually two classes at a time.

[Note: The pencil costume is an unconventional Open Books tradition inspired by U.S. Poet Laureate W.S. Merwin’s The Unwritten. My mother-in-law and friend Emily Agustin made the two costumes.]

EJW: So, seven years into Open Books, what do you still wish everyone knew about the literacy issue?

SR: I would just like everyone to know that it is an issue. We host 30-50 people twice a month at our orientations. We start out with the statistics in the city. [Ex: 53% of Chicago adults have low or limited literacy skills. In the U.S., 61% of low-income households do not have a children’s book at home.] There has never been a group that said, “yeah, we knew that.” They’ve self-selected to come here and be a part of this effort, and even they don’t know how serious it is. I wish literacy were publicized the same way as infectious disease. And then we could talk about which parts of the issue are important.

EJW: For folks who are reading this and thinking, “I want to get involved,” what does Open Books need these days?

SR: All books are always, always welcome. If you’re reading this blog outside of Chicago, if you’d like to do a book drive and mail us some books—or save some postage and mail us a check—that would be amazing.

In Chicago, we’re always looking for schools to work with, businesses and organizations to partner with, associate board and board members. We are always looking for people with passion for the cause, in whatever form that takes.

EJW: What are you reading these days? I ask this because I remember when we were getting started and doing tons of interviews in the press, we were always prepared with the names of our favorite books and what we were reading, and nobody ever asked! 

SR: I know! I never got to say I was reading that graphic novel from Yugoslavia [laughs]. But the true answer is the same as it always was. I’m reading Agatha Christie. Now I listen to a lot of audio books because I have a two-and-half hour commute every day from the suburbs. 

EJW: Did you participate in National Novel Writing Month in 2012? How’d it go?

SR: I did it, in the sense that I wrote 50,000 words. But they were pretty unconnected words. [Laughs.] 2012 was my tenth NaNoWriMo, and I wrote 50,000 words about a kayak disappearance incident involving a teenage boy and the effect that the event has on the survivors and their village 20 years later. Weirdly, this was largely in keeping with my past efforts. Eight of my ten “novels” have included at least one death by shipwreck, drowning, or other water- or boat-related mishap.

EJW: At least you know what you like! Speaking of which, since my blog is The Admiration Society, I like to ask everyone to share about someone you admire and why.

SR: I am endlessly amazed and awed by the people closest to my life: the Open Books team and the passion with which they do so many brilliant things, my family, especially my new twin nephews [one of whom is pictured with Ratner below], who are teaching me epic amounts about discovery and wonder, and my best friend, who had the courage to start his life over a few years ago and personifies the power of hope, perseverance, and imagination.

EJW: What’s the long-term plan for Open Books?

SR: This is the number one question. I think a lot about it, since I’ve transitioned to founder and Natalie Weiss is executive director. Among the things we’re working on right now is finally getting into e-books and e-publishing. It may tie into NaNoWriMo. It may tie into our volunteers. I hope to announce something this year.

We continue to struggle with space. Our lease will be up in 2015. Do we stay here? Do we move? Will we be opening up a kids-only bookstore? Will we open up a genuine community center like we always talked about? Those are questions very much on my mind.

EJW: Where do you see yourself in five or ten years? Will you be at Open Books forever?

SR: Now that I’ve crossed the bar of six years, which was the longest time I’d ever spent on a project, it really is kind of like coming out into the sea and saying “yeah, I can be here forever.” But I would like to travel.

EJW: You’ve earned it.

SR: I want to spend six months overseas.

EJW: Where do you want to go?

SR: I want to go Scotland and write a novel. I talk about it a lot. I figure ten years is a long enough time frame. Surely I can get to it by then.

EJW: Anything else on your mind today?

SR: Last year I started working with Impact Engine, which is Chicago’s only accelerator for for-profit social enterprises. That’s where I met Portapure, the water purifier company I’m now mentoring, and heard about seven other interesting ideas including online education. I was skeptical at first, but I got really inspired by some of the people I met, people who want to change the world through water or education or other for-profit social enterprises.

So my hope is not so much that everybody start a nonprofit, but if you’re going to start a business, please, please, please try to find a way that it can benefit the world and not just you. Don’t just open another cupcake store. Open one that employs low-income adults or that uses fair trade chocolate.

This is very much on my mind. If you are starting something, please make it bigger than you.

EJW: Yes! Well said. Thank you for your time, Stacy, and for everything Open Books is doing for literacy in Chicago. I hope to see you and the whole Open Books crew very soon.

And thank you for reading! If you’re new to my blog, you should check out the awesome past interviews. Stacy is in excellent company!

See you in February with the next interview. In the meantime, comments and questions are always welcome. @erinjwalter on Twitter or email erin at erinwalter dot com. 

Here at The Admiration Society, the holidays were full of house guests and hubbub that lasted into mid-January. It was my son’s first Christmas, so I set aside the blog and other obligations to be as present with him, my daughter, my husband, and family as I could be. I’ve missed conducting interviews, but the break was worth it. 

After the holidays, I officially began my new job as associate director of a preschool here in Austin. As all you educators and administrators know, the work is both rewarding and neverending. And going back on the job after three years of full-time parenting is a huge shift.

Thus, before I return to my interview subjects in a few days, I feel compelled to take a moment to reflect on the very different place I’m in now than when I started this blog. The following quick, unedited, surely not earth-shattering stream of consciousness will be in no way comprehensive. But who has time for comprehensive these days?

Here’s what I’m thinking:

• It’s nice to get a check with your name on it.

• It’s wonderful getting to use my communication skills with a community of grown-ups, especially face-to-face.

• Working 6-8 hours is often less stressful than parenting for 6-8 hours.

• But juggling parenting and a job is logistically more stressful than just doing one of those. (Duh.)

• I forgot how working—even 20 hours a week in a job you enjoy (and especially in a job with children)— totally makes you want to watch romantic comedies and drink wine at 7pm on a Monday. Or 4pm, let’s be real.

• Even if working/parenting is a challenging mix, time away from my kids makes me a more cheerful, relaxed mom when we’re together.

• So far it seems like working outside the home makes my time working around the house more focused.*

• *Translation: The Christmas tree is finally back in the garage!

• Still, you cannot do everything. I had to push a volunteer commitment that I was sooo excited about back by a few months. It was a huge relief to make that call, and I really had no choice. (Or maybe I did but the other choice was insanity.)

• I can already tell that the holy grail of this whole thing is going to be figuring out how to keep exercise and decent nutrition in the mix. How do people do that?

Tweet or e-mail me your suggestions or commiseration if you’ve got a sec. And thanks so much for reading and for your support. See you in a day or two with the next Admiration Society interview!

:) Erin … Twitter = @erinjwalter … e-mail = erin at erinwalter dot com

Dearest friends and readers,

Thank you so much for sharing this blog with me since it started on Aug. 1, 2012. These five months of interviews have been one surprise after another, with nonstop inspiration and education for me. I hope you enjoyed reading even half as much as I enjoyed the writing.

Now, with Christmas a shocking six days away, The Admiration Society is going on break until 2013. I’ll miss y’all! But hopefully this means more time for nice, long, luxurious conversations between my loved ones and me over the holidays (sans computer). Everyone needs a screen-time sabbatical now and then.

Before I go, I want to say huge thanks to the many folks who took time out of their busy lives to be interviewed here in 2012. You let readers know that they are not alone in their struggles. And the concrete details you gave about what you’re striving for and how you accomplish so much every day were hugely helpful.

My heartfelt gratitude to …

• My grandmother, Betsy Saunders

• Ian McPhaden, who shared his experiences parenting a child with a disability

• Mario Champion of Texans for Obama and Latinos for Texas

• Entrepreneur and world traveler Laura Roeder

• Go Fug Yourself co-founder and YA author Heather Cocks

• Allen Turner, game designer, community activist, and Lakota storyteller

• Renowned music writer and culture critic Jessica Hopper

• And the first 10 fantastic interview subjects, who took us from South Africa to Portland to Austin to Chicago and are all linked right here.

Thank you all so, so much!

(If you missed any of the first 18 interviews, I highly encourage you to treat yourself to a good read and catch up over the holiday break. You won’t regret it.)

Readers, your support has meant more than I can say this year. The Admiration Society was a leap of faith for me—that I could find time and energy and inspiration to conduct not just an interview a week but one that would add worthwhile information and insights to the crowded Internet. Though it’s never perfect, I’m giving it my best shot every week, in the midst of motherhood, marriage, and now a new job. I’m always happy—usually nervous too, but mostly happy—when I hit “post.”

Anyway, thank you again for reading. I hope the end of your year is wonderful—peaceful, joyful, healthy, full of love. I can’t wait to see you back here in January with more interviews.

Here’s to great things in 2013,

Erin

Welcome back to the second half of my first-ever interview with my grandmother, Betsy F. Saunders. I say “first-ever” because, as this interview makes clear, we still have tons of ground to cover. What exactly did Indira Gandhi say when Betsy met her? What was that first kiss in the movie theater like? Why did my grandparents make that famous cameo appearance at my high school prom? I promise to ask those questions next time.

But as for now, get ready for a wild ride with my grandmother from small-town, Depression-era Texas to the end of the 20th Century in Russia, India, Pakistan, and Africa. If you missed part one, you’ll want to click here to see photos and catch up. Thanks for reading!

PART TWO

EJW: You always had a piano in the house until this year. I remember, as a kid, being told by my parents that we weren’t allowed to play Chopsticks—or that other kid song where you roll your knuckles across the black keys—when we played at your house. My mom said you couldn’t stand those songs. Do you have a favorite kind of music?

BFS: Charles was keen on classical music and I was not. My parents forced me to take piano, and it kind of turned me against music. I guess I started when I was about 8 and they let me quit when I was 15 and ready to go off to college. I didn’t like my piano teacher. She smoked and smelled bad, and she used to cut my fingernails without asking me. She cut them down to the quick and that made me mad. I thought my fingernails were nice.

Charles was a pro bono lawyer for the Houston Symphony for a long time. He always bought season tickets. I would tell him, “Take Rosemary [a best friend and neighbor]. Take your sister. Take anybody. I don’t want to go.” He put up with that for years, and finally when Andre Previn came, I went to quite a few of his symphonies. I liked watching him direct. He came to one of our parties. It was at a time when he’d married Mia Farrow. He made a lot of people mad. Nobody thought he should’ve married he. But of course that was nobody’s business.

EJW: So what kind of music would you choose to listen to?

BFS: I liked popular music. Not popular today, but the ‘40s. The Big Band. I went to drama school in New York one summer with a girl, Janie New. She was from Georgia and she married Tommy Dorsey. They had a daughter. The little girl was exactly [eldest child] Melanie’s age. When he was playing here once at the Shamrock Hotel, they invited us to come out for dinner and see the show and we did. Ann Sakowitz—they owned the Sakowitz store—she was at dinner that night. She said the story that he died choking on his own vomit was absolutely not true. Anyway, I liked Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller was really my favorite.

EJW: What were your favorite things to do for fun as a child?

BFS: Playing dolls with my good friend who lived across the street from me, Jo Annice Cornish. She married the first guy I ever kissed, in a movie. We were about six years old. Everybody called him WL. I hate that—just initials. His real name was Walter Leon Scott Jr. She ended up marrying him. His father was manager of the Safeway in Graham. They were nice people, just normal folk. They called him WL or Dub. And when they had a little boy they called him Dubber.

EJW: Dubber! That’s a new one to me. I’m not much into nicknames either. But I loved your backyard dollhouse so much! I have the fondest memories of playing in it when I was a kid and we would visit Graham every summer.

BFS: Really? You remember it?

EJW: Absolutely. I could have played out there all day. I think I often did.

BFS: We tried to get a mover to bring the dollhouse to Houston because we had a big yard, but the mover said it was so old it would fall apart. They wouldn’t even try. Another mover said they’d do it for thousands of dollars and we said, “No way!” So we bought a new little house from our builder and it sat back there for years until the termites got it.

EJW: OK, so I know all the grandkids want me to ask you about that somewhat famous swimsuit photo of you and all the soldiers who wrote to you around that time. What’s the story there?

BFS: After Charles and I became friends in January of ‘44, there was an announcement in the newspaper that the army camp nearby, Camp Swift, was sponsoring a contest to find the sweetheart of the 102^nd Division. Charles put my name in. Quite a few girls from the university entered, so of course I didn’t think I had a chance.

Charles helped me plan the whole thing. He picked out my dress. It was a dress I had made. It was a blue fitted princess dress with white eyelet sleeves. I’m sure I made it the summer before. I used to like to sew.

They bused us out to the army camp. I remember walking across the stage, and I remember some of those very well known sorority girls. I wasn’t [in a sorority] of course—we couldn’t have afforded it. I don’t think I would have enjoyed a sorority. But I won.

They sent the leading photographer in Austin, Christianson-Lieberman, and they wanted a bathing suit picture. They did take some more in a formal dress but that was for Mother, not for anybody else. They distributed the bathing suit pictures all over the world apparently because I got so many letters.

EJW: My sisters and I loved reading those letters when we were little. It seemed like you were a little embarrassed or shy about sharing them though.

BFS: The other reason I got letters was because there was a letter to the editor in Life magazine from the fellow who was president of the University of Texas drama club. He sent in a snapshot of me. I don’t know whether the contest was mentioned or not, but it said something about how I was meant for stardom.

EJW: Well that’s quite a compliment. Now onto a perhaps less glamorous topic: How did you manage having four kids? I feel like I’m underwater a lot just taking care of my two.

BFS: I love babies. I just love babies. We would’ve had a fifth one—you’ll think this is crazy—but we decided we didn’t want to do PTA anymore. We didn’t want anymore of that. But I love those babies. And when Steve [her son] said they wanted to stop with two because they couldn’t afford more, I thought he was crazy. Our children never had any luxury and I don’t think they suffered. I don’t see how anybody could say I’m just going to have two. One or both of them could’ve been accidentally killed!

EJW: After your kids were grown, you and Charles became quite the world travelers. What are your favorite places that you two went?

BFS: We went to Russia eight times, and I really find Russia fascinating. Of course, it’s so big. We took the last great train journey, the Siberian Railroad, across the country and I think we went through 12 time zones. We got on in Beijing and went through some very backward countries and ended up in Moscow and St. Petersburg. We visited the Alexander Palace where the royal family lived until they were taken out and killed. We had a special permit and guide on a Sunday to tour it because we [made a donation that] helped remodel it. We had all these beautiful things to ourselves—paintings, objects of art—for a little while.

Secondly, I like India. We met Indira Gandhi at her house. Charles had written her a letter and asked her if our group of lawyers could visit with her. She wrote back and gave us an appointment the day before we were to arrive in New Delhi. So he had to write her back or call her, and she said that would be all right [to change the date]. She saw anybody who wanted to come to her house and her garden. She was so charming. She was just lovely. I couldn’t believe she was killed by one of her own guard, shot in the very spot we met with her two years earlier.

Anyhow, I love India. It’s so colorful—it’s like a kaleidoscope, so different, so active, cows in the street! If you’re in a taxi you have to dodge the animals, elephants. I like the architecture. I lot of people say, “oh it’s too dirty,” and they don’t go. And we wouldn’t have gone but for an accident of fate. We were supposed to be going to Iran with a University of Texas group, and they deposed the Shah and there was trouble and they canceled the trip. I said, “What do we do? It’s so late now.” Steve said, “You’ve got to go to India.”

EJW: I know one sad part of your travels is that you were out of the country when your father passed away in the mid-1990s. That must have been so hard.

BFS: Three people passed away while we were in Pakistan. It’s very mountainous there—the scenery is beautiful. We were traveling with a British group. Our British guide was an old Shakespearean actor. What a character!

Anyway, what happened was we had an appointment on the western boarder line of Pakistan and Afghanistan. An armed guard was scheduled to take us across the border, just to say we’d been in Afghanistan. But because of an accident we missed the appointment by a week.

We were staying in the mountains in a terrible motel called Shangri-La. But it was the only hotel, so we were staying there. One Saturday night there was a big storm, thunder, lightning and rain, and we didn’t know the situation on the roads. So the guide loaded us up and we started for our next destination. We drove about ten minutes and the road disappeared. You could look down the mountain, and the road was very narrow. Two trucks couldn’t pass each other. There were all these boulders in the road where they had fallen down the mountain. There were cars and trucks from the other direction that were stopped by this hole. The men got out. It was still pouring rain. It didn’t seem possible to turn around. The men started moving huge rocks, hoping to make some sort of bridge. No such luck.

We were in a tiny bus, five passengers and the driver. It was kind of like a golf cart. We turned around and went back to the Shangri-La. We had to stay there until the road got rebuilt. We were there a week. It was coooold there. When it got dark we had to go to bed because we couldn’t read or anything. Every meal was chicken and rice, and there was no electricity, no communication. Nobody knew we were stuck there.

EJW: Wow. I can’t imagine, especially these days, with cell phones everywhere. I was in high school when Grandpa Friedel died, and I remember being at the funeral and feeling terrible for you that you couldn’t be there. I kept the memorial brochure from the service in my jacket pocket for years. It may still be there. He was a special man.

BFS: Yes. During the storm on that Friday night, I knew my father had died. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew.

Every day the guide would say, pack your suitcase and put it out at 8 a.m. and we’ll try the roads again. We didn’t get out for a week. It’s such a pain to pack and unpack every day. We finished our trip but we missed quite a few things that were scheduled to happen.

Pakistani people were very friendly. It’s hard to realize that now that there’s so much trouble over there.

Anyhow we finally got out. We were glad we got out. There are parts you can’t go to now, and parts of India that you can’t go to now, like Kashmir. That was my favorite spot.

EJW: I hope someday I can travel to even a fraction of the places you’ve been. I was blown away when I read the number of countries—something over 100!—in Grandpa Charles’s obituary.

BFS: Charles favorite place, of course, was England, but I really don’t enjoy going to England. I think it’s dull compared to India or Russia. And maybe we’ve been too many times. He has relatives there. We have to go from the airport to where they live by train, and you have to carry your own luggage. My luggage is always so heavy. I always bring everything I might need. I just threw away a list of everything I keep in my suitcase.

EJW: Why did you have a list like that?

BFS: Because my suitcase was stolen in Africa once. We left our luggage in the basement of the Hilton hotel. We were on Safari and when we came back everyone got their bag but me. They wanted a list of what I had in it. I had no idea.

Africa was not my favorite. I really didn’t enjoy the safari—the dust. And I’m not that fond of animals anyway. We stayed where Elizabeth was when her father died and she became queen. It’s a hotel built up in the trees. It’s unusual, interesting, but the place I really wanted to stay so badly, and where we did stay—chewing a lot of dust to get there, it’s so dusty!—was the place a resort in the mountains owned by William Holden. We had been swallowing so much dust, I got in the bath and turned on the faucets and nothing but dirt came out.

EJW: Whoa! Well, you know I have to ask about everyone’s favorite travel photo. What was going on in that picture of you and Charles with monkeys on the Rock of Gibraltar? [In this photo, my grandparents comically cling to each other on a rock as monkeys swarm from all sides.]

EJW: Gibraltar was just a stop on our trip. We were on our way to Morocco. And this island is just overrun by these monkeys. They’re very aggressive. They’ll take anything you have to eat. They’ll take your camera out of your hands.

That picture has amused more people than any we’ve ever taken. I’ve got to find it and makes copies.

EJW: Yes, please! I desperately want one.

So, last but not least for tonight, I’d like to talk about your marriage. How did you make your relationship work for all those years?

BFS: Well I loved him.

I don’t know that I ever did the right thing, but if anything bad happened, I didn’t tell him. I figured he could find out for himself. I don’t like to argue. He thought I did but I didn’t. I usually told him what I thought but I wouldn’t argue with him. Who would argue with a lawyer?

And he was such a good person, so generous. He would do anything for anybody. He would stop doing something important that he was doing to help somebody. A day never went by that he didn’t do something nice for somebody. And you just can’t fight with a person like that. He was too kind, too caring. I really give him all the credit.

EJW: That’s very sweet. What do you think were some of his favorite things about you?

BFS: I don’t know. I don’t know why he put up with me.

EJW: Come on. I know it’s hard, but imagine if he were here now. What would he say he loved about you?

BFS: I don’t know. [Long pause.] I saw something he wrote for a doctor once, a questionnaire, so I know he was first attracted to my physical looks. We never discussed it, but he wrote that down on a medical sheet. [My Aunt Shelley confirms that attention to their appearance was something Betsy and Charles had in common. Indeed, my grandparents briefly crashed my high school prom in their own formalwear. We’ll get to that story next time.]

We always talked things out, Charles and I. We never had any serious differences.

But the thing that nearly killed him once was when I said we weren’t going to have any more Christmas parties. That was the year we went to India the first time. I said we would be back exactly one week before we always had the party. I said, “I can’t get the invitations out!” We always did everything for the party ourselves. It was a real chore. And it got to be where we had nearly 200 people over. We’d stand at the door and say hello and goodbye and that was it. Charles loved it. He just loved people and parties. I didn’t. I was willing because they made him so happy.

EJW: I can’t believe we’ve been talking and typing for two hours. We should probably go to sleep now and talk more next time. Thank you so much for sharing all of this with me.

BFS: Was this what you wanted to know?

EJW: Definitely!

Deepest gratitude again to my Grandmother Betsy for being a role model throughout my life and for taking the time to talk with me about her own adventures. I hope we can get more stories on the record soon.

And to everyone reading, please share theadmirationsociety.tumblr.com. I hope others will get inspired to interview a family member, especially one from a previous generation. It was so much fun—and so full of surprises!

See you next week for another interview at The Admiration Society! - Erin

Remember this: There is no such thing as an unforgettable story.

You will forget, so I’ll say that again: There is no such thing as an unforgettable story.

Over time, the details will escape you. The colors and names and faces will fade. You will argue with friends and relatives over who really burned down the neighbors’ garage.

If you don’t write your memories down, one way or another, someday it will be too late.

As such, I have been meaning to interview my grandparents for years. Like any family, we have so much to get on the record. Like any family, we’ve been busy.

My maternal grandmother, Betti F. Saunders (formerly Betti Jo Friedel and often known as Betsy), is my last living grandparent. Her husband Charles died last year, and my father’s mother, “Gram E,” took her last breath before my eyes this year. My father and his father have both been gone quite some time. So many memories are gone with them.

So finally, at the encouragement of my sisters and cousins, I packed up my kids and my laptop and headed for Houston two weeks ago. I prayed Betsy would be up for talking with me about her life. She has lived a full and adventurous one—born to a poor, small-town family, only child of a blind father and the wife who helped care for him, she later become a performer, mother of four, wife, world traveler, philanthropist, and more. She is one of my inspirations.

I was overjoyed when it turned out Betsy was happy to share stories galore. On the night of November 17, 2012, I typed along while the children slept, laughing and bugging my eyes out in surprise while trying to keep up with her vivid memories.

Clearly, we can’t cover 88 years in one sitting. This will have to be an ongoing oral history project. I’m urging the rest of our family to record stories too when they have the chance. It was a blast! And I am so grateful to my grandmother for the gift of her time. As much as I learned from Betsy that night, her stories only served to make my list of questions longer.

I hope those of you who don’t know my grandmother will still enjoy this snapshot of the early and mid-1900s and that perhaps it will inspire you to record your own family stories. I bet many of them will surprise you.

Above we have my maternal family, 1963 in Graham, Texas, clockwise from boy at left: Steve, Melanie, Betsy, Charles, Cindy, and Shelley (AKA the Saunders kids and their parents), and Betsy’s parents Eunice Covey and Joe B. Friedel. We still have that old brown buggy—my great-grandmother’s when she was a girl—at my mom’s house. My daughter plays a little too rough with it from time to time.

ERIN J. WALTER: Thank you so much for talking with me, Grandmother Betsy.

BETTI F. SAUNDERS: You’re welcome. What do you want to know?

EJW: I think I’ll just take it from the top and see how far we can get. Where were you born?

BFS: 1924 in Graham, Texas, in a house. It was sort of like a clinic in a house. The doctor that delivered me took out Charles’s appendix about 30 years later and didn’t charge him a penny.

EJW: You’re kidding!

BFS: Charles gave him a check and he gave it right back. The doctor was a family friend. Melanie [my mother] was born in September 1949, so we went to Graham for Christmas. I took just enough clothes and diapers for the weekend–-you know, they wore cloth diapers then—and lo and behold I was packing on Christmas night and Charles said, “You don’t need to do that because I’m going to have surgery in the morning at 8 o’clock at Graham Hospital.”

I knew he had been suffering but they never could diagnose his problems. He died not knowing what his pain was. A doctor told me some pain can never be explained and that was Charles.

Anyway, the surgery was supposed to be at 8 o’clock. I went up to the hospital at about 8:30 thinking I would’ve missed it. The operating room had doors and windows, so you could see in. I thought I’d see them cleaning up. But I got there just in time to see them stick a knife in his tummy.

EJW: Eek! So what was Graham like back then?

BFS: Charles swore it was never more than 5,000 people. The sign at the city limits always said 7,000, and I don’t think it grew any while I was there. And the numbers decreased after I left.

Graham was always in a dry county. You had to drive 15 miles to another town to get beer and I guess whiskey. I don’t know. We never drank. I think Graham is still dry.

EJW: What was your school like?

BFS: There was a grade school and a high school. In those days there were only 11 grades and I graduated at 15 because I did not go to the first grade. I was promoted to the second grade because I could read. I went to a girls’ college in Missouri paid for by the doctor.

EJW: Wait, the same one?

BFS: Yes. He was our guardian angel. He took care of Dad when he was shot in the face. He’s been a part of my life as long as I can remember. He smoked cigars. He ate cereal for breakfast every night, which was unusual. He had a wife who was a hypochondriac. She never got out of bed. Maybe that’s why he ate cereal for breakfast.

EJW: Ha! Good theory. Sounds like he was a special guy.

BFS: He used to take me to Ft. Worth to the dentist. I wore braces for three months after I graduated from high school because I had a gap between my front teeth. I won a contest while I was wearing the braces.

EJW: A contest? That’s a story I’ve never heard about.

BFS: There was a contest for four girls to represent the Burlington Railroad. It was brand new then, called the Silver Princess. You had to be 18 to enter. I was 15 but they didn’t know. You had to appear in person, and I didn’t think I had a chance of winning. But I did.

It was a wonderful prize because I got a whole new wardrobe for college and we went to Denver. It was my first luxury trip, in sleeping cars. We made stops along the way in the best hotels, a resort hotel in Colorado Springs. I ice skated there for the first time in my life. I was terrible at it. My ankles were weak.  It was wonderful though. Every place the train stopped, they greeted us with a band and flowers, like real celebrities. I wrote it all down but I don’t know where the diaries are now.

EJW: You mentioned earlier when your dad was shot in the face. What was it like having a father who was blind?

BFS: As far as I was concerned, everybody’s dad was blind. But my father was a very courageous man.  He walked to town every day to get the mail. The only time he was ever hurt in traffic, he was hit by a police car.

The jail and courthouse were in the center of town, in the square, just like the post office. The policeman or detective was backing out from the jail and wasn’t looking. Dad was not seriously hurt but it was a shock to the town that anybody would run over Joe Friedel because he was an ornery Czech. He carried a white cane stick and everybody knew Dad.

Dad ran for the Legislature and he lost. That came as a great shock to him too.

EJW: Wow! I had no idea he ran for office.

BFS: I didn’t know anything about politics then and I don’t know now. I hate politics. I don’t discuss it.

EJW: OK, so how did Grandpa Friedel get shot? I remember being told a long time ago that it was a hunting accident.

BFS: He was hunting and somebody shot him, mistook him for an animal. They heard a rustling in the trees. I thought all my life that we didn’t know who shot him—that the man left town—but recently I found the newspaper article and it tells who shot him. Of course, it was an accident, but it was just as bad as if it wasn’t.

They didn’t think he was going to make it. I was about one year old at the time. My poor mother—can you imagine? Dad was about to start his own business putting tops on cars, canvas I think they were. Then he couldn’t do that.

They had run off and gotten married. He was just out of the Navy, and she lived in Ft. Worth. My granddaddy wouldn’t let her date unsupervised. I don’t know how she got away with him, he was so protective of his four daughters.

EJW: How did you meet Grandpa Charles?

BFS: We both landed at the University of Texas in September of 1942. I had two years to get my degree, and Charles had three years to go because he was in law school. I didn’t like him very much. The first time I saw him, he came at night after law school to watch us rehearse a play called Heaven Can Wait. I had a small part as the maid. I had to scream, so naturally I got his attention. He hung around the drama department because there weren’t any girls in the law school.

EJW: There were no women in the law school at all?

BFS: I think there was one. We have the photo upstairs.

EJW: I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, it being the 1940s. I wonder how much better the numbers are today. Anyway, go on.

BFS: Charles would call and ask me out and I would tell my roommate, “Tell him I’m not here. I have other plans.” She didn’t like to do that. She was from Ft. Worth. Her name was Charlotte Guerry. I was very fond of her. She was almost selected sweetheart of the school that year. Everybody liked her. She tried to promote the romance, but I never liked for someone to—well, she was messing with my life and I don’t like that. I like to make my own decisions.

EJW: I admire that about you for sure.

BFS: Christmas of my last year at the University of Texas, I didn’t want to go home to Graham. I never liked living in Graham, so I booked myself with a travel agency to go to Mexico for Christmas. My parents would let me do anything. They were very generous with me. They trusted me completely and let me do anything that I thought was OK. I’m sure they were disappointed, but I went to Mexico and saw the famous volcano that had been belching recently. I think we spent New Year’s Eve watching it erupt.

I had a roommate, a nutty woman named Jane—tall, unmarried—who fell in love with a Mexican guide and wanted to stay and marry him. Of course, it was a two-week trip and it would have been foolish of her to marry him after such a short time. I think she came back with us.

Anyhow, it was a nice trip and I wrote Charles a postcard from Mexico. When I got back his birthday was coming up on January 18. Mail was very slow from Mexico, so he got my postcard apparently on his birthday. He called to thank me for remembering his birthday, which I didn’t. He asked could he come over and give me a piece of his birthday cake-–that some girls had made for him at Mrs. Hardin’s rooming house—and I said, “No, you can’t.” It was late, maybe 10 o’clock. I had on my gown and robe and my hair was rolled up. He came over anyway.

EJW: How forward. Where were you living then?

BFS: I was rooming in an elderly woman’s house on Rio Grande Street. The first year I was at Texas I lived in a dorm, but the second year the navy took it over. This was wartime. We all moved out and I had to find a new place to live.

We sat and talked on the porch of the house that night of his birthday. I don’t think she even had a swing. We just sat on the couple of steps. We talked for an hour. At that point I decided I had been passing up a good thing and started pursuing him.

One time he brought me a chamelea. It looks like a gardenia. I’d never seen one. I don’t think they grew in Graham. I wouldn’t accept it. It was a standing joke that I was a poor little country girl who didn’t know the difference between a chamelea and a gardenia.

[We laugh.]

You will appreciate this story. We had a huge gardenia bush that had never done much. But the last year before Charles died it had a minimum of 100 blooms every day and he would go out first thing in the morning and cut one and go around the office and give one to every secretary and receptionist. I have more thank-you notes from when he died about what a kind person—[She chokes up.] Anyway, I knew what a gardenia was.

EJW: I know he loved his job, but was he really still going into the office last year?

BFS: He had retired about 20 years before that. He was not receiving a dollar. But he still went to the office for 20 years after he retired. Retiring has a lot of different meanings for different people. He did a lot of free legal work. He built houses with Habitat for Humanity.

Charles died in September. The bush died soon after. We had an ice storm or maybe it was just cold, and the bush died the same year Charles did. Often the wife dies a couple months after the husband.

EJW: Well, we’re all so glad you’re still here. I know you miss him a lot. I do too. Do you want to rest and talk more tomorrow?

BFS: No, I’m doing just fine.

EJW: OK. You make your own decisions, like you said. So, how did you get engaged?

BFS: We’d been going together for two years. I was expecting it. He asked me and we set the date one night when we were on a date in Herman Park by a lake. He wasn’t very imaginative or romantic. He gave me a very clear explanation of why he wanted to get married. It was time for him to get married. A man should not live alone. It was in July that he asked me, and we got married on Oct. 18. I thought that was far enough away that I could get time off for a honeymoon.

EJW: What was your wedding like?

BFS: We got married in Houston in 1946 and were married three years before having kids. Melanie was born in 1949.

[My grandmother skips any details and moves to another subject, but as we can see from her portrait, the wedding must’ve been at least a wee bit on the fancy side. Chances are there was no bucket of complimentary flip-flops for the reception, as there was at my wedding.]

We’d been attending Central Presbyterian Church. He later became a deacon and an elder and very active in the church. I was president of the women’s association, but I don’t like to be president of anything. I think I did all that could be expected of me in the way of church work.

We moved to a new house when Shelley was born because we figured six people could use more than one bathroom. The church congregation had mostly moved out to the suburbs and it finally got down to where there weren’t maybe 25 people on Sunday, but we kept driving into that church for maybe ten years. We shouldn’t have. We should’ve been going to church here in our new neighborhood. Our children didn’t get to go to Sunday school with their schoolmates. That’s why I think Melanie is the only one who goes to church. I think it’s our fault. We made a mistake.

When the minister retired, we moved to a church near us. It’s big, maybe 5,000 people, and I always said I never wanted to belong to a big church. I used to not enjoy going to a modern church. I used to say, “I want a church that looks like a church,” and the minister would say, “What does a church look like?” The building shouldn’t be a deciding factor.

EJW: I have said those same words about wanting a church that “looks like a church” myself. I love finding out about these ideas or opinions we have in common. I’d love to hear more about your parents too. What were they like?

BFS: My mom was an angel. My dad was very stubborn, and I heard him fuss at her. Of course he never struck her, but they would argue. He was hard to live with. He wanted what he wanted, when he wanted it, right now.

EJW: I do recall him as a tad gruff, but I adored both of them. I have great memories of working puzzles with her and playing dominoes with him, since he could feel the indentions in the domino tiles. Did she have hobbies or interests that were just hers?

BFS: Mostly she looked after him. She spent her life doing things for him.

He had a newsstand next to the movie theaters. There were two movie theaters in Graham. They were on the same block, The National and the Liberty. He sold magazines, newspapers, candy, popcorn, cigarettes. I often popped the popcorn and burned it, because I didn’t concentrate. I walked off [while it was popping]. But they were nice about it. They always let me do it again.

Sometimes he made 10 dollars a week. Those were Depression years. But I never knew we were poor. I always had everything I needed, and all the love I could handle. They thought I was perfect, that I hung the moon. It was nice to be loved like that.

That is pretty much exactly how I feel about my wonderful grandmother, shown here with her youngest great-grandchild.

To be continued …

I conducted this interview for my family, but I greatly appreciate everyone who takes the time to read it. And most of all, I thank my Grandmother Betsy for sharing these memories. I’m very fortunate to have her in my life.

Come back next Monday for a second half largely focused on Charles and Betsy’s travel adventures—mud slides, attack monkeys, an epic train ride across Siberia, a bath tub that spewed dirt, and much more.

In the meantime, please check out past interviews—with interesting people from Austin to Chicago, L.A. to London, most of whom are of not relation to me—at theadmirationsociety.tumblr.com and share the link! Thank you. - Erin

Whoosh! Ian McPhaden and his daughter are flung up and down, side to side. Her glasses almost fly off. It is Stella’s first roller coaster ride, an experience her dad had dreamed about but that doctors warned might never happen.

Stella was born with severe spina bifida, and in today’s interview, Ian and I talk about how her disability affects the whole family, the difference health care reform would make in their lives, struggles with unemployment, how parenting changes everything—whether your child has a disability or not—and of course, more. Thanks for joining us.

Ian is a Chicagoan by way of the Philadelphia suburbs, an Antioch College grad, and a stage manager turned stay-at-home dad of two (Stella, 7, and Duncan, 3). I met him and his wife, Atena, a site director for early childhood programs, four years ago at Second Unitarian Church. I remember Stella as the unofficial star of Sunday morning coffee hour, racing around the church as fast as her leg braces allowed, doting on younger kids and eliciting smiles and hugs from even the most crotchety adults.

ERIN J. WALTER: Hi, Ian. Thanks for making time to talk. Do I hear the kids in the background?

IAN McPHADEN: Duncan is jumping on the bed.

EJW: Nice. I really miss those guys. Would you explain Stella’s condition for me?

IM: Her spine didn’t close in utero in her first month of development. When she was born there was a tissue bubble containing her spinal cord that was coming out of her back. That was fixed by surgery 36 hours after she was born.

The technical term is myelomeningocele, a specific type of spina bifida, which is a type of neural tube defect. Spina bifida is the most common birth defect, but it has a huge range [of symptoms]. There are people who discover they have it in their 50s because they have back problems and find out there’s a problem with one disc. Stella is like one notch down from the worst it could be.

EJW: Did you know in advance that she had spina bifida? Is it something you can even test for?

IM: We didn’t know. You can test in advance if you have good health care, but Atena was still in grad school—she had a full-ride fellowship that she had to finish in two years—and I lost my job pretty much the week after we found out she was pregnant. It was so ridiculous. With state assistance we had to fight for prenatal care. We had one ultrasound early on and one right beforehand. I got a job a month before Stella was born and the health insurance didn’t kick in until a week after she was born. We were scheduling a water birth at home, but there was a lot of fetal distress. The midwife moved us to the hospital and they did the C-section.

EJW: So you had to deal with being new parents and then this whole additional layer of adjustment. How did the revelation that your baby had spina bifida affect you?

IM: It wasn’t good. I’m dealing with that in therapy. You might imagine I’m a little traumatized in my parenting style. There’s a suite of normal problems that come with being a full-time caretaker, without much appreciation beyond the occasional hand-traced turkey picture [laughs], plus everything else we deal with with Stella. It’s hard to separate being at “medical alert yellow” from regular parenting.

So I, of course, didn’t always take care of myself. I used to drink heavily and smoke but I don’t do that anymore. I do smoke some grass, but I don’t stash candy around the house anymore and I try to keep it to three cups of coffee a day. I’d love to have a day where I say, “Screw this! I’m having a full pot of coffee!” But as soon as I do, everything goes nuts and we have several hard days.

I’m starting to learn that other parents feel this way too. It’s a normal part of parenting, not so much about life and death and whether Stella is going to end up in the hospital that day. I’m doing a lot better these days. Duncan is getting the benefit of me being more relaxed sometimes now.

EJW: How does Stella’s disability affect her emotionally?

IM: We are taking her to a therapist because she is seven and old enough now to be upset by it. She’s throwing tantrums and getting in trouble at school. She’s wasting time on the bathroom so we miss play dates, and she ends up being socially behind. It’s a gigantic snowball effect.

EJW: I haven’t seen Stella since we moved to Austin last spring, so I guess I’m surprised and sad to hear how it’s affecting her, even if it makes total sense. She was always such a fun, silly, bright light whenever I saw her.

IM: That’s very much her personality. That’s also her reaction to her condition, her self-defense mechanism. We’re dealing with it in therapy, along with her bodily autonomy issues. Doctors are not always warm and friendly. They come in and tell you to open your mouth, and they poke around and look at your back and talk to someone else about you, then they leave.

On the whole, she’s habituated to just doing whatever a doctor says, which isn’t always good because we want her to set up good personal boundaries about who can touch her and who can’t, and have a good sense of personal power and of questioning authority. It’s been rough getting doctors to ask if it’s OK to touch her. They’re often taken aback, and we’re like, “It’s not about you. It’s about her.” It’s about her sense of ownership of her body.

I had been doing a catheter for her until she was four and a half. Now we’re teaching her to do it herself. It’s tough though—we’re saying “no one can touch you here,” but I’ve been doing it her whole life. It’s hard to explain that to her. It’s a constant struggle to be aware of proper boundaries, explain them in age-appropriate language, without adding my own fears or anxiety.

EJW: That seems like one of the greatest challenges of parenting—not injecting too much of your own issues into your kids’ psyches. So, is Stella spreading her wings at school these days?

IM: Yes. She’s at a new elementary school this year for first grade. It’s a performing arts magnet school.

EJW: How has that transition been for Stella and for all of you?

IM: We’ve had a lot of challenges this year with getting her to a more independent frame of mind. She went to Camp Independence with other kids with spina bifida and that was a big thing. Now we’re at this new school where it’s not all the kids and teachers from her old school who have learned to take care of her and have known her since she had a walker. She’s now at a place where everybody knows she can walk fine and if she falls down it’s like, “move it right along!”

EJW: Does she fall down a lot?

IM: Sometimes. It’s a quick attention-grabbing device. I was in theater for years so, of course, I taught her how to fall fabulously, from any position. She’s great at doing the big pratfalls. [Laughs.] She will totally do that, and we needed her to be in an environment where she’s not getting positive feedback for that.

EJW: How is her medical treatment and physical development going? Does she still wear leg braces?

IM: She has ankle-foot orthotics that have cables that orient her feet perpendicularly from her hip. They’re training her muscles to see if they can avoid surgery. She’s already avoided one hip surgery because the cables worked very well. We’re aiming for skipping the second one.

There’s been huge progress in about 30 years in terms of neurosurgery and how people are willing to work on spina bifida treatment. There’s a full generation that has survived their youth, whereas my mother has a friend in her 60s or 70s who survived—she’s now a Paralympics equestrian coordinator—and she was the one-in-a-thousand kid. It’s still new for people to survive late into life on a large-scale basis.

Most of the techniques are well developed to the age of 30 but after that it’s mostly anecdotal. People with spina bifida become doctors themselves to figure out what to do. We’re in a generation now that gets to refine the quality of life a little more, and we’re in a good place for it because of the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Kids come from all over the hemisphere for spina bifida surgeries.

EJW: Were you able to test before Duncan was born to see if he had spina bifida? How did it feel to find out he didn’t?

IM: We did have the standard test (which hadn’t been covered under public aid with Stella) but we didn’t do anything special besides the prescription for folic acid supplements while trying to get pregnant. I don’t remember having a very strong reaction beyond general relief.

EJW: Is Duncan old enough to understand Stella’s disability now?

IM: With potty training, it has become clear to him that it is a much simpler procedure for him, and that he’s getting off easy. He’s usually very nice to her and physically protective in exchange for her social protection.  

EJW: I loved marching with your family in the Disability Pride Parade a few years ago in Chicago. Is it still going on?

IM: It is.

EJW: What are disability activists pushing for these days? What changes do you wish our government or society would make that would help families like yours?

IM [emphatically]: Single. Payer. Health. Care. That would be the answer. The correct answer is? Ding ding! Single-payer health care!

For people who say they don’t know anybody that Obamacare has helped, I tell them they know us. The parts of Obamacare that went into effect were to help people like Stella. Her spinal surgery, which was covered by state insurance, surgeries on her ankles—we’re over half a million dollars in medical care already and she’s seven. A million dollars of coverage is not that much when it’s the lifetime limit on your insurance. Maybe that’s a lot to imagine when you’re 20 years old putting your feet up. But a million dollars of lifetime coverage is not that much for Stella and lots of people like her.

You need to be below a certain financial line to get the help. You have to have nothing—or enough to pay for it all in cash—or you’re screwed. If there’s no single-payer health care in place, she has to stay impoverished in order to afford health care.

EJW:  Could you explain that financial issue a little more? Seems like a key point for everyone to understand.

IM: If we were clearly poor, then there would be no question of qualifying for medical assistance. Stella’s medical needs would be taken care of perfunctorily with an average amount of hassle. If we could afford a PPO, Stella’s medical needs would be taken care of quickly with very little hassle.  But since we are in the “lower halfway-to-comfortable” income bracket and can only afford an HMO, the sheer number of medical appointments and procedures multiplies the bottlenecking difficulty presented by the authorization rules and processes, which defend profit margins by impeding high volumes of claims from one source.

As things are now, you’re penalized for saving money or trying to advance, unless you make an astonishing leap forward. We have some dreams about eventually buying a house. Once the laws change, maybe.

EJW: Shifting gears a little, I’m always interested in people’s cultural history and how that informs who they are and their family traditions. What is your background?

IM: We’re an African-American family with lots of flavors and variety. Atena’s mother and her mother’s sister live in the south suburbs [of Chicago]. My father is Scottish-German-English, that sort of Midwestern soup. My mother is a Brooklyn girl by way of Virginia.

I guess coming from an interracial family was more of an issue when I was growing up, the hushed tones as people were figuring things out. At this point in my family it’s old news. But my kids are getting a good wide range of skin tones of people they’re related to.

My cousin is now a Mormon with super blonde children. She married a conservative Mormon guy. So now here’s Duncan with a blue eyed, blonde boy who makes the exact same “I don’t know what you’re talking about” face as he does. We have very different backgrounds, and we try to make sure her kids and my kids get time to play together before they get a sense of ideological differences.

EJW: I think you were one of two stay-at-home dads I knew in our circle in Chicago. Did you find a community of dads for support?

IM: There’s now a big flush of new dads staying at home, with more people becoming unemployed. I hit a point where I stopped waiting to find the dads and started to appreciate the moms I got along with and who didn’t have weird gender issues with hanging out with me. I’m doing better at that—at just hanging out with the people who are good to me and feel like I have a clue what I doing.

It’s nice to see more dads now though. In some ways it’s not as lonely. I’m not going to be the only guy at the park anymore. It’s great for a generation of kids to have dads around.

EJW: Had you planned ahead to be a stay-at-home dad?

IM: Not exactly. When Stella was born I was working at Chicago Community Trust. It was a fantastic place to work. Even if I was just making copies, I felt like the copies were going someplace useful. I worked there for two years.

Then Atena finished grad school, and she was looking for jobs. There was a surgery coming up. We kept my job to have the surgery covered, then I quit to be home for the surgery recovery and Atena went to work as a site director in early childhood education.

Then we had four years of losing a job every year. Every year they do the state budget and something has to go. She’s educating poor children so it’s always the first thing off the budget, and if you’re the last one in the organization, you’re the first one out.

EJW: That must have been so hard.

IM: We’d been going broke from those four years. We had moved into a bigger place when we were preparing to have Duncan, and we did our best to stay in that place. It was good while we had a little boy who was crawling everywhere, but we have no savings left so we moved to a smaller place.

EJW: I recall once you talked about wanting to be a Unitarian minister some day and how you viewed these years of full-time parenting as major education for that role. Are you still interested in ministry, and what kind of wisdom have you gained from parenting so far?

IM: My perspective has changed. I won’t say I’m at a permanent place, but a lot of the church politics I’ve dealt with in the last several years [including a contentious exit for Second Unitarian’s previous settled minister] definitely made me think about how much [church politics] I’d be committing to as part of my life. It gave me some serious pause.

I looked into who was getting hired too. There are a lot of people of color and queers getting ordained but when it comes to people getting hired, it still comes down to straight men and white women getting ordained by leaps and bounds. It’s not shocking but it kind of made me reconsider.

Lately I’m thinking about how to keep some sort of sense of mission and calling to my life, to keep me engaged in life when it gets difficult. I’ve been thinking, should I be going into nursing? I used to be terrified to go into a hospital with all those sick people. Because of Stella, I have to deal with it. I’ve learned a lot of how to deal with a body going wrong and falling apart, and I’m not scared of that anymore. I might as well use it and aim toward a job that could employ me for the next few decades.

EJW: I bet you would make a great nurse. You could use model the bedside manner that you wish doctors would use with Stella.

So, you probably don’t remember this but I’ll never forget—I once asked on Facebook for friends to give me a good reason for motion-sensor sinks in public places, because I thought they were annoying and pointless. Atena responded that, having a child with special needs, the hands-free sinks made things a little easier, one less thing to reach for, when she would change Stella. Years later I always think of you guys when I use public restrooms with the kids, about how seemingly simple things can be challenging.

IM: The moral I want people to take from our story is that no parent should be putting themselves down by feeling like they have no room to complain because they see a parent coping with unknown difficulties. People have been saying they shouldn’t complain about their parenting issues to me for years, and I’m just now learning how to tell them to stop without sounding like a jerk. Usually they’re trying to be nice about something and are caught feeling awkward by complaining about parenting being hard. But parenting is apparently a humbling, deconstructing, personally abrasive, endurance race for every last person, regardless of what ails your child. And complaining is free stress relief that any parent can enjoy.

EJW: I never thought of it that way. Thanks for that perspective, Ian—and permission to moan every now and then.

So, last but not least, we’ve talked a lot about the challenges you guys face, but I know firsthand what a fantastic family you have, how fun your kids are. I’m remembering singing karaoke and dancing with Stella and Duncan when I babysat, for example. Would you like to share some of your favorite parts of parenting or some silly stories from Stella and Duncan’s world?

IM: I don’t know what stories are going to be adorable to me and insipid for anyone else. But the photo above is of Stella and me on a roller coaster over the summer. When she was born, the really horrible thing that turned into a blessing was that for at least four days, nobody would give me any indication if she had a better than even chance of living. So I had maybe 72 hours when I had to learn really quick to accept Stella, to drop my expectations, and to love who she was right then in case that was going to be it.

When they finally felt safe saying she’d survived the surgery, they didn’t want to get my hopes up. They were trying to explain the range of possibilities to me and the thing they had been trained to say to explain that she might be in a chair for life was that she would probably never ride a bicycle. It struck me as odd that three different residents all used the same example, but in my mind, the dream that I had to let go of if she couldn’t hold herself up in a chair was that she and I would never ride together on a roller coaster.

I realized that this had been a dream of mine without having understood it. So that was the way that I learned when my daughter was 72 hours old to let go of my expectations for her life and what was going to define happiness and success for her. And that is the photo of her on her very first roller coaster ride.

EJW: That is a beautiful story. I can just see you guys whooshing through the air. Thanks so much for your time in talking to me today, Ian. Please give high fives to your whole family.

And thank you for reading. As always, please share the link for theadmirationsociety.tumblr.com and send your comments to erin at erinwalter dot com or @erinjwalter.See you Monday with a new interview! - Erin

Expect to see this man on a ballot someday.

He should be easy to remember, with a name as cool as Mario Champion. (Really. E-mail me if you can think of a cooler last name. I cannot.)

Champion is the founder and director of strategy for Trails.by, an Austin, Texas, startup described as online search meets social bookmarking. But today we will talk just a tad about tech and a ton about politics.

In 2003, when his video game company, team smartyPants!, folded, Champion turned his attention to politics. He created tools for political organizing and campaigning, ran Latino and Democratic political action committees, moderated debates and caucuses, and stood around in crowd after crowd, registering people to vote.

Then, in 2008, the Obama campaign took over a big chunk of Champion’s life.

With this year’s election a couple weeks behind us, Champion and I talked about the takeaways from 2012, his hope for Obama’s second term, the GOP’s so-called “Latino problem,” and how Hispanics—or just about anyone—can and should get involved in politics. As usual, I wanted to know how my interview subject was balancing work, parenting, and his passions. (Hint: Champion probably hasn’t seen the new Twilight movie yet.)

ERIN J. WALTER: Hi, Mario. Thanks for making time to chat.

MARIO CHAMPION: Sure thing.

EJW: So how did you get so involved in politics? What sparked your interest?

MC: I got into political organizing because of Howard Dean. By 2003, people in gaming had been sending text massage blasts for years, but the Texas Democratic party was behind the times in terms of infrastructure. Along with some other folks, most notably Rep. Glenn Maxey, the first openly gay member of the Texas Legislature, we tried to bring the party into this century. We did text message blasts and created a tool for phone banking. We brought in technology where it’s appropriate—because hey, it exists! It’s not magic. If you want 20,000 people to be somewhere at 7pm, send a text message reminder at 6:35.

EJW: I know you’ve been heavily involved in the last two presidential election campaigns. I remember seeing your picture in the newspaper with a bunch of Obama signs. What were your roles in the campaigns?

MC: For the 2008 election, I was a co-founder of Texans for Obama. We started by organizing a 22,000-person rally on Auditorium Shores that took place in mid-February 2007, about 10 days after Obama announced he was running for president. We organized and helped people understand the two-step primary process. [Texas is the only state to hold both primaries and caucuses. As the Houston Chronicle put it, “Texans just have to be different.”]

I talked to and trained hundreds, if not thousands, of people. I went all the way through from neighborhood captain, precinct delegate, county delegate, state delegate, to national delegate to the Democratic Party. It was quite competitive to go to the convention in Denver. I also ended up with ticket to the inauguration, but I didn’t go because my daughter Eliana was born 10 days later. I still have the ticket though.

[Champion’s wife, poet and teacher Laurie Filipelli, wrote about being pregnant and struggling over health care during the time her husband was becoming a locally renowned Obama organizer. The story is available at Open Salon.]

EJW: How did you juggle parenthood and politics this time around?

MC: Last time, 2008, was way more about spending time than money. Now having a kid, having a full-time job running a start-up, it was easier to give more money instead.

I went on a media diet for the last three weeks of the campaign, because if I had time to watch movies or read books, I had time to make phone calls. Watching movies and reading books were not going to help me sleep at night.

EJW: I saw on Facebook that you were busy with phone banking.

MC: The calling tool that Barack Obama had made it easy to phone bank. You log in and get a personal script. “Have you decided whom you’re supporting? Have you voted yet?” The scripts depend on the time of election season. Sometimes you’re trying to persuade them. Sometimes you’re just collecting information.

Texas is not really at play — hopefully 2016, 2018, it’s a long process — but this time around, I can’t just sit here in Texas and wring my hands. I would check the fivethirtyeight blog and I would call a state that looked like it was close. Texas was steered to call Florida. I called Florida 90 percent of the time. Other than that, I called Nevada.

EJW: In the last election, when I was living in Chicago, I would go downtown to a campaign office after work and make calls all evening, turn in paper notes about what people said, eat snacks in the kitchen with other volunteers, and then take the train home when it was too late at night to call anymore — very old-school. But you could do your calls from home, right?

MC: Yeah. Sometimes it’s nice for the camaraderie to go to a volunteer office, but it takes 20 minutes to get there and 20 minutes to get back. In 40 minutes, I could call a lot of people.

If you call 100 people, you’ll probably talk to 10, and five of those you’ll have real conversations with. It’s just a brute force thing.

People get called over and over and over. Sometimes it’s the wrong number and we don’t know because so many people don’t put their name on the answering machine. Here’s a tip: Put your name and whom you’re voting for on your answering machine and we’ll stop calling you, like “This is Erin and I’m supporting Obama and the Democrats. Please stop calling.” And they will.

EJW: Ha! I’ll remember that if I ever live in a swing state. Other than the time-versus-money shift, how was this election different than the previous one for you?

MC: You probably ask ten people, you’ll get 20 answers. The first campaign, I’ll freely admit, it was emotional. It was historic. I felt I played a role as much I could and got as many people as possible to play their roles. I take a lot of pride in having played my role.  

This one was a little less historic but more important, given Obamacare and all that could mean. It’s also important because when people turn out for elections under age 30 and vote the same way three times, they tend to build that identity for the rest of their lives. Young voter turnout is extremely important for setting a pattern. I felt that the importance in this election was to show whether people still believed we were on an upward trend.

Up until 2008, I talked to thousands of individuals, many many thousands around the country, and the number one reason people said they didn’t vote was that it doesn’t matter. It’s hard to connect that discrete act of voting with all the policies and the years it takes for something to happen. For me, this election was important for people to see that their vote mattered.

From an electioneering point of view, Romney was just a bad candidate. He lied or he misunderstood or shifted position. If he’d won after saying things that don’t add up and not going deep into them, it would have said that people really don’t vote on merit. Then people might think lying doesn’t matter, or that their vote doesn’t matter. It would drive down voting. It would be detrimental to this country. Having fewer people involved is not helpful.

EJW: You were involved with a political action committee a few years ago. What was that experience like?

MC: I ran an organization called Latinos for Texas, and it was the Hispanic outreach arm of Howard Dean’s Democracy for America. Another PAC I ran was called Turn Texas Blue.

Both sides of my family have been in Texas since before it was Texas. My father’s side was Italian, and my mother’s side was Spanish and American Indian from the [Rio Grande] Valley. But culturally speaking I grew up in a white, middle class suburb of Houston. My parents make tamales at Christmas but I don’t know that that’s particularly ethnic. Maybe it’s more Texas-related.

So I was surprised by how much identity politics exists—that LGBT caucuses were such a big thing, the Asian-American caucus, etcetera. I mean, you hear it on the news, “the black caucus,” but I was surprised by what a big deal those groups really are.

I think it’s misguided, personally. When we ran our PAC, we would say “it’s not Texas for Latinos, it’s Latinos for Texas.” The goal was to show people that they’re part of the system whether they know it or not. We didn’t always support a Hispanic candidate. We tried to support those that had our interests in mind — education and employment. Hispanic voters put those two at the top and they go hand in hand. To Hispanics, education is seen as the mechanism to employment and success, because there’s not a personal lot of money. Education makes it happen.

EJW: “Hope” was a keyword in the two Obama presidential campaigns. How hopeful were you along the way this time? Was it a rollercoaster during the series of debates?

MC: It was of course a rollercoaster, but I believe in the data, not “the vibes” and so Nate Silver [of fivethirtyeight] and the Princeton Election Consortium helped smooth down the hills. Even more so, giving time and money gives me hope. I could never just sit it out and hope it all went well.

[It’s no coincidence that Eliana Champion’s middle name is Hope.]

EJW: Now that you’re no longer on media blackout, what do you think are the big takeaways from the post-election analysis?

MC: My self-imposed media blackout was entertainment media. I wasn’t reading books or watching movies. I checked fivethirtyeight and several other sites every day.

The biggest takeaway I’ve seen is around the issue of the right-leaning bubble that preferred opinion over best-effort, actual data analysis. We can all like opinion and it’s hard not to fall for confirmation bias, but you just can’t do that at the highest levels when dealing with something as complex as 50 state elections. Elections are way more about physical tactics than comforting opinion, as this one showed.

EJW: Almost as soon as the election was called for Obama that night, pundits and Republicans themselves started talking about the GOP’s “Latino problem.” Why do you think more Latinos supported Obama?

MC: The mini-DREAM Act was certainly a positive for Obama. It just seems immoral to kick kids out of the only country and culture they’ve ever known, rather than to defer action so they have a chance to contribute to what they consider their country. But at least as much as that, the whole fear and scapegoating tone from the Republican primary with its “self-deportation” comments through to the 47% comments just don’t work in favor of many types of people supporting the GOP.

The economy is doing better, the trend line is positive, and almost everyone not blinded by partisan politics sees that and lays much of the blame for getting us into that mess on the Bush policies and wars. So I think Latinos, among other segments, have the basis to give Obama more time to continue what certainly seems to be the right set of decisions on the economy and employment, two issues that always rate at the top of Latino concerns.

EJW: What do you think it will take for most Latinos to vote Democratic three times in a row and build that habit you talked about?

MC: I think the economy needs to improve at a near-continuous pace for most of the next four years. Obama and Democrats need to lead a comprehensive immigration reform push. Expect the moderate Republicans to jump on this bandwagon as well, and that would be great! Do something about student loan debt, and no new wars would help as well.

EJW: Obama mentioned in his acceptance speech that politics is not just about egos and special interests. What would you say to encourage others to get involved in politics? Are you hoping Latinos see this as a time to start flexing more political muscle?

MC: Until you have kids or real debt from a home or student loans, it’s often hard to see how even local politics matter. I think the national press is doing a service this cycle by amplifying the role Latinos played in this election and really highlighting the possibilities for Latinos or any organized group to shape political structures. People like to be on a winning team, so the story might become self-fulfilling by sparking action and involvement.

The education as to how politics—national and local—make an impact in your daily life is best handled person to person, on the ground, by your friends, not from TV ad wars that come for six months every four years.

EJW: Speaking of four years, what do you hope the Obama administration accomplishes this term?

MC: A more solid economy that can weather the storms from Europe including real efforts to link and reform energy and environmental policy, comprehensive immigration reform, full Obamacare implementation including the exchanges and no pre-existing conditions, meaningful student loan reform, no more wars unless really necessary.

EJW: Obviously, he won’t be able to get all that done alone. What’s next for you, as far as political volunteering or organizing? 

MC: A little break, but I’m planning on putting my name in the hat for the 10-1 commission (a citizen panel that will draw new city council districts in Austin), so we’ll see what happens. I’ll certainly give money to the folks I support. The giving of time will depend on how compelling they are!

EJW: Let’s talk compelling people! What’s your dream ticket for 2016?

MC: Ha! Too early, but Hillary I think would be a shoe-in if she wants it. Cuomo seems a possibility for some role, although I think it’s too early for [San Antonio Mayor] Julian Castro or [Newark Mayor] Cory Booker on the national stage. I’d expect them to play state roles for sure—or at least try. I wouldn’t be surprised if L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa or Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick had some role, although those are such Democratic states that I’m not sure the national pull they could muster.

Really, it’s hard to say. 

EJW: Do you plan to run for office someday?

MC: It’s very likely, but much later. Before Eliana was born, I was planning a city council run and had started gathering grassroots and elected supporters, but Laurie got pregnant and there was no way I was going to miss being here with Laurie and Eliana as much as possible. 

EJW: Thanks so much, Mario. Good luck on whatever is next.

And as always, thanks to you for reading! Please share the link for theadmirationsociety.tumblr.com and send your comments to erin at erinwalter dot com or @erinjwalter. See you Monday with a new interview! - Erin

Where in the world is Laura Roeder today? My best guess is London, but the truth is she could be anywhere. Online albums show her in Italy, Spain, Costa Rica, South Africa, and Argentina, just to name a few.

Laura has crafted an adventurer’s ideal career: she works where she wants, when she wants (not unlike Mr. Four-Hour Work Week Tim Ferriss or last week’s Admiration Society interview subject, Fug Girl Heather Cocks). That kind of flexibility benefits not just young travelers but all kinds of workers—mothers and fathers who want more time with the kids, Baby Boomers who care for aging parents, people dealing with temporary or longterm health issues, and pretty much everyone who doesn’t want to work ungodly hours for The Man for the rest of their lives. Laura is her own boss and an expert in a field she enjoys, and she helps other people build that kind of career, too.

LKR Social Media uses videos, webinars, newsletters, blog posts, and discussion boards to teach other entrepreneurs how to use online tools to build their businesses. In 2011, Laura was named one of the United States’ top 100 entrepreneurs under age 30 and was honored at the White House, where she spoke about her dedication to entrepreneurship and its role in improving the economy. (She also managed to get a plug in for volunteerism and sustainable food co-ops.)

World travel and work-life balance may sound like a pipe dream for most industries, but Laura says flexible hours and telecommuting are far more functional—and could become more widespread—than we think. Of course, I wanted to know more.

I sat down with Laura in Austin, Texas, where she grew up, to talk about the nuts and bolts—and benefits—of structuring a flexible career and lifestyle.

ERIN J. WALTER: I’m so interested in how people with cool careers got started, and in how we all grow and change in unexpected ways. So lately I love to start by asking, what did you want to be when you were growing up?

LAURA ROEDER: Hmm. I remember for a while I thought I wanted to be a speechwriter.

EJW: For whom?

LR: I guess for politicians. [Laughs] I don’t think I really thought that through. I guess I thought it would be nice to write speeches but not have to give them.

It sounded easier than writing a book.

EJW: I love that that’s the standard you were working off of – what’s easier than writing a book? So did you study politics or writing in college?

LR: I studied advertising at the University of Texas. After school I came to Chicago because my boyfriend at the time was living there. I was looking for a job as a designer, which was much harder than I thought it would be because I hadn’t been to art school. I didn’t really have a portfolio. I had design jobs when I was in college, like at the Daily Texan, but I didn’t realize that other people would have gone to art school and spent four years making these amazing portfolios.

In the end, I made that work in my favor though. I was able to market myself as a designer who understood advertising and marketing because I didn’t go to art school.

EJW: Smart. I’d love to hear about your journey to entrepreneurship.

LR: I was working at an agency as a junior designer, because it was my first job out of college. I really liked working with the clients on the marketing campaign and concepts, and I was lucky that I was at a small agency and got to sit in on those meetings. But I thought, when am I going to be able to work on that level? When you’re a designer, that’s like five career steps up. I thought, “That’s a long time. It’s going to be ten years. That doesn’t sound fun. What if I work for myself? I could do it right now. I could do everything myself for better or worse.” I wanted to go into business for myself so I could skip over those ten years.

EJW: How did you take the leap?

LR: At first, I tried to go part-time at my job, thinking that would be a good, happy medium. I had that all set up to go and right before they called me in and said, no, that’s not going to work. And so I quit. It was good that it gave me the impetus to quit, because it’s scary and maybe I wouldn’t have otherwise.

It was weird because they couldn’t afford me and it would have been win-win for me to go part-time. In hindsight, I think it was like, wait a minute, she gets to have her cake and eat it too. I really think it was just people not liking that I would get to do this.

EJW: Why do you think more companies don’t embrace flexible options?

LR: I think one reason is other employees get jealous. It doesn’t really make sense because everyone has the option, but not everyone takes advantage. But it quickly gets into the realm of gender and motherhood. [Traditional office hours and culture] make it very hard for parents to work. It’s this old way of doing business where you pretend you don’t have a family; you pretend the rest of your life doesn’t exist. Which is really weird because so many people are parents—that’s just how life progresses.

In my company, everybody works from home. You just get your stuff done when you have time. You may or may not have a toddler in your lap. I don’t care.

I think a lot of companies are afraid of change in general. There are those few old-school people who think whoever is in the office latest is doing the best job. And it really throws off their whole world if not everybody subscribes to that.

EJW: I remember reading somewhere that once you work from home, you can’t justify your importance to the company through socializing or being friends around the water cooler. You can’t pretend to be working by “looking busy.” The quality of your work has to speak for itself, which is really what makes a company productive and successful. I found that very interesting. How is your company structured so that you all work together well from afar?

LR: Right now we have people in New Jersey, New York, Washington, and California, and me in Texas right now. Four are full-time employees and one is an independent contractor. Everyone started as contractors. It’s only this year that they transitioned to full-time.

EJW: What do those people all do?

LR: We have someone who does customer service full time. We have someone who’s a developer who makes our web sites and puts it all together. We have someone who is a project manager and facilitates everything happening. We have someone who is creating the actual courses. I used to do that all myself. And now we have someone who heads up our content marketing.

We’re all in different time zones. We do a team call on Mondays that we’re all on. Otherwise we don’t talk on the phone much. We do email, when people can respond on their own time. Everybody’s working together, but on their own time in their own way, and the Internet makes that incredibly easy.

EJW: You’ve changed your business and business model over time. Why is that?

LR: When I first quit my job, I was doing design. I was designing web sites and marketing materials for local businesses, just under my name, Roeder Studios. I did that for about two years. I really saw that it could not grow as much as I wanted to, and I was at capacity and I wanted to make more money. I didn’t want to start an agency. Social media was becoming a popular thing that lots of clients were talking about. People were telling me, “You can get paid for telling people how to use social media.” I was like “that’s stupid.” But I started doing consulting, and once I found the model of teaching classes online, I was like, “oh this is it for me. This is easy”.

You have to pay attention to what feels easy and just do that. Some people feel like consulting is easy, but it was hard for me—getting contracts—but I’d open up a class and it would just fill up. I did my first class about Twitter in 2009 and that went so well.

The business is all bootstrapped, no investment, and you have to add your employees really carefully and gradually when you do it that way. You have to start out with part-time, independent contractors, interns, and then those people evolve and grow with your company.

EJW: How do you create one of your online classes?

LR: Recently I was talking to someone and they were like, “what’s your studio like?” And I was like, “Nope!” We’ll buy a $50 microphone. There’s software called Screenflow to record your screen on a Mac. We use Keynote, which is like Powerpoint for Mac, to make slides explaining what’s up, and Prezi for making animations explaining things. The training videos don’t show a person, just a screen. They’re so easy to create. There’s no lighting or anything.

EJW: Who are your customers?

LR: They’re just individuals who own businesses. Most of our customers are very small businesses, one-person businesses. Maybe they’re a yoga teacher or a CPA and they want to learn how to do social media. It’s mostly people just buying a class for themselves, to teach themselves.

What I think is really exciting about social media is businesses can do it on their own. It’s a really empowering, free way to promote a business. You can have a profitable business just getting customers through social media.

We tend to have a lot of people who provide services they can do anywhere because a lot of people who come to us want to transition to an online business. I’ve even come across yoga teachers who do Skype classes or an architect—you can do that from anywhere. We get a lot of business consultants, health coaches, and then people who also have a similar model to me who have some kind of training or information online.

EJW: What has most surprised you about your career?

LR: You never feel like, “Oh, I got this down. I have just figured everything out. I’m done learning things.” The business is doing well, but you always want to grow it. Even if you’ve found a place you’re happy with, I still don’t think you can quite settle there. I think that’s when it starts going downhill.

It’s like having a new business every year. It gets easier. It gets stable. But you are reinventing a lot, in my experience.

EJW: What have you sacrificed for your career?

LR: I feel like my life is really good. I’ve chosen how I want my life to be and that’s awesome. I lot of people feel like their jobs are more stable, but I don’t know it that’s true.

EJW: You’ve set up your job so that you can travel. Why is that so important to you?

LR: Having freedom in my life is really important to me. What makes me enjoy my life is to basically be able to do whatever I want. Obviously I have commitments that I’ve chosen. But I love not having everything super planned. I love being able to pick up and just be gone.

This is the first year I’ve really traveled full-time and not lived anywhere.

EJW: That is so cool. How do you pull that off? Where do you live?

LR: Mostly I’m getting furnished rentals.  But that gets old after a while because you are in other people’s stuff. I just want one chair—one chair that’s mine.

It’s very freeing but it’s also hard. I can’t buy anything. I can’t buy clothes. I already have too many. I look at a top and think, “I’d like to buy a shirt but I can’t.”

What I would like to do is own a house. Once you own it, you can sublet it while you’re gone. That’s my ideal. Having that as a home base. You can do things like trading houses or renting it out on airbnb.

EJW: What would you say to employees or employers who read this and think, “Good for her, but that would never work at my company”?

LR: It’s no longer true that you pick a city and live there your whole life. People move around so much. I have an employee in L.A. and her husband got a job in Seattle. That I would lose her just because he got a job, and they’d have this difficult choice to make, that sucks. Thankfully that’s not how we do things.

If you’re a person who works on the Internet, you can probably work anywhere. And most people I know with office jobs, that’s what they’re doing all day. You’re going into an office and working on the computer and the Internet. It’s possible for so many companies. It is just really important to establish how you’re going to communicate online. You can’t just send somebody to work from home and think it will work the same.

EJW: Thanks so much, Laura! Hope to see you back in Austin soon.

And as always, thank you for reading! Please share theadmirationsociety.tumblr.com and send your comments to erin at erinwalter dot com or @erinjwalter. See you Monday with a new interview! - Erin