My mom and my aunties are really devout Christians. My mom married a Muslim when I was 12, so I got teachings from both sides and then other sides because I wanted to find out which way to go. So not only Christianity and Islam, but Confucianism, Shintoism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Judaism. I tried to read everything.
My humanitarian work evolved from being with my family. My mom, my dad, they really set a great example for giving back. My mom was a nurse, my dad was a school teacher. But my mom did a lot of things for geriatrics and elderly people. She would do home visits for free.
I have the biggest sweet tooth! You name it, I will eat it. My all-time favorite is my mother’s butter cake. Every time I go home, my mom will already have the cake made because I love it so much. This makes my siblings mad because they think she favors me. I don’t care because she probably does!
I have four sisters at home, and both my mom and dad worked, and both of them took care of us. It wasn’t like my mom was fully domestic, or my dad was fully domestic: they were just equals in their relationship. So I grew up with the perspective that women should be pursuing their dreams and not have to depend on a guy.
Minimalism? It is something I appreciate as an art form but leave to others – unless you count a collection of warhorse-workwear Yves Saint Laurent trouser suits. Maybe my penchant for hippie-deluxe eccentricity came from an escapist dream of a different world. It was tough being a working mom in the 1970s.
My mom used to make everything. She had a great garden and composted and made everything from scratch – peanut butter, bread, jelly, everything. I don’t know how she did it because all those things take time and love and labour. I only do half the stuff she does – but there’s still time.
My mom just wanted me to do anything that was academic, whether it was become a doctor or be a lawyer. Engineering suited her… then I dropped out. It was not what I wanted to do at all; it just felt so unnatural, and I couldn’t put my finger on why. I just knew it wasn’t for me.
I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, the youngest of four girls, including my oldest sister, Lisa, who has special needs. My mom was a special education teacher, and my dad worked on the Army base. We weren’t wealthy, but we were determined to succeed.
I’m not big on dark chocolate, but I do have a sweet tooth, so it gets me in trouble. I love warm chocolate chip cookies with ice cream. Then there’s this chocolate pie my mom makes for me every year for my birthday. She’s been making it since I was younger, and there’s nothing like it. It’s really so, so good!
I fell in love with stories watching a British television puppet show called ‘Thunderbirds’ when it first came out on TV, about 1965, so I would have been 4 or 5 years old. I went out into the garden at my mom and dad’s house, and I used to play with my little dinky toys, little cars and trucks and things.
I took lessons for about everything you could imagine – gymnastics to karate to flute and piano. My mom always definitely kept me in some kind of class or program, but for guitar, I kinda gave up on then kinda just taught myself. Same thing with piano. I’ve never been good with following lessons.
My dad lived a good life. He was a simple guy. His family had been poor, and he joined the Marines to be able to send money home to his mom and dad and brothers and sisters. He genuinely had the intention to live a good life and to respect other people.
My mom was very worried when I was starting off my career in the film industry. She never told me to not take up acting, but she would always tell me to have a backup plan so that if nothing works out in the acting career, then I can switch.
I always wanted to let people know I was Filipino, but I didn’t want to go up on stage and make it so you wouldn’t understand my jokes because you’re white or black. I always wanted to let people know I was Filipino through my mom. That was always my goal. That way, everyone got it. You don’t have to be Filipino to understand my mom.
When I turned about 14, I developed a friendship with this guy whose mom was the secretary to Ernest Angley, the faith healer, who’s very popular in the Midwest. He had a television show, and he was sort of like Liberace mixed with Jerry Falwell – very glitzy, very high-tech.
I remember one time when all the nuns in my Catholic grade school got around in a semicircle, me and Mom in the middle, and they said, ‘Mrs. Farley, the children at school are laughing at Christopher, not with him.’ I thought, ‘Who cares? As long as they’re laughing.’
I was a different kind of player as a kid and didn’t do too much shouting and screaming. If things didn’t go my way, I tended to get a bit overwhelmed. All I wanted to do was cry on my mom’s shoulder. I didn’t know how to handle defeat in front of a crowd, and I didn’t want to be the loser.
I always say, ‘There’s a difference between cooked food and McDonald’s.’ Your mom’s homemade dinner – you enjoy this more than you enjoy the fast food that comes along and goes, and I strive to make homemade dinner every time I put out an album.
With my skin, I have to avoid direct contact with the sun, so that, combined with my mom being conservative, meant I grew up wearing stockings under shorts and long sleeves under tank tops. It was kind of embedded in me that I was supposed to be covering up.
Mothering is just so different now from the way it was before. Especially with my mom. She was like the anti-helicopter mom. She was like an inflatable-tube, blow-up-flamingo-in-the-pool mom. Her philosophy was, the situation will declare itself.
Congress wasn’t built for members like me. For those of us who have young children, which is a minority, there’s definitely the built-in assumption of a two-parent model… There is no template for how to do this in my situation as a single mom.
It’s true – my mother kicked me out the house at 14. I had to go live with my sister. I had some problems. I was very rebellious as a kid. I don’t even know why or where it came from, but I had a lot of anger. Me and my mom clashed a lot because she didn’t tolerate that, as she shouldn’t from a 14-year-old.
I’m a mom, so I have to be comfortable. Jeans are a staple – I have way too many in my closet! It’s warm in Florida, so I wear jeans and a tank top every day. I love my True Religions, my Rich and Skinny, and Citizens of Humanity. But I also love getting dressed up!
My mom was an amazing singer and music was a big part of my life, so I grew up listening to Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, Henry Mancini; I used to watch ‘The Andy Williams Show’ on TV. I was very musical, so I was watching stuff that most kids my age wouldn’t be interested in.
My real dream is to have a whole, like, buy a whole piece of land. Imagine, like, a long driveway. Like, a cul de sac-type street, with maybe, like, seven houses. Me be right here. Have my mom be able to be right here. My brother over here. My girl’s grandmother and family right here. Friends over there. That’s my real dream.
