Holly Robinson Peete On Family, Autism Awareness, And Her Famous Lemon Cake — During A Pandemic
Holly Robinson Peete, doting mom, activist, and actress, is hunkered down at home with the entire family — her husband and four children — and they are taking the COVID-19 restrictions very seriously.
The Peete family is also using this time together during the coronavirus quarantine to further cement their already tight-knit bond, by cooking, sharing meals, movie nights, and holding frequent family meetings.
Although Peete has had to postpone production of several Hallmark movies and many events for her nonprofit HollyRod Foundation are also on hold, she is still busy during National Autism Awareness Month, spreading her message of acceptance and love for all of our loved ones with autism. This message is near and dear to her heart because her son R.J., who is now 22, was diagnosed with autism at a young age.
We took the time to check in on how the Peete family — that we love in Hallmark’s Meet The Peetes — is faring during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Like many of us, there are birthdays taking place with Zoom celebrations, more togetherness than we EVER could have imagined and explored how we as families can enjoy time together — and have time alone — within the confines of our homes. We also discussed the myriad of challenges.
As a result, there have been many life lessons for this loving mom, such as her need to teach all of her children how to clean bathrooms, the way that the household chores are divided and the dire need for everyone to regularly check in on how they are coping with this global health pandemic that has altered all of our lives.
We sat down for a mom-to-mom phone chat to share family stories about Peete’s life in isolation with her loving family during COVID-19, autism awareness, The Hallmark Channel, and the vital message of acceptance, kindness, and love during National Autism Awareness Month.
So, who is currently at The Peete homestead?
Everybody. My daughter, Ryan, who came home from New York University, didn’t get to formally graduate, so she is salty and bitter. My son, RJ, works for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and of course, they’re down, so he doesn’t have a job, and he is home. And then my two younger boys, (Roman, 15, and Robinson, 17), are home from school and won’t go back this semester. And my husband Rodney is here. He does a live radio sports show in L.A., so he’s downstairs doing that sports show right now. I would say it’s a very active household. We are jam-packed here.
What Is Going On With The Peetes?
What do you do as a family and as a mom to keep sane and to cope? I am into comfort food. I have my favorite ice cream flavors (chocolate and strawberry) and my 14-year-old son and I made a few batches of delicious chicken soup, chocolate chip cookies, and banana bread.
Oh, I’ve been making cakes. My go-to is my lemon cake. I have to stop doing this though because we’ve got the treadmill going and we’re trying to keep everybody active. So, if we don’t watch ourselves we are all going to roll out of the house after this quarantine [she laughed] because I’ve been doing a lot of cooking and we’ve been doing a lot of eating. We have a family movie night and each kid gets to choose which movie they want on a rotating basis.
We’ve been having a lot of family chats. While some are really funny and hilarious, others are very deep and intense. We genuinely feel for the people who are sick and dying from this virus, and for their families, and we know how serious this is. But we have tried to make this a positive family experience.
So, how is it going for each of you?
Well, every now and then it can be hard to drag my kids out of their rooms because they are on the internet or talking to their friends.
How have you been spending your time when you are not cooking?
I’ve been doing a lot of Facetiming with my girlfriends and relatives, especially my brother, and my mom who is celebrating a big birthday; she will be 84 on April 13. So, we’re trying to come up with some way to remotely celebrate her 84th birthday. She’s a wonderful woman who needs a lot of attention, so we’re kind of bummed that we can’t be with her, but you just have to get creative during these remarkable times.
Are you homeschooling your two younger sons?
Well, my younger guys are doing all their schooling online with their teachers, so we don’t have to do anything there. The biggest thing is we just have to just keep checking in with the teachers to make sure that they’re being respectful and that they’re getting to the online classes on time.
But I told them, “Listen, you’ve got one job. This is a serious situation. You can learn from this. Your teachers are really breaking their butts to make this work. They had to do all of this virtual work overnight, so just be respectful.” So, that’s going pretty well.
I find though that every day or every week this period of time takes on another shape. Whether it’s more serious because more people have passed away or whatever’s going on politically. So Rodney and I always check in with each of the kids other every night to see how everyone is doing and what’s on everybody’s mind. These family meetings are very important for us and I’ve been really happy to have them.
You mentioned a little hiccup with the school in the beginning.
It started out a little bit rocky as far as dress codes. Our school has a dress code and I had to call the vice-principal and say, “Listen, guys, it’s hard to get these guys up and dressed to get on a computer. So, I think if they show up and as long as they don’t wear anything profane and are not being disrespectful, why don’t we relax the dress code?”
So, I was sort of the Norma Rae of the school. When they wake up they have bed-heads. They’re not going to get themselves flawless since nobody has had a haircut for a month and my kids are looking little woolly mammoths. We’re not going to have that perfect school environment, so I asked the school if they would relax that, and they have, which was really helpful. I think all the kids are experiencing stress from this. So, it helps us as parents when school is a little bit more lenient and really understands that everyone is going through something and we are doing our best.
What have you noticed about this restrictive time at home?
I find though that every day or every week this period of time takes on another shape. Whether it’s more serious because more people have passed away or whatever’s going on politically. So the kids, we always check in with each other every night to see how everyone is doing and what’s on everybody’s mind. These family meetings are very important for us and I’ve been really happy to have them. The thing I’ve been doing the most though is cooking, cleaning, and laundry. I’m like, “Wait, we’re not going anywhere, why is there so much laundry?”
And the answer is…
Well, because we’re doing sheets, pillowcases, towels, and dish towels. I’m loading the dishwasher three times a day. I try to encourage the kids to do their own cooking, and I realized that my takeaway from this time is that I did not teach my kids how to clean well. So, that’s my little mommy confession.
Overall, how would you say it is going for your family?
Well, it’s been really interesting being able to learn a lot of things about myself, and about my children. We just have to stay healthy, and yeah, baking cakes has been the fun thing. Though, I had to limit myself to one cake per week because they go through my lemon cake in under 45 minutes.
So, I feel like every morning, R.J. is the first person I think of because I’m like, “Okay, how am I going to make this day interesting and more routine for him?” Because he does go into an adult version of sensory overload, and being frustrated at not being able to get out of the house.
Please tell Rodney that he looks amazing in his commercials as a result of his recent weight loss.
Thank you, I will. He’s doing great. Well, we’re really going to have to double up on that, we are all putting on this quarantine weight. But yeah, he’s doing well. I have to sort of police him every now and then because we’re just so out of our routine. Our trips to the gym took us sort of out of the house, and the home gym just isn’t the same.
Helping Holly’s Eldest Son, R.J. Who Has Autism
How is R.J. doing without his routine of work and being out and about with friends? This has been hard for my son and several of his friends who have autism.
Yes, he’s extremely stressed. It’s the whole concept of this because R.J. loves his job so much and he loves the routine of his job. He loves the camaraderie with the guys on the team. Every day that he goes to work he’s there an hour early because he’s freaked out about L.A. traffic and he never wants to be late. He is the best employee, and to have that snatched away from him and to have his routine completely upended, has been such a major challenge for him.
I am sure this is so difficult for so many of our children and adults with autism.
I don’t ever take for granted how much progress R.J. has made with his language skills, and being able to work, thrive, and all the things that they said he would never do. But I really have seen some of the greater challenges he has with his autism, represent themselves, and that’s been hard. One of the ways that he believes a lot of his anxieties and OCD is when he goes to work early, he gets on the treadmill or trampoline there. He does something that really helps him feel better in his body. Well, he doesn’t have all that now, and he is missing all of it. He has anxiety about whether he will ever get his job back again.
So, a lot of the anxieties and the anxious feelings he has around his routine being snatched away from him have been very challenging for him to deal with. There are days where he just doesn’t want to come out of his room. I’m literally trying to bring him out of there. I try to get him proactive in the cooking and other stuff we are doing around the house.
What do you do to help R.J.?
We have weighted blankets, which have always been helpful. He’s 22 and he still uses one. I find that a lot of people use weighted blankets now, which is funny, because when he was three I had never heard of them, so back then we ordered them online. And now you can just go to CVS and get them because everyone has a little bit of anxiety.
So, I feel like every morning, he’s the first person I think of because I’m like, “Okay, how am I going to make this day interesting and more routine for him?” I know he experiences sensory overload and is extremely frustrated by the fact he can't ger out of the house.
Can R.J. walk around outside to shake off some steam?
Yes, on our property. But you know, we’re really locked hard here in L.A. We are not playing around with this in California. Some of the other states are more lackadaisical and we are acting as the hall monitors. We’re the ones that are like, “She was outside without a mask!” So, we don’t play around with this.
Everything does seem to change on a daily basis.
Absolutely. Last week we decided we were going to take a drive up the coast, just stay in the car and drive up toward Santa Barbara, drive back, play music, just to get out of our comfort zone. We did that and we were going to do it again this week. And our governor was like, “No, everybody must stay in this week. No grocery store trips; no anything.” And so we’re following protocol, which means we are doing a lot of walking outside. We do have a pool, so I’ve been trying to encourage my kids to swim or at least get some exercise that way, but all of us are very much hermetically sealed into this house.
I spoke to Temple Grandin last week about how she is faring during this health crisis.
Oh, I love her!
So, I asked her what we could do for our children with autism to help them through these difficult times, and maybe her advice will help R.J. She said to have your child or adult with autism get up every morning, get dressed, have breakfast and write out a schedule, and just to chunk down the day to give him something to look forward to. Write down when you are having a movie night and everything else, so he has a routine. It might draw R.J. out a little bit.
I love that. I love the idea. I think in my head I have a schedule, but then to actually physically write it out, I think it’s going to make a big difference. I’m going to get that dry erase board out and get going with that. Thank you.
The hardest thing for me is homeschooling my son even with online lessons from the teachers.
Oh, yeah. You’ve got to have so much patience. It’s unbelievable. I have such respect for teachers. I always have. My mom, Delores, was a school teacher. But especially seeing my kids having school at home, I think our kids are gaining a level of respect for teachers that they didn’t have before this, which I’m glad about. I’m going to steal your tip on writing down the schedule. Thank you for that.
Spreading The Word During Autism Awareness Month
So, what is happening with your HollyRod Foundation for Autism Awareness Month? Did you have to postpone a lot of events?
I’m glad you brought that up. Every year we do a partnership with Stella & Dot, a great jewelry accessory company with HollyRod. They have an online autism boutique. Very inexpensive. Great, price friendly items that we sell to raise money for HollyRod Foundation. But we’re still doing our Autism Awareness Month program with Stella & Dot, and it’s up and going at StellaDot.com, and at HollyRod.org, where we’re selling our fabulous bracelets and other items.
We’ve got R.J.’s Place up and going, but of course, we had to shut that down for now with all of the job training opportunities and our other programs. We are just trying to keep it going. It’s very frustrating to not be able to continue. This is our biggest month obviously, and so to deprioritize what we’re doing because of the coronavirus is something that we have to do. So, we’ve just been promoting our partnership with Stella & Dot.
So, you postponed your HollyRod Design Care, what did you have planned?
We’re going to have to postpone our HollyRod DesignCare. We had some really awesome honorees that we were excited about celebrating, and one of them is Armani Williams, a 20-year-old NASCAR driver.
He’s just a phenomenal kid, and I was so looking forward to bringing him to L.A. and celebrating him. I’m going to check on them today just to see how he and his dad are doing because he’s not racing, and are out of his routine, too.
And we really had some pretty cool honorees that we were hoping to celebrate this year. But for right now my focus is just doing the HollyRod and Stella & Dot partnership to see if we can raise funds. They’ve raised more than $700,000 for us over the last six years. So, it’s pretty phenomenal just what we’ve been able to do just by selling bracelets. Now we’re doing a mascara and charms. So, a lot of Stella & Dot ambassadors who sell for them have children on the spectrum, so they’ve really gravitated towards this project every year.
Tell me about your upcoming children’s book.
I’m literally just putting finish touches on my third book right now. And so that timing could be really good. It’s a follow up to My Brother Charlie and Same, But Different, which is our lesson in autism book.
When is it coming out?
Our third one won’t be out until probably early next year and it taking Charlie’s adventures to the next level. But My Brother Charlie is10 years old, and Same But Different is about five years old. But check those out, those are great. Especially the middle school one, which is really interesting. R.J. helped us write it, and we really used a lot of his narrative. So, I’m really proud of that. The new children’s book is the follow up to My Brother Charlie.
Does your new book have a name?
It’s tentatively called Charlie Under Water, but we’re probably going to change that. It’s really about how water is something our kids love and gravitate to, and obviously, the are some dangers and some things there that we want to express. But it’s how he loves water, and what water means to him, and being safe around water. R.J. loves aquariums and anything that has to do with water, and so it’s basically about that. He was always the best swimmer. He was never the best communicator in the swim class, but he was always the best swimmer. And so just sort of taking the theme of My Brother Charlie and acceptance to the next level.
What projects do you have on hold or coming up?
Well, I had three greenlit Hallmark Channel movies that we were gearing up for. We had Morning Show Mysteries, which is our mystery series on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, with me and Rick Fox. We’re still going back and forth with notes and getting the scripts together, so there’s still a lot of movement going on as far as production and development. Our goal was to shoot that early or late spring, so that’s clearly not happening. Hopefully, once we get ramped up and get back to production, we’ll be able to crank out some new Christmas movies.
I’ve got two that I am looking forward to, which will be the Christmas in Evergreen Part 4. And the other is a yet-untitled Christmas pitch that we have out right now. So, I just don’t know what’s happening with that, so now I’m using this time to focus hard on writing our new book, or just getting our new children’s book finished. And once we do that, we are going to have to just have to sort of play it by ear.
So, I just say get out there and change the world for our kids who have autism. As parents, we need to keep preparing people for our children. Yes, we’ve got to prepare our children for the world, but it’s really important to shift the world view of autism for our kids as well.
What message do you want to share during National Autism Awareness Month?
Well, I always say that it’s about changing the world. So, I say I wouldn’t change R.J. for the world, but I would try to change the world for RJ. So it’s always about changing the world perspective on what autism is, and making sure everyone understands the value of this community. R.J. is not only a dedicated employee, but he is also probably one of the best employees they’ve had as a clubhouse attendant. And so just the worth and the value that the autism community has within the broader community is sorely underestimated.
And finally…
So, I just say we need to get out there and change the world for our kids who have autism. As parents, we need to keep preparing people for our children. Yes, we’ve got to prepare our children for the world, but it’s really important to shift the world view of autism for our kids, as well.
