Jane Kaczmarek on Being a Real-Life Mom |
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by Emily Graham
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You may know her as Lois, the take-charge mom on Malcolm in the Middle,
or the voice of tough Judge Constance Harm on The Simpsons. At home,
Jane Kaczmarek is a hands-on mom to three young children with a full
schedule of school events, music lessons, and ballet classes.
Before pursuing an acting career, Jane trained to be a teacher, like
her mother and brother. Now she’s actively involved in the education of
her children, 9-year-old Frances, 7-year-old George, and 4-year-old
Mary Louisa.
 When she’s not busy with the kids, Jane works with Clothes Off Our Back, the
foundation she started with her husband, actor Bradley Whitford (The
West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip). Clothes Off Our Back raises
money for children’s charities through online auctions of clothes worn
by celebrities. To date, it has raised nearly $2 million for groups
such as the Children’s Defense Fund and Cure Autism Now.
We caught up with Jane at her home in Pasadena, Calif., right after she
took Mary Louisa to prekindergarten. She talked with us about balancing
work and family life, why she doesn’t watch television, and why she
still loves going to school.
QBoth you and Brad got degrees before becoming professional actors. How do you impart the value you place on education to your children?
I was in graduate school until I was 26. I was very sorry to say goodbye to education. I love school. It’s been my greatest joy now that I’ve got free time. I’ve taken just about every music history class at the Pasadena Conservatory of Music. I’m now taking art classes at the Armory in Pasadena.
We also love music. I play the piano and my husband plays the viola. Music education is big. The kids have been in music classes since they were 18 months old. All three kids play the piano, and Frances also plays the cello. I think when you see that your parents really appreciate it and love it and participate in it, in our experience anyway, it’s been a pretty easy thing to impart to the children.
We also don’t watch television! I hate to sound like one of those nutty people, but we have one television in our house. It’s in a room way over on the other side of the house so it’s just never on and you have to walk over to that room to turn it on. Sometimes after they practice, read, take their baths, maybe there’s a half an hour at the end of the day, and we TiVo things so they can watch a half an hour of something. I can’t think of any greater decision we’ve made as parents than not having the television on. It’s odd because we make a living in television, but there are so many other things I’d rather be doing.
QHow do you stay involved in your kids’ education?
The two older children are at a K-12 private school and we moved out to Pasadena because of this school, frankly. We bought a house where they can walk to school, which is very unusual these days. We have a bicycle with two tandems on it and Brad often, when he has time, will ride them on the bike. I walk Mary Louisa to her preK.
I will volunteer to drive [for field trips]. They also have a hot lunch program, which is very different from my hot lunch program where you paid 25 cents and you got a hot lunch. The mothers have to volunteer and serve the hot lunches, and they’re very good, so I will do that. What I’m very good at is silent auctions. I get so much stuff, free stuff, and I always have a basement full of things to donate to the silent auctions. I get so much stuff that’s wonderful, but I don’t need it. I love that we sell it for good causes.
I do know some moms that all they do is live for their kids and the school, and I think there’s a fine line between being on call for your children 24 hours a day and maintaining some kind of individual existence.
Also, Brad and I always said, too, that the reason acting became so important to us was it was totally our thing. Our parents weren’t involved in it at all. I had a teacher in high school who thought I had potential to become a professional actor and, you know, in the ’70s it was like saying you were going to be an astronaut. Nobody became an actor. He would find classes for me and I would take my baby-sitting money and get the bus schedule and figure out how to ride my bike or take the bus to downtown Milwaukee to take these classes. It was really my thing, so if I pursued it, it was because I really wanted to do it, not because I had a parent that was pushing me. The same thing with Brad. I see so many parents now who are so invested in children succeeding in things or doing things only because it’s going to look good on a college application, and we just really try not to do that.
QIt must have been hard staying involved with the kids when you were both filming TV shows.
I can’t imagine, with the three children I have, ever going back to work full time. We had a battalion of nannies who were extremely good and hands-on, and I never worried that my children weren’t being well taken care of, but when Malcolm ended and I looked at what was going on in my children’s lives without me, I was just stunned. It sounds naive in a way, but I can’t believe how full their lives are. And I missed a big portion of that, of their very small childhood by just never being around. I get such pleasure now out of braiding my children’s hair in the mornings and putting on their nightgowns at night and drying their hair after baths, and you know, that’s why I had kids. I love being a mother.
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