Everyone saw me on TV or read articles, and it was all about my great marriage, the white picket fence, all this success and my perfect life. But behind the scenes, it was a struggle.
It's all kind of a big illusion: the white picket fence and the perfect marriage and the kids. Check that box off, check that box off, and move forward.
I’d like to have a nice home set up, with a couple of dogs, and a fence, white picket fence.
Keeping it all together as a modern woman means multitasking, especially when you work. I think you always need to try your best, but at the same time you can only do what you can do, and you don't need to beat yourself up about it. I'm not white-picket-fence perfect.
Life is not living in the suburbs with a white picket fence. That's not life. Somehow our American culture has made it out that that's what life needs to be - and that if it's not that, it's all screwed up. It's not.
I've always loved the drama and the creating of a role and performance and all that comes with that, but I then also kind of like to have just the white picket fence life if that makes sense.
I can't give you the white picket fence, and if I did, you'd set it on fire.
The suburbs have this veneer of happiness, you know? This veneer of the ideal life. From afar, it's all together - white picket fence, nice house - but you peel away one little layer, and it all comes crumbling down.
I grew up with the white picket fence. My dad went to work nine to five, and he had a station wagon.
Like you see in the fairy tales, that's how it planned out in my head. Kids, little white picket fence, the American dream.
A lot of people don't get to see the behind-the-scenes of what we go through and what it's like. We aren't perfect people. Everyone on social media is like, 'They're so perfect, they have their life together, gymnastics looks so easy.' We work our butts off to get to where we are.
When you have a young kid you can't go out much at night, so I spent a lot of time at home, watching movies and cooking dinner with my wife. It felt like what most people experience. White picket fence stuff.So there was some enjoyment of that normalcy, but I have to admit that part of me missed the chaos of touring. I think it's about balance.
I’d given up on the white picket fence after Kisten had died—finding out my kids would be demons was the nail in the coffin.
The reason why we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind the scenes with everyone else's highlight reel.
Everything about my life seemed so perfect to people. But I struggle like everyone else.
The book came after the fall of the Taliban, it says something about Afghan family life. Those kind of stories - what happens behind the scenes on a TV screen - are important.