Ten years ago, Brené started the Daring Interview series on her blog. It quickly became one of our favorite features. Now, we are relaunching the series and adding in a few new questions, including some from the late James Lipton, host of Inside the Actors Studio, and Smith Magazine’s Six-Word Memoir.
Twenty years ago, when the internet was an embryo, a small set of mothers gave birth to the influencer industry. Gabrielle Stanley Blair was one of those women. Her blog, designmom.com, covering “the intersection of design and motherhood,” is credited with ‘discovering’ Joanna Gaines and spawned a design conference where Pinterest was launched. From the beginning, her work made headlines, started conversations, and contained multitudes.
So it shouldn’t be a complete surprise that this mother of six, known for her thoughtful, family-oriented content, would also offer “a whole new way to think about abortion.” Actually, she might be the only one surprised.
As she sat at her desk on September 13, 2018, to write a 63-tweet maxim on the topic, she had no idea that she would spend the next five years interacting with individuals every day on the thread, which has now been viewed millions of times and inspired a book provocatively titled, Ejaculate Responsibly. The Twitter (now X) thesis turned instant New York Times bestseller has now been translated into 12 languages and distributed across the globe. Her upcoming book, The Kids Are All Right, is out this October and is a parenting book she wrote with her husband, Ben Blair.
Now, whether she’s reframing global conversations or reframing 900-year-old walls, whenever this American in France is put into a box, she designs a new, and much more expansive, space.
Gabrielle in her favorite, epic, speaking suit. “This suit is legendary! It’s a vintage red velvet Gucci tuxedo. I found it seven or eight years ago at a second hand shop in Atlanta for $100. I’ve worn it on many special days — in this shot I had just spoken about my book, Ejaculate Responsibly, for the very first time”; photography by Nicole Breanne.
Gabrielle is the author of the book Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way To Think About Abortion — an instant New York Times Bestseller; photography by Gabrielle Blair.
Vulnerability is . . .
Moving ahead with the understanding that there are no guarantees any of it will work out, so embrace the unknown. It may not work out, but whatever happens, we will work through.
What role does vulnerability play in your work?
A lot of my recent work has been renovation of a house that was built in the 1400s. It involves unmasking layers of history, including old mud floors, measurement notes left by previous builders, and symbols drawn on the walls to ward off evil spirits. Like everybody, I love home makeover shows, where in 30 minutes we see a complete transformation, but what I’m doing and showing is the opposite.
I’ve been sharing the whole, very slow, very real process, and I feel vulnerable every time I post an update. When we tackle a new task we know a big snag will come up, and with each task I feel the worry starting to bubble up too. Will we be able to solve the issue? What if it adds weeks to the timeline? What if the solution is out of our budget? What if we mess this up?
It’s scary to share the problems we encounter in real-time. But what I really love, and what the people following along have said they love, is seeing the thinking and problem-solving behind each task, and especially the slow work and our attempt to embrace and not rush through the painstaking, tedious steps.
“This was taken in our current renovation project, which we call the Small House. It was built in the 1400s. The Small House was in bad shape when we first started on it. Since this was taken, it’s been renovated even further, with new floors, baseboards, and electricity. The Small House is located in our back yard — it’s easy to access when we want to work on it, but we don’t live in the middle of the construction, which is so lucky”; photography by Gabrielle Blair.
What’s something that gets in the way of your creativity, and how do you move through it?
Creativity for me is wrapped up in problem-solving. So, though it may sound strange, when there are no bumps, surprises, problems, or setbacks, that gets in the way of my creativity. If our home renovation projects were with spec homes, I couldn’t be as creative as we’ve been forced to be. If there were no problems with our society prioritizing men’s sexual pleasure over women’s burdens and pains in birth control, pregnancy, abortion, and labor and delivery, I wouldn’t have written Ejaculate Responsibly.
It’s often difficult to share ourselves and our work with the world, given the reflexive criticism and mean-spiritedness that we see in our culture — especially online. What strategies do you use to show up, let yourself be seen, share your work with the world, and deal with criticism?
Dealing with really aggressive, sometimes threatening comments, is, unfortunately, a daily reality for me. I would love to tell you that I’ve done extensive inner work and meditation in order to master my response to such comments, but the truth is more basic: I take the tools available to me and put them to work. On Twitter, I block and mute without hesitation, and I keep my DMs closed. On Instagram, I use the ‘restrict’ tool almost every day and only allow comments from followers. When those tools aren’t enough, I remind myself that the anonymous angry man (or teen) yelling at me on Twitter is a true stranger to me. If they were standing in front of me, I would not know it. I know nothing about them. So the idea that I should have big feelings about what this total stranger thinks about my haircut, or my kids, or about something I wrote is kind of ridiculous. Sometimes I will respond to them (speaking aloud to myself): I don’t know who you are. This helps me remember that there are lots of people who I love and respect and value their opinions, and this is not one of those people.
Creativity for me is wrapped up in problem-solving. So, though it may sound strange, when there are no bumps, surprises, problems, or set-backs, that gets in the way of my creativity.
Describe a snapshot of a joyful moment in your life.
My favorite moments are when our family is working together on a meaningful project. This has been true my whole life. As a kid, my favorite memories involve working together to do something like clean out the garage — music on, everyone laughing and working with a purpose, and seeing evidence of how much we’ve accomplished. This still holds true when I think about my siblings as adults — when we’re together, we are at our best when we are working on something big and compelling; the sibling teasing, and bickering, and sarcasm disappear, and everyone gets a chance to contribute.
As a parent, I have tried to look for or create opportunities for our family to work on meaningful projects together. I think of seemingly simple tasks like taking off the old wallpaper as part of the renovation in our current home. Everyone could participate — one child would use the steamer and steam the wallpaper, a couple people would use scrapers to remove the wallpaper, and a couple people would bag up the wallpaper scraps as we progressed. The room would transform before our eyes and everyone played a part.
Gabrielle’s favorite thing is working on projects with her family. She says: “This image was taken as we started to work on the house we live in now. It was right in the middle of lockdown 2020. We were scraping the decades of grime from the attic floor and realized the light reminded us of The Floor Planers painting, so we recreated it a bit”; photography by Gabrielle Blair.
Do you have a mantra, manifesto, or favorite quote for living and loving with your whole heart?
My favorite: I am against dogmas. If you asked my kids for a quote from me, I think they would say: Get in problem-solving mode.
What is your favorite word?
I’m going to submit a favorite French phrase instead: Bah les deux. When asked if you want the ice cream or the piece of cake, you can say, “Bah les deux.” Meaning, why not both?
What is your least-favorite word?
Mommyblogger. It’s just so intentionally condescending.
What sound or noise do you love?
I love the sound of a heavy rain storm.
What sound or noise do you hate?
I do not like the sound of mysterious animals scurrying in the walls. I suppose it’s not the sound I hate, but what it implies.
Gabrielle and her husband, Ben Blair, have six children — Ralph, Maude, Olive, Oscar, Betty, and Flora June, who wasn’t yet born at the time of this photo. “This first photo was taken in Central Park. It was the first thing I put on the internet that went really viral. We lived in New York for eight years, and this was taken shortly before we moved. What a souvenir!”; photography by Candice Stringham.
“Ten years later, we went back to NYC to re-create this photo. I ended up hearing from hundreds of families who used these images as inspiration for their own family photo shoots,” she says; photography by Candice Stringham.
What is your favorite curse word?
Fuck. But I pretty much only use it on Twitter. I’m not a huge curse-word user, but Twitter definitely brings it out of me.
A song/band/type of music you’d risk wreck and injury to turn off when it comes on?
Contemporary country music. With an exception for Beyoncé obviously.
Favorite show on television?
My most recent binge was Foundation, it’s a gorgeous series. Favorite rewatch is The Good Place.
Favorite movie?
I’m going to give you a French option and an English option. French: Priceless, with Audrey Tautou and Gad Elmaleh. If you haven’t seen this yet, please watch it immediately. English: The Hudsucker Proxy. This is maybe my favorite of the Coen Brothers. It’s more charming than dark. (But honestly, the most often watched is: Pride and Prejudice, 2005).
When asked if you want the ice cream or the piece of cake, you can say, “Bah les deux.” Meaning, why not both?
What are you grateful for today?
Long, unhurried walks.
If you could have anything put on a T-shirt, what would it be?
Hmmm. Can’t decide between: Ejaculate Responsibly, Regulate Dick not Jane, or I heart vasectomies.
Favorite meal?
Anything involving a slow-cooked shredded meat.
A talent you wish you had?
I wish I was bilingual! (My French is still so embarrassingly bad.)
Favorite song/band?
I really love Phoenix.
After living in New York City, Denver, and Oakland, the Blair family moved to a small town in Normandy, France, where they are renovating a house from the 1400s. “This is where we live. It’s in a little town in Normandy, France, about two hours west of Paris. We renovated every inch of it, replacing every pipe and wire. We live across the street from a gorgeous church built in the 1400s. We love living here and sometimes can’t believe how magical it is”; photography courtesy of Gabrielle Blair.
What’s on your nightstand?
A thrifted lamp, a phone charger, a gorgeous candle, Mom’s Stuff salve (it works beautifully and smells like the American West, where I grew up). I want to say a book, but I’m into audiobooks at the moment (currently listening to the Silo Saga), so they’re all on my phone. When everything is right in the world, a little container of pear Jelly Bellys.
What’s something about you that would surprise us?
I grew up in the desert and my moves since then have been a continual trajectory toward more green.
Your six-word memoir . . .
Taught the world to ejaculate responsibly.
“This photo was taken on the first day of Alt Summit, the conference that I founded and still run, after a three-year pandemic break. It’s in front of the famous pink wall at the rainbow-colored Saguaro Hotel in Palm Springs,” she says; photography by Justin Hackworth.
