What was Carson like as a little kid? “Carson was always happy. He was very kind, loving, considerate and actually laid-back, especially as a young child. He loved music and movies from the beginning. His favorites were action figures, so Star Wars, Power Rangers, Texas Ranger, and then Disney movies, like Hercules and Peter Pan. Anything where they were battling in some way, shape or form.”
Was he an easy kid or did he keep you on your toes? “He was my easy one. He’s the oldest of three, and he still is my easy one.”
Did he go through a rebellious stage? “No, he never really did. He was actually one of those children who, when he would do something wrong, which was never really major, we’d be like, ‘Okay, you’re losing your bike,’ or ‘You’re losing your phone.’ And he’d be like, ‘I know. I deserve it. I know I shouldn’t have done that, so that’s fair.’ ”
What were your biggest fights about when Carson still lived at home? “Probably the biggest one was when he and a couple of boys got ornery one evening and drove across the football field and got caught by the maintenance person. They called me. They called the police. Nothing came of it. That was probably the biggest rebellion that we had with him. In his defense, he wasn’t the one driving.”
What’s a famous/funny story about him as a child? “He’s always been kind of an airhead. He was always off in his own world doing his thing. We would go out for bike rides. I kept saying, ‘Carson, quit looking back over your shoulder at me. Look forward,’ because we were on a path, and the path had a gate. The gate was open, but there was a post in the middle of the path. He kept looking back and talking to me. He was probably 7, and lo and behold, he crashed right into the pole and went to the ground. We still give him a lot of grief about that.”
How would you rate him as a student? “I don’t know if you could call Carson a student. He never liked school from day one, not even preschool. He got through school. He did what he had to do to get what he needed to get, and we thanked God when he graduated from high school. That sums up him as a student.”
What did you think when he developed his interest in acting? “I was okay with it. His dad was like, ‘What are we doing? Why are we entertaining this thought?’ But he was so unhappy as a student, and I was like, ‘He’s 19. If he’s going to try and do something, this is the time in his life to go do it.’ I was very supportive of it. I obviously instigated the process and helped him do the moving and all that. But it was scary. It’s an unstable, nonstandard [choice].”
How did you feel when he moved to L.A.? “The day we moved him into his apartment in L.A. when he was 19, I would probably record that as the hardest day of parenting in my life, when we left him. Obviously, we helped him do it, and we were supportive of it. But the day that we were actually leaving him behind? I can still get emotional about it. It was by far the hardest day I’ve ever had as a parent, leaving my 19-year-old son from Iowa in L.A. by himself. It was quite a day. It was quite a week, actually.”
What has it been like watching him on DAYS? “I always say, ‘Carson, I don’t like to watch any type of sex scenes with you, and I don’t like to watch you be mean.’ He was like, ‘Well, you might not want to watch for a while.’ I do watch it. It’s surreal, right? But that’s my child that I’m watching on TV.”
Has it been hard to watch Carson play someone possessed by the devil? “He was like, ‘Mom, it’s kind of fun to do this type of stuff.’ I said, ‘I’m sure it is.’ I watch it, but it’s weird and so counterintuitive to who he is as a normal person in his normal life.”
Have you visited Carson at the studio? “No. We’ve been out there a couple of times, but because of Covid we haven’t been able to. We are traveling out there for Mother’s Day, so maybe then. I think it would be great. What a full circle. It would be awesome.”
Who are you looking forward to meeting once you finally do get to visit? “The ones who have been around the longest, of course, are John [Drake Hogestyn], Marlena [Deidre Hall] and Sami [Alison Sweeney]. It would be nostalgic to meet those three. The whole environment is probably awesome and would provide some nostalgia whether there were new or old characters there.”
What makes you the most proud about the person he is today? “As a mother what makes me most proud of Carson is that he stays true to who he is. There have been times where I know he could have jumped and maybe taken an opportunity that wasn’t the best opportunity for him. But he’s solid enough that he holds back and says, ‘That’s not what I need to do. I need to do this instead. And so I’ll suffer or lose out a little to do that.’ ”
What’s your relationship like with him now? “Great. Close. It’s easy to talk to each other. We can talk about anything. He can call me when he’s sad. He can call me when he’s happy. And vice versa, although mothers don’t really do that.”
