Interview: Mayim Bialik
Danielle Cantor for JW magazine, March 2012
It’s been just over two years since we last spoke with Mayim Bialik, the actress who charmed America in the early 1990s as the title character on the NBC series Blossom. Since then, Bialik has indeed bloomed—from child star to accomplished neuroscientist, public advocate of holistic parenting, author and still a successful actress, lately seen as Amy Farrah Fowler on the CBS hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory. Bialik’s experience using attachment parenting to raise her two young sons—tenets of the practice include baby-wearing, nursing, gentle discipline and co-sleeping—has led her to become the official spokesperson for the Holistic Moms Network. In her first book, Beyond the Sling: A Real-Life Guide to Raising Confident, Loving Children the Attachment Parenting Way (Touchstone Hardcover/Simon & Schuster), Bialik shares her parenting methods from a practical, personal, relatable perspective—experience backed up by medical and psychological research. “This approach is about understanding your child’s needs, your needs, and the basics of human development,” she says, “an attachment that will stay with you no matter what style of parenting you draw on.” Beyond the Sling will be available in March 2012.
What inspired you to write the new book?
Actually, I’m sort of an accidental writer. I started writing for Kveller.com, which is a Jewish parenting website, and that’s where I found my voice as a writer, and also a way to present the style of parenting we happened to choose in a way that hopefully doesn’t offend people, because I don’t think that’s helpful for anyone. From that I became this unofficial spokesperson for attachment parenting. I’m involved with the Holistic Moms Network, so obviously I have been called on to be that sort of face, but it was really through Kveller that it started getting out there. I was interviewed by Teresa Strasser, who’s a writer and a comedian, and she said, “My lit rep wants to meet you; he thinks you have a book.” I was thinking, “I don’t want to write a book; I don’t know how to write a book.” But four months later we had a proposal, and Simon & Schuster won the bidding war, and now we have a book. I basically think of it as a series of essays about what our house looks like, from birth to discipline. It really is more our experience and what works for us, not necessarily a traditional parenting book that tells anyone how to parent.
Do you hear from a lot of mothers asking for help? Does anyone reach out to you with criticism?
My training is in neuroscience, so although I am a “celebrity,” this isn’t simply a celebrity parenting book. I am someone who studied the hormones of attachment, and I have used my studies to inform what I believe is instinctive: The need to be with your child and care for your child and to shun concepts of spoiling them when they’re newborns. I got my certification in lactation—I’m a lactation educator/counselor—so I do get questions specifically about breastfeeding and things like that. I really consider myself an expert on my children alone. I don’t know how to parent anyone else’s. But there is a lot that can be learned from this style of parenting even if it’s not what you want to embrace wholeheartedly. There’s a lot of complexity in the attachment parenting community about the fact that my boys have been “entered into the covenant”—circumcision is a big no-no in the holistic community—and I’ve come under public attack several times for that. Most people have no idea that it’s the hot-button issue in holistic circles. People will have as their email signature, for example, “Mom of Two, Anti-Circ.” Outside of Los Angeles and San Francisco, most people can’t believe that I would publicly be called a child mutilator, but many people have asked for me to taken down as the spokesperson. It’s strange to think, as someone who is very publicly observant, that it might be that kind of issue. But I guess it is.
How is the experience of being on a hit TV show different for you now than it was when you were a child actor?
The industry has changed so much. I don’t think it’s gotten any easier for women. But I think now that I’m an adult, I have a different perspective, now that I’m doing it on my own terms and I get to set my own schedule and life without the supervision of my parents. Also, because I have kids, my life is really about them. As I like to say, part of my brain and heart is always anchored to my kids, no matter what I’m doing. That makes it easier to get over all the politics and bumps and bruises that occur in my industry. I don’t mean that I don’t put a lot of thought and effort into it, or that things don’t matter, but at the end of the day what really matters is what’s for dinner and who’s tucking us in and how much cuddle time did we get.
Are you continuing your work as a neuroscientist now?
No, The Big Bang Theory is my everyday all-day job, on weeks that we work. I do teach in our homeschool community, specifically for the Jewish homeschoolers. I teach neuroscience for junior high and high school. For the past couple of years, I’ve also taught biology and chemistry. I still am asked to speak for science organizations, but I always loved teaching, so I’m really happy that I get to keep doing that.
What’s next?
I’m working regularly on The Big Bang Theory and the book comes out in March, my boys are 6 and 3 years old… and that’s my life. I started working on a second book, which I can’t talk about, but it’s exciting. I still write a lot for Kveller, and once the book comes out, there’ll be a lot of publicity for that. I do a lot of speaking engagements, and I’m being asked more and more to do that. I was in the Maccabeats Chanukah video—that was pretty exciting. We did a big tie-in to raise money for Gift of Life, which is an organ and blood donation nationwide organization. It’s been great to do that in connection with a mitzvah project. It’s nice to give money to charities, but by becoming a registered donor for Gift of Life you can literally save someone’s life, often by a simple blood donation. You don’t always have to have surgery to be a donor. But honestly, after being connected with this organization and hearing these stories, I would gladly have a minor surgical procedure if I could give a child an immune system they weren’t born with.