Incorporating spirituality into parenting

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Incorporating spirituality into parenting

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Well I bring spirituality into the family in a very big, big way. I mean I think of my faith as very meaningful to me but I do it in a non-dogmatic way and yet a dogmatic way. I do it in an unpredictable way and I hope a non-stifling way and a way that shows there's many options because that's how I was raised. My mother was baptized in Christianity but she was also a meditator and a yogi and she would have just as soon said she was Buddhist as she was Christian. I went to a Christian boarding school but we studied world religions and so if I had felt like converting to Judaism, I actually thought I probably I could if I wanted to. So I had a very open-minded, dogmatic, spiritual childhood in the sense that if we're sitting down to dinner, I don't always say grace. I think that would be a little stifling. I mean it's nice to do these rituals and I think it's nice to have something to depend on like I'm going to go home and see my mom and bring home my new boyfriend and we're going to say grace because we've always say grace. I think there's something nice about that, tradition but I also think it's nice to mix it up so that there isn't a sense of obligation in faith but an opportunity in faith. So if we sit down to dinner and we say grace one night, that can be "Thank you, God." But if we sit down to dinner and everybody's already diving into the spaghetti and it's like, "Oh wait, wait. What are you grateful for? What are you grateful for?" "Okay, I'm grateful for this," and then it's like everyone's just digging in and there isn't like, "No, no, you can't eat until we say grace." So I think there is a way to create gratitude and actually, conversation at the table always come from that. For me, I go to church. I don't need anybody to go with me. If they want to go, they can go and sometimes they do, sometimes they don't and I'm not going to make a thing about it but I also practice yoga and I meditate because this is the way I was raised. I was given a mantra at the age of 5. So it's not like it's a [inaudible] religion for me or anything goes. It's that I have two practices and they both feel really familiar and really good for me. And I think that without having a deep faith in god I don't know if I would have as much peace as I have. And I have cultivated my faith, I have deepened my faith purposefully because it is a very fulfilling experience for me and I do it without needing everyone around me to do it. So I think that's a really good way to bring spiritually into the family because I will chant or meditate or do whatever I need to do without everybody needing to participate and ironically, they all end up in 'downward dog' anyway and wanting to say grace or say what they're grateful for or they like the little chants in the car on the way to school or whatever it is that I start my day with or end my day with. That gives me peace in my practice of living.

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Elisabeth Rohm

Mom, Actress, Author

Seen to many as a supermom, actress Elisabeth Röhm has been successfully juggling a full time job as a mother and actress over the past few years. Not only is she a successful film and T.V star, she also has a published book, and a weekly celebrity mom blog on People.com that reaches over a million readers—it is amazing that she stays beautiful, healthy and positive while managing to be consistently by her daughter’s side. Currently, Elisabeth plays "Amanda" on the new CBS TV series Stalker.
 
These past couple years were eventful as Röhm was seen in several feature films. She starred in Warner Bros.’ thriller Transit across James Caviezel, produced by Joel Silver. She teamed up with Kyra Sedgwick and Vincent Donofrio in Chlorine. Elisabeth shot the Lionsgate feature by Brian A. Miller, title Officer Down, as well as Darkroom, an independent feature directed by Britt Napier and produced by Michael A. Liberty and Ron Stein (The Kids Are Alright). Last year, Elisabeth also starred in David O. Russell’s critically acclaimed film, American Hustle, co-starring Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, and Jennifer Lawrence. Röhm, along with her cast won the SAG Outstanding Performance by a cast in a Motion Picture Award. 
 
Elisabeth was also seen on the Lifetime TV Show, The Client List, as “Taylor Berkhalter”. Her character is a mother who is in continuous competition with Riley (Jennifer Love Hewitt). She also has written a book, Baby Steps: Having the Child I Always Wanted (Just Not as I Expected), that came out just last year. Elisabeth has always been very open about her struggles getting pregnant and going through the challenges of IVF. The book tells the often hidden truth behind infertility. As she struggled with infertility, she kept it to herself, but now for the first time she reveals the whole story, learning about and accepting her infertility, the disappointment, the stress and the shame. 
 
Born in Europe, yet a U.S. citizen, Röhm was raised in New York City. Her first childhood interest was riding horses, for which she trained intensively. By the time she entered Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY, her goals shifted to writing in the form of fiction and history. It was during college when Röhm fell in love with acting. After receiving her degree, she quickly found work on the soap opera One Life to Live and followed it up with a long line of recurring appearances on the WB television show, Angel. However, most know Röhm best as the “A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn” on the NBC staple series, Law & Order where Dick Wolf, creator/producer of Law & Order praised her as “one of the finest young actresses working in television.” She went on to star as “Alex Mason,” a love interst to Michael Vartan’s character, in the ABC drama Big Shots and later returned to NBC as a new addition to the cast of the cult-favorite Heroes.
 
Röhm has also starred in numerous films including Abduction alongside Taylor Lautner and Sigourney Weaver, Miss Congeniality 2, starring Sandra Bullock, and Woody Allen’s Deconstructing Harry.  She starred in Kreutzer Sonata, an independent project co-starring Danny Huston and starred opposite James Caan in the film Barry Minkow. You can expect great things from her entering the next couple years. 
 
The desire to seek new challenges is not unusual for someone so multi-talented. Röhm is writing a cookbook (brilliantly titled “The Wooing of the gay Man and the Actress”) as she loves to cook, sings, and continues to ride horses; she also includes hiking, biking, skiing, yoga, traveling and studying architecture among her hobbies. Being that she believes in health and being active, she is developing a gym franchise and has already invested in Circuit Works located in Brentwood, CA and is a co-owner for a juice bar called REJUICE located in Santa Monica. She supports The Red Cross, The Go Red Foundation, Healthy Child Healthy World and as a whole does what she can to support children and women in need globally.
 
Röhm welcomed her first child, a girl named Easton, on April 10, 2008. She retains residences in New York, Venice, CA, and in Holland.
 
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