family tree
I took more time off after the birth of my son. I had friends who went right back to work after having a baby, and they really regretted it. I thought, You know what? I’ve made money. I built and rebuilt a career so that I could have this. So I gave myself time to find my sea legs. Once again, I switched genres from country artist to mom. I poured all of my creativity and energy into my exciting new job. As he grew I began to make art inspired by my new muse, writing several children’s books. I did not make a new record and would not for six years.
That’s a lifetime in rock and roll years. But I wanted to figure out how to be a mom without having to figure out how to be a professional on top of it. As ever, my greatest highs are simultaneously my greatest lows. My relationship with Ty began crumbling. It was a great time and also a sad time all at once. I loved getting to know Kase. There were a lot of things I was fascinated by. There were some I was a little terrified by. I remember holding him on the couch, watching TV while I fed him. It’s funny that the natural world has always been what’s educated me and given me the greatest insights into living. I was watching an orangutan cuddle her baby. She snuggled it and licked it and watched it play and touched it and kept it from wandering away as it playfully explored. And I thought, Oh, yeah. That’s all it is. I remember feeling completely calm after that. I just have to lick my cub and get to know him. I just have to be here and engage.
New mothers have this misconception that they’re going to immediately have a very storybook, specific type of love for their child. And you do in many ways—you would die for them instantly and you do all kinds of crazy things that you normally wouldn’t because it’s your child. You’re bonded at birth—but you also fall in love over time, and I didn’t know that. You discover each other. And you can’t beat yourself up that you’re not in love yet. And your baby isn’t in love with you yet. They don’t know enough to be in love with you yet. But as a mom, I can’t help thinking you have an advantage. They know your voice, they lived in your tummy. You know them in a certain way, but still it’s an unfolding and it really is a relationship that develops. There’s a billion chemicals helping you do it, but it really is a slow falling in love and I enjoyed that once I realized it.
Having Kase was the first time in my life that I had unconditional love. I’d never had that. And surprisingly, everything I’d experienced in my crazy life along with my natural creativity actually made me a great mom. It wasn’t the opposite. Being willing to look at something I don’t know and lean into it and get excited about it, cultivating my listening skills, my intuition, my ability to look inward and feel for something, feel for somebody, feel for an audience—that sixth sense would make me a good mom. I was surprised. And I also began to see that my artistic approach would help in my childrearing. Artists are very comfortable having nothing and knowing that soon something would be coming from that nothing. As an artist you really learn to get comfortable with that idea: “I don’t have a song right now but by tomorrow I will.” Whether you’re male or female, there is fertile possibility within you. That unformed dark matter is the fabric of the universe that art is made from, and our job as artists is to physically manifest and put matter around thought. All artists give birth. It’s alchemy and it’s really an amazing process. As a creative person you get a tremendous sense of security over time with the concept of having nothing and trusting something will come. It terrifies everyone else. In the music industry there are a lot of executives who will say, “We have a fourth-quarter budget, and we have no music—where is it going to come from?” They try to rely on statistics and math to contrive a sense of security, but if you impose that on art, then the real dysfunction happens. Parenting is the same way. You have nothing, you’re just terrified. But if you can get comfortable with the concept that from nothing something will come, if you can learn to let go of control, you can start to engage and be part of the otherworldly creation in front of you. You have to have faith.
Before you have a baby, you have an ego, an image of yourself that’s been built up over time. You have an identity forged in the ways you define beauty, sexuality, romance, success, the who and how and why of your self-worth. And when you have a child, you literally just take a hammer to it. The center of the universe is changed, and you have to redefine who you are relative to this new addition in your life. Sex and what’s sexy to you are no longer the same. What’s romantic to you is no longer the same. Everything is redefined. I saw all my new mom friends go through a sadness other than postpartum depression: it is grieving the loss of your old self, of who you used to be. It’s very real and nobody talks about it. We mourn the loss of freedom and identity, and we must discover and redefine what makes us feel beautiful, sexy, supported, romanced, successful. We really lose who we were and that ego is dead to us forever—and that’s okay, we wouldn’t change it for the world, but to not talk about it and not acknowledge it makes you feel crazy and it makes you feel sad. Knowing this makes things easier and less scary. Before I had Kase, I sat down and made a list of the things that up to that point had defined me. I then started a new list with a blank space next to each one. I didn’t know what all the answers were yet, but I knew I would discover them with time.
BEAUTY IS ______
SUCCESS IS ______
SEXY IS ______
SUPPORT IS ______
A PARTNER IS ______
A MOM IS ______
You have to give yourself space to learn what the new definitions are—you don’t know overnight. I was a new piece of art. I was a work in progress. I wrote about all this before Kase arrived, and it really prepared me to have a baby. I was able to engage creatively, I was able to grieve the loss without wondering what it all meant or if I was depressed. I was just grieving a part of me and getting to know a new one. I had to let myself go through a process. In the past my sense of self-worth had come from accomplishing career goals, but I knew it would have to come from different places now. My goals were different. What I didn’t realize was that men have a death of the ego all their own. I didn’t realize it for quite a while and then I watched Ty deal with it and I watched other wives’ husbands struggle after childbirth. Men don’t have great role models for what true masculinity is. Neither sex does, really. Not pumped-up machismo, but a yielding and supportive partner and provider who lifts a family rather than lives at the center of it. In general, men start as boys who are idolized by their moms and they’re the center of their universe. They’re little kings. They grow up and when they meet a woman who falls in love with them, who makes them feel like a king, they generally fall in love. A woman in a new relationship with no kids has time and energy to dedicate to making her man feel like a king, and they think, “I want to get married.”
When a woman has a baby, however, her time and energy are redirected, as they must be, and the man can feel suddenly insignificant and emasculated. And this is where grown-up boys are invited to become full-grown men. To redefine themselves. Both parents have to redefine and share their new self-images with each other so that they can adjust to new information and continue to know who their partner is and what they need.
Women who aren’t aware of this will try to build up their flailing sense of self-worth by looking for imperfections in their partner. The man who is not in touch with this process feels demoted, and it can create a really horrible dynamic as they look for other ways to reclaim their throne. It can slowly burn like this until love gets used up. The successful parents I saw were able to redefine who they were and renegotiate their needs and roles as humans, parents, and partners.
I spent a lot of time thinking about this concept, about redefining myself and communicating my new needs, as well as what kind of parent I wanted to be. And what kind of family I came from. I was worried I’d carry on some legacies I did not cherish. That I might be impatient, for instance, like my dad had been. I hoped I’d done enough work on my own Emotional English, but had to take a long hard look at my patterns. I had to admit that in my professional life I could be irritable and lean toward perfectionism. I wondered whether it would come into my parenting. I’ve worked hard to make sure it hasn’t. I am patient and have learned to embrace the process, and see so many similarities between Kase and me—I would never criticize my son for not knowing how to do something he has yet to learn. I teach him, and in the process I am able to be kinder and more generous with myself. Loving my son has helped me to love myself more.
Boundaries were another issue. My parents didn’t have many, and I’ve done enough work to understand how important firm, healthy, and clear boundaries are for my child. It’s a very loving act to give your child consistent boundaries. And just when you figure one thing out, it changes altogether. Parenting is constant readjustment. When I am comfortable with that, it makes parenting more fun. We learn together. Nobody is perfect, nobody knows what they’re doing. If you have too much ego and brittleness and perfectionism, you struggle more as a parent. I need to be willing to be uncomfortable and yet excited and energized to figure it out. I have had no plan for being a mom and career woman, no magic formula for balancing work and motherhood, but I know that I am a mom, and I am a singer and a writer who loves her child, and that’s all I need to guide my decisions each day. I feel my way through it as I go. My growth and evolution as a human matters to me, and so does my art, but I know it’s unacceptable for my son to feel like he loses out so that I can be more famous. He is my priority, I have not quit being creative for my son, but how I go about my job has definitely changed. I know there are many ways of succeeding and meeting everyone’s needs.
Already there are striking differences between my current lifestyle and how I was raised. I was raised poor in a far corner of the remote north. My son will be raised by two parents with money and stability, right smack-dab in the middle of pop culture. I learned my values from nature, and from having nothing that I was entitled to—I had to earn it all. There was no backup plan, no allowance, no safety net. How will I teach my son those values when I have money, when all his needs will be met, when he will be around affluence and other kids who may feel entitled? How can I teach him that hard work is not just an option? That fame is not reason enough to be liked? That you have to treat everyone equally, to respect their inherent dignity and worth, and to judge people on their actions not their accolades. I know the answer is by setting a good example. The greatest responsibility parenting brings is in living my life as the kind of human I want him to know.
I’m learning that if I set Kase up to win, in the sense that if I tell him what’s expected of him ahead of time and break those expectations down into small steps, he does really well. Kids don’t know the definition of large concepts like sharing. They hear the word and don’t know what the rules to sharing are, yet we expect them to know. I learned to tell my son that when a friend is coming over to play, we will share our toys. Sharing means that if you have a toy in your hand, you may keep it. When you set it down, someone else can play with it and we may not take it from him. We will take turns. When we go out to eat, I will tell him about the good manners I expect from him. Nice manners mean looking a waitress in the eye and saying “hi” when she walks up. It means telling her what kind of juice you want. It means saying “please.” In a restaurant I will say, “Okay, we get to practice our first good manner! Let’s look her in the eye and say ‘hello!’” Kase will be so excited and prepared for each manner that he swells with pride as he tries each one. I am learning to build confidence in my child from the inside out. A gift I was never given but learned through the privilege of being his mom.
Kase recently went to his first show of mine, and so I was careful to explain the manners that would be expected of him. Being quiet was the first one. No loud talking, I explained, we use our best listening. And so he wouldn’t get startled, I told him to expect everyone to clap at the end of songs. The show was in Vegas. I was singing at a convention at 10 a.m., a perfect non-nap, non-bedtime showtime! He sat with Lee the whole time and was so quiet and well behaved. The one thing I didn’t anticipate was how closely he would listen to the anecdotes I tell between songs. I told my stories about hitchhiking and Mexico and shoplifting and after the show he asked, “What do you mean, mommy stole? What’s hitchhiking?” I had a lot of explaining to do.
I talk to him a lot about choices and about how each day is full of choices. We don’t always make the right choices but we always have another chance to make a better choice. Choices don’t make you a good or bad person, I tell him; there are just good and bad choices. Hard thing to explain to a three-year-old why I stole, but I love that being a great parent doesn’t mean being perfect. Being human is okay. We will all make mistakes and it’s how we adjust the attitude we have toward them that measures success. I’m learning to love my mistakes through a parent’s eyes—I don’t want Kase to be afraid to try things or to avoid opportunities. Life is about drawing and redrawing who we are and how we behave without shame or judgment.
Kase is aware that Daddy’s a cowboy and Mommy’s a singer, and he asks often about jobs, like, “What’s a house’s job?” I say, “A house’s job is to shelter people.” He says, “What’s a cow’s job?” I say, “To give us milk and food.” “What’s my job?” “Your job is to be loved and to learn how to be a happy person.” “What’s your job?” “My job is to love you and to help you be a fulfilled person with strong values and the courage to do what you love.” “But you sing too.” “Yes. I sing too. That’s my other job.” It’s so much fun watching him develop and unfold every day.
I read a study by a group of psychologists who wanted to understand why some children who have faced hardship have such emotional resilience. The study revealed a surprising answer: the kids who were resilient knew their “oscillating family narrative.” This meant they knew the good and the bad. Not only where grandma went to school or grandpa’s favorite hobby, not just the accomplishments, but the darker moments as well. They came from families who did not keep secrets, and knowing that there are ups and downs that people face over time gave the children a sense of security. They would also have ups and downs, and that was okay. There was an overall arc that kept climbing onward. Honesty and transparency were key to emotional resilience.
As I write this, I am proud to say my dad and I have come a long way in healing our relationship. A lot of this is due to my dad’s determination to find his own health and happiness. While I took my own path to find happiness and healing, my dad spent years dedicated to healing his own wounds and trauma. We have had moments where he was able to not only communicate his regret and ownership for his shortcomings as a father when I was younger, but he has shown me with his actions that he has made real changes. He comes to my house and stays with us for months, and he is easy to have around. There is no tension. When he needs something, he lets me know clearly. There is nothing passive-aggressive. If I hurt him, he will tell me. If he hurts me, I will tell him, and we know we are both responsible enough to sit and listen, and we make amends. He allows me to be myself and he is encouraging of me as a mom and a person. He tells me he is proud of me and articulates why. He thinks I am a thoughtful parent, and he is very proud of the changes I have made to ensure I don’t repeat the patterns I was raised with. Often he puts a hand on my shoulder and with a tear in his eye says, “Jewel, I’m so amazed and so proud of who you have become despite what you had to work with. I admire you, honey.” I can’t tell you how good this feels.
He and I spend a lot of time talking about the past, about our journey and our healing. I was surprised to find out that when he married Nedra, she made him feel a lot like she made me feel—as if he didn’t know very much and that she was an all-wise, all-spiritual person. He was so scared and empty from his childhood that he was thankful to meet someone like her and was happy to let her tell him what should be done.
I admire my father. While I wish he had been able to intervene earlier, I think it takes more courage to face these things after you have displayed years of abusive behavior. The shame and the hurt and the guilt make it nearly impossible to face up to. Making amends takes tremendous vulnerability, but it takes accountability to earn back a relationship that was lost. Words can be said easily, but one can’t fake actions. My dad and I are a loving father and daughter. We may not be what other fathers and daughters are, but what we have is real and safe and he shows up with honesty and I am thankful for it. I thank my dad for letting me tell my story uninhibited. When I told him about the book I was going to write, he said, “Jewel, this was your life. The things I did affected you and you have a right to talk about them.” He is willing to be seen on every step of his journey. This takes courage. I like to think of my dad as his true self now—I think as a child he was a gold statue covered in wounds and abuse, under layers of mud and crud. I feel I am getting to know who my dad really is and who he was meant to be.
One of the things my dad said he struggled the most with over the years in regard to my public life was learning that I was living in my car. People asked him how on earth he could let his child be homeless. I did not know this had been hard for him. At the time, I never did call family to tell them what was going on. When I moved out at fifteen, I just never looked back. It’s not that I thought that if I went back to Alaska, my dad would not give me shelter. He would have. I just never thought about it or thought to call. My dad knew I had been living with my mom in San Diego. I think I called him to say I was going to live in my car, but other than that I never called home when times got hard. He told me recently that his own feelings of inadequacy made him feel unqualified to parent, especially from far away, and so he never called or checked in either.
I am thankful my dad has done the work it takes to live a different life. He has been sober for many years now and works hard at being honest with himself and others about his feelings and fears instead of lashing out to protect himself from them. I am astounded my son gets to have a relationship with him, and it warms my heart to see Kase get to know my dad as a loving and patient grandparent.
I am proud and thankful my dad stopped the generational cycle of abuse while he was alive. He was able to find tenderness and honesty with his kids sooner than his own father did. My dad found it before he was on his deathbed. I’m proud to have looked at these things and broken the cycle before I had my child. I hope Kase will be able to live a life always knowing his own worth and that he will avoid the traps that took me until I was forty to find my way out of.
My life, so far, has been about examining what worked in my childhood, keeping the good while being willing to see and let go of the bad. I wrote a song I call “The Family Tree.” I sang it for my dad, and afterward we both cried and hugged each other. We’re both warriors of the loneliest battlefield—the one that is contained within our own flesh. Both seekers of truth. I am proud of my life. I am thankful for the gifts both my parents gave me. I was made into a curious, creative, thoughtful person. The rest I give back. It never belonged to me anyway.
The Family Tree
Mama, I see your face now
In the mirror, it’s getting clearer
Daddy, all those things I said I wouldn’t do
I’ve been drawn to, ’cause I looked up to you
And I’ve loved you through this tangled legacy
Tracing the twisted roots of our family tree
I stayed strong like you did
I moved on like you did
And I wound up tough as stone like you did
If I don’t learn to bend, I know I’m going to break
Like you did
Lover, I must forgive you
I confused you with what I couldn’t see
Inside of me dark things pulling
Not evolving, made a puppet out of me
And you came with your own history
Both caught in the branches of our family tree
I stayed strong like you did
I moved on like you did
I wound up all alone like you did
If I don’t learn to bend, I know I’m gonna break
Just like you did
I love you but I need to look at who we’ve been
Take the fruit but choose the seeds I scatter on the wind
That’s the job of the kid, to do better than our parents did
So I’ll stay strong like you did
And I’ll move on like you did
But I won’t hide from the truth like you did
I’m learning to bend so I don’t break
And you can bet I’ll teach my kid that love will always find its way
just like you did