Family & Relationships
Heidi Stevens
Chicago, IL
We all hope for a happy life. Heidi Stevens, “Balancing Act” columnist for the Chicago Tribune, is living her happy and healthy slice of life after navigating divorce after 12 years of marriage. After years of doing what she thought others wanted, following the rules, quieting herself to please others, and suffering from life-threatening health conditions, Heidi started to listen to her heart and in doing so she found her voice. Today, she is using her powerful voice to honor her mission, “To make people feel less alone—in marriage, in parenting, at work, in life—and I try to do that with my writing and talks I give.” She is happily remarried and is enjoying the thrills of being the badass mom of three really cool kids: June, 11; Will, 7; and step-son, John, 16. In January, her and her love, Michael, had the chance to finally celebrate their honeymoon, after three years of marriage. I Admire U, Heidi, you are a fearless and fierce warrior, a gentle and kind human, and an incredible role model for your kids and women everywhere to honor what our hearts believe. Your writing and your adventures from divorce to happiness
is a bright light in a crazy world.
is a bright light in a crazy world.
Heidi in her own words...
1. From twelve years of marriage and two kids, to divorce with young kids, to three years happily remarried; how have you maintained your sense of self?
I spent a big chunk of my life doing what I thought others wanted me to do and following the rules, to the degree that I could determine what they were. That left me unhappy and unhealthy—including with life-threatening meningitis and a heart condition. After I started listening to and honoring what I believe in my heart, I found my voice and started to use it, even if my voice told me to take an unusual path—getting divorced with two young kids, speaking up about topics that make people angry, not quieting myself to please others. It’s not always the easiest path, but it’s the one that has made me happiest and healthiest and able to be the best mother and human I know how to be.
2. You journaled your life as a single mom with two young kids in the city in your column, Balancing Act. In what ways did sharing your adventures help you heal? What did you discover about yourself along the way?
It certainly helped to hear from readers who shared their struggles and triumphs and told me that reading about mine helped them feel less alone. Feeling like you’re part of a community has incredibly powerful healing properties. But I think I healed and grew the most when I figured out that I could share my story, even the flawed, embarrassing parts, while it was happening. I didn’t have to wait until after-the-fact, when my challenges were all in the past, before I could talk about them. Realizing that helped me live more fully in the moment, and stop waiting for life to turn perfect before I started enjoying it.
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3. You have shared custody with your kids’ dad who lives in Indiana. How did you help guide your children through the transition of two homes?
That’s probably the single hardest thing about divorce. No matter how much happier and healthier I am now, I’ll never stop feeling guilty about making my kids divide their lives into two. Because their dad lives so far away, they only go there two days a month, but it’s an adjustment every time. I try to give them a wide berth to come home crabby, or to be crabby before they’re leaving. Not because of anything their dad is or isn’t doing, but because it’s just a hard situation for kids to navigate. I try to get them to tell me what they’re feeling, and I never try to talk them out of what the say: Mad, sad, frustrated, bored by a long car ride. It’s all legit. They need to know they’re allowed to feel all of it.
4. You are in a beautiful place in life. You are married to your longtime friend, Michael, mother of your two kids and your step-son, and inspiring people on a daily basis through your Chicago Tribune column. When you look back, do you remember the exact moment when you allowed yourself to experience happiness again?
Thank you! I do, actually. I remember talking to a girlfriend of mine about our moms, and whether our moms were happy when we were kids. I think my mom was—and is—quite happy. She immerses herself in causes she believes in, she’s got a super egalitarian relationship with my dad, who is fantastic. She laughs a lot. My friend thought her mom was not very happy, and we talked about what sort of expectations that set up for us when we were seeking partners and jobs. It occurred to me in that moment that showing my kids a happy version of myself would be a really powerful way to teach them to seek joy and fulfillment in their own lives. I could lead them toward happiness by example. And I try to do that.
"I think a lot of people stay in unhealthy marriages because they’re afraid of hurting the kids, and there’s no question that divorce is hard on kids. But we teach our kids what to seek out and tolerate and mimic and settle for by the way we live. And if they’re living in a home with a serious power imbalance or seething resentments or a bunch of passive-aggressive nonsense, that can be just as harmful."
5. How does the blending of your family when you first remarried look compared to your family dynamic today?
Our kids are 16, 11 and 7 now. They were 13, 8 and 4 when we got married. We are lucky because they all seem to genuinely like each other, and have since the beginning. I think because of that we expected this sort of utopian world where we traveled as a five-some to each other’s activities and performances and milestones, applauding and laughing all along the way. The reality is pretty different. The kids each have full, separate lives, and we learned pretty quickly not to try to force togetherness on them when they weren’t seeking it out. My hope is that they’ll always look at each other as allies and pals, even when they’re adults. And I hope giving them space as kids helps that to happen.
6. What nuggets of wisdom would you share with a woman who hasn’t quite found her footing after divorce? What is a misconception about divorce, remarriage, or blending families that you would like to squash?
I think a lot of people stay in unhealthy marriages because they’re afraid of hurting the kids, and there’s no question that divorce is hard on kids. But we teach our kids what to seek out and tolerate and mimic and settle for by the way we live. And if they’re living in a home with a serious power imbalance or seething resentments or a bunch of passive-aggressive nonsense, that can be just as harmful. Maybe even more so, because they start to see those things as normal, and they accept them in their own relationships—intimate and otherwise.
Our kids are 16, 11 and 7 now. They were 13, 8 and 4 when we got married. We are lucky because they all seem to genuinely like each other, and have since the beginning. I think because of that we expected this sort of utopian world where we traveled as a five-some to each other’s activities and performances and milestones, applauding and laughing all along the way. The reality is pretty different. The kids each have full, separate lives, and we learned pretty quickly not to try to force togetherness on them when they weren’t seeking it out. My hope is that they’ll always look at each other as allies and pals, even when they’re adults. And I hope giving them space as kids helps that to happen.
6. What nuggets of wisdom would you share with a woman who hasn’t quite found her footing after divorce? What is a misconception about divorce, remarriage, or blending families that you would like to squash?
I think a lot of people stay in unhealthy marriages because they’re afraid of hurting the kids, and there’s no question that divorce is hard on kids. But we teach our kids what to seek out and tolerate and mimic and settle for by the way we live. And if they’re living in a home with a serious power imbalance or seething resentments or a bunch of passive-aggressive nonsense, that can be just as harmful. Maybe even more so, because they start to see those things as normal, and they accept them in their own relationships—intimate and otherwise.
7. Love, love, love your mission to “Make people feel less alone—in marriage, in parenting, at work, in life—and I try to do that with my writing and talks I give.” How did you decide on this as your mission? How does it feel doing journalistic work that unites people?
I have felt lonely a lot in my life, and not always in the times when I’m physically alone. Parenting can be extremely lonely. An unhappy marriage is extremely lonely. A job that isn’t a good fit with your values is lonely. As soon as I started talking—really talking, like honest talk—about the times in my life I have felt most alone, I learned how common it is. That’s when I decided to use whatever platform I have to reach out to people and say, sometimes literally, “Hey! Me too! That woman too! Her over there? Yep, her too!”
8. In regards to your mission, you shared, “I’m fascinated by the degree to which we still judge people—women, especially—by their appearance above all else. I see this in my work all the time, and it’s one of the things I like to talk and write about.” How did you cope when the criticism was directed at your hair? How do you plan on guiding your daughter through the ugliness of the online world.
As with so many things in life, I defer to Michelle Obama on this one. She once said, “We take our bangs and we stand in front of important things that the world needs to see. And eventually, people stop looking at the bangs and they start looking at what we’re standing in front of.” Hopefully people who are stopped by my column photo eventually move on to the words. If they don’t, well, I’m not for everyone. If they do, I hope they feel like I had something worthy to say. As for my daughter, my goal is to teach her self-preservation skills, so when the mud starts getting slung—because it will—she’ll distance herself from it, rather than drown herself in it.
"It occurred to me in that moment that showing my kids a happy version of myself would be a really powerful way to teach them to seek joy and fulfillment in their own lives. I could lead them toward happiness by example."
9. Happy New Year! I’m curious, what’s next for you and your clan?
Well, my husband and I just returned from our honeymoon—three years and four months after we got married. We went to Puerto Rico, which was absolute bliss. So now I’m on a kick to travel as much as we possibly can afford, in all sorts of combinations: Me and my husband, me and my kids, my husband and all three kids, you name it.
10. I Admire U, whom do you admire?
I admire Michelle Obama, as I mentioned. I admire Ellen DeGeneres for being kind and brave and hilarious. I admire my journalist colleagues who are putting their lives on the line day in and day out to bring people truth and information. I admire my kids for actively seeking out joy and silliness--I want to be just like them when I grow up.
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