Balancing It All: My Story of Juggling Priorities and Purpose (3 page)

For many people, most of those incidents happen during adulthood, but some of us deal with life-changing events in childhood. Unfortunately, many of these early experiences are unavoidable and can be unhappy occasions for the child: he or she becomes very sick, an immediate family member dies, parents get divorced, the family moves across the country and away from everything the child knows and loves, the child is removed from the home due to abuse or neglect, or a ton of other possible taxing situations. However, there are also instances when the major change is a happy time for the child and family as a whole, even though it might add an element of stress as well: a parent comes home from serving a military tour of duty, a new sibling is added to the family, a family in dire financial straits is suddenly relieved of that burden, or a child’s parents get married. Granted, some of those events can also cause negative feelings in the child, but for the most part they’re happy occurrences.

I think you can see where I’m going with this. I was one of those fortunate children who had a positive, life-changing event happen to me at a young age. The day I started working on
Full House,
my life changed forever. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

Balancing Entertainment

Oddly enough, my initial entrance into the entertainment industry at the age of five wasn’t really a turning point for my family or me. It didn’t really bring about any changes. Since two of my siblings had already been involved in the industry, adding one more didn’t make a lot of difference. And I was young enough that I really didn’t know any other lifestyle.

I enjoyed acting from the very beginning. In the early days, I never knew what a day would hold, but to a young kid that was exciting, not stressful. Commercial auditions took place after school hours, and Mom usually wouldn’t find out about an audition until the actual day it happened. So every day I would walk out of the school building and look for Mom’s car. If she was parked at the front of the line, I knew I had an audition. I’d hop into the car and prepare for the long ride. I always fell asleep and would be careful to keep my face from looking smashed in from the perforated dots on our fake leather seats. When we got there, I’d change into the clothes Mom had chosen for that particular audition, usually colorful overalls with high-top Converse sneakers. She also always brought along a butane-powered curling iron so she could quickly fix my hair before we rushed into the audition after our forty-five-minute drive into the heart of Los Angeles.

During those early years I did commercials for products and companies like Cabbage Patch Kids and Kentucky Fried Chicken. I also had a few small guest parts in some television series and TV movies. Eventually, I landed parts in the big-screen movies
Some Kind of Wonderful
and
Punchline.

Around the time I auditioned for
Punchline
I also auditioned for
Full House.
I actually went through the first audition twice. After my first reading, the casting director told me she was going to call me back, but I also overheard her say on the phone to someone that I’d done “Okay,” which was disappointing to me. Yes, I’d gotten the callback, but I knew I could be better than “okay.” So Manager Mom convinced the casting director to give me another chance and tell me exactly what they wanted me to do. She knew that in auditions you aren’t always given specific direction, but she also knew that if they gave me specific direction I would do exactly what I was told. She was right. My repeat audition was pronounced “great,” much to my delight. I walked out of the room feeling much better about my prospects of getting the part. But before I got any official word about
Full House,
I was off to start filming
Punchline
.

I loved being on the
Punchline
set. It was filmed during the school year, so I was tutored on set, but I was happy to be there instead of playing with friends, because I really enjoyed my work. I was also very excited to be in a movie with Sally Field and Tom Hanks. I remember being so excited to work with Sally since my mom was such a huge fan. Sally was so caring, kind, and encouraging as a woman and an actress. I loved watching her and tried to take in everything I could as she performed her scenes.

As a ten-year-old, it was my job to know my lines and when to say them, but I didn’t read the
Punchline
script in its entirety (because it wasn’t totally appropriate for someone my age), so I really didn’t know what kind of movie it was going to be or the feeling it was to portray. I just listened to the director tell me what to do. He gave me thoughts and emotions to think about and actions to do during the scene, and I would do it.

For the most part I watched in awe as Sally and John Goodman (who played my dad in the movie) did their thing. They were so invested, and only now can I look back and appreciate it. Talk about learning on the job; I was learning from the best! I also learned a lot more about the industry and figured out I needed to be very patient while on set. Since this was a big-budget film, each scene was filmed with a lot of care and time, which meant multiple takes, camera angles, and lens sizes. One scene could last a day. The next time you’re in the movie theater watching the next big blockbuster, think about the fact that one two-minute scene likely took fourteen hours to film. To put that into perspective, my most recent two-hour TV movie was filmed in twelve days! But Sally taught me a great lesson during the
Punchline
filming. After about seven takes of a hysterical crying scene, she told the director she couldn’t do any more. That stood out to me, because it taught me that even the best have their limits and it’s okay to say when you’ve reached yours.

In the middle of filming
Punchline
we got the word that I had booked the part of
Full House’
s D.J. Tanner! However, we quickly learned that filming for the
Full House
pilot would conflict with my
Punchline
schedule, and I had an obligation to fulfill my movie contract. So Mom got my agent on the phone, and Iris made some calls to see what she could do. She found out that the
Full House
producers had liked me enough for the part that they would adjust the pilot filming schedule so I could be there. They had found their D.J. This is one of those everyday type examples of what it looks like to always understand and manage different priorities in your life. A key point to maintaining a healthy balance is being honest about too much on your plate or a conflict in schedules.

I was super excited about having booked the pilot. However, at the same time I knew the network had not yet picked up the show, so there were no guarantees. Mom and Dad both encouraged me to not get my hopes up too high. Many piloted shows never end up making it, and my parents didn’t want me to be too upset if it didn’t happen. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was especially stressful for them since Kirk was already on a hit show. If my show wasn’t picked up, they knew it would be a bigger deal for me than for many other kids simply because of the success of
Growing Pains
. It had to have been a huge balancing act for my parents to encourage me and be excited for the possibility while also helping to keep me grounded in the reality that my show might not make it. But . . . the network executives loved it, and I was finally able to be fully excited about the new direction my life was taking.

The Benefits of a Full House

Once we started filming the first season of
Full House,
the changes in my life were big and immediate. Since Kirk already had a lead part in a television show, my mom knew just what to expect. Thankfully, I had the benefit of seeing what Kirk’s life was like, and Mom was able to help me navigate through the adjustments and keep all the various parts of my life going in a healthy manner. This is a good time to point out another key lesson about balancing it all—you can’t do it alone. No one can. I’m thankful that my circumstances were such that I learned from a young age that having help knowing how to maintain balance as well as the help doing so is crucial. I definitely wouldn’t have made it through the
Full House
season of my life without Mom’s help with how to navigate all that was before me.

The biggest change during this new season of my life was that instead of just going to school every day, five days a week, I went to school
and
worked every day. We taped three weeks on, one week off, from July through April. Most people don’t start putting in a full workweek until the age of eighteen or twenty-two, but I did it at ten . . . and I loved it!

The first year I was tutored on set. Jodie Sweetin (Stephanie Tanner), Andrea Barber (Kimmy Gibbler), and I would start school at 8:00 a.m. while the adults had rehearsal. We had to get in an average of three hours of school per day, but on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we would have four hours of school. This allowed us to “bank” three hours of school to apply toward Thursday and Friday, which were our taping days. So on those days we would only have an hour and a half of school. That gave us enough time to pretape our scenes and then tape the show in front of a live studio audience on Friday nights.

On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we would start rehearsal at 1:00 p.m. We would block our scenes, putting the show on its feet in its entirety. We did run-throughs at the end of the day on Tuesday and Wednesday for the writers, producers, and the network to watch. Then they would make more changes to the script in order to make it flow better or to get more laughs. From Monday through Wednesday I would leave the studio between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m.

During lunch on Wednesdays, we would have a read-through for the next week’s episode. I loved this day, because it gave us a preview of what was to come and I always hoped the main story would be about D.J. Then on Thursday we pretaped the entire show so it was in the can in case we didn’t get everything we needed in front of the live audience on Friday night. Because we had lots of little kids and dogs or other animals, this day always took the longest and we would work a full twelve hours.

On Fridays, we pulled into the studio around noon, finished up school, had a late lunch, and then got ready for our live audience show, which started at 5:00 p.m. It usually took four to five hours to tape, which meant half of our audience would leave before the show was over. For me, Friday nights were awesome, no matter how late they went. I loved getting laughs, and performing in front of people always upped everyone’s game.

My new life was full and busy, but I loved every minute of it. Though it was hard work, it was also fun and exciting. It was so different from what I was used to, but I transitioned into this new world without a hitch.

Developing Balanced Lives

I fear I’m going to start sounding like a broken record in this area, but once again I believe that the reason for my smooth transition was due to my parents’ influence in my life. The Bible says of parents, “When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you” (Prov. 6:22). This perfectly describes the way my parents guided me as a child. When I was ten years old, there is no way I would have been able to balance and prioritize my new life on my own, so I am extremely grateful for my parents’ wisdom and guidance during that time. My parents knew what was important for me. They knew the ways in which they needed to care for me, and they understood the areas where I needed to grow.

Children typically don’t have as many things to balance in their lives as adults do, but they do need to grow in a balanced way. We don’t read much in the Bible about the lives of children, and it contains only twelve verses about Jesus’ childhood, but the final one says all we really need to know about how a child should grow. “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52). What does this mean for us? To have balanced lives, we are to grow in four ways: intellectually, physically, spiritually, and socially.

My parents—especially my teacher father—placed a high importance on education. Rest assured that my parents wanted me to not only learn academically, but they also taught me how to make wise and practical choices in all areas of my life. Physically, Mom and Dad made sure I took care of my body by feeding me, clothing me, and keeping me safe. As for my spiritual growth, even though my dad didn’t realize he was teaching me biblical principles for living, he did it. Yes, my parents could have nurtured my spiritual life from an earlier age than they did, but I am grateful that we eventually started going to church so that I could begin to have a relationship with God. Finally, my social growth—relationships with others—was always in bloom. My parents placed a high value on family and on friendships. They made sure I had plenty of healthy interaction with others so I could grow into a socially adept young woman.

Even though I had a drastic life change at a young age and my childhood was vastly different from that of most other children, the principles behind creating a balanced life were the same as if I had experienced a “normal” childhood, and I believe they would have been the same if I had been born into an impoverished family on the other side of the world. No matter who we are or what our circumstances are, there are basic areas of life that we need to balance both as children and as adults.

Being honest about when you have too much on your plate or a conflict in schedules is a crucial way that we maintain balance. You may not be juggling a film roll and a new television show like I was, but I bet you have times when you are supposed to be in two places at once or maybe your kids have soccer practice at the same time as debate club. Or, if you are me, your boys have hockey games in separate arenas at the same time. In these instances we must confront the conflict directly, acknowledge that we cannot do it all, and be comfortable with not always being able to do it all.

We need to also remember that we can’t do it all on our own. This was true for me as a child, but not only because I was a child. It was because we always need the help of others and that is especially true when we are launching into a new season of life. It is important to have people in your life who share your values, are honest, and will be there for you—just as you are for them!