Three days after celebrating her son's record-breaking eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, Debbie Phelps is back in the US, with no signs of slowing down.
The single mother of three—whose cherubic face is almost as recognizable on TV as her Aquaboy son's—has just been crowned "Mom of the Olympic Games" by Johnson's Baby, and she's taking time out to meet the press and shoot a commercial in New York City. Still, in addition to her own three grown children, Hilary, 30, Whitney, 28, and Michael, 22, she's responsible for a whole slew of middle schoolers at Windsor Mill in Baltimore County, where she is the principal. (Imagine her paper on What I Did During My Summer Vacation?) Debbie sat down with Momtourage in her suite at Manhattan's Mandarin Hotel to give us some guidance counseling, as well as insight into her own epic journey of motherhood, which includes rearing a certain "über-Olympian," whom you may have heard of.Momtourage: Here at Momtourage.com, we celebrate the people who help moms get the job of mothering done with grace, humor and practical grit. Who's in your Momtourage that helped you become such a great mom? Debbie Phelps: It starts with my mom. She taught me my strength, my compassion. I lost my mom after the Athens games [in 2004], and it was very difficult, but the things she taught me I've passed on to my own children. Then there's my assistant principal at school. She's very spiritual. She's a mother to four children and multiple grandchildren. And there's also the school system itself. I've also worked with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, with the ADHD Moms online community, which I'm national spokesperson for. Not only do I help moms but they help me.
I read that Michael came home with a comment on his fourth-grade report card that said he fidgeted too much. What did you make of that? Michael definitely was not Hilary or Whitney. The girls just sat there and they were so content with Play-Doh, and coloring and paper dolls and things like that. Then Michael came along, and he just didn't want anything to do with sitting down.
As parents, we're too often told what our children aren't good at, what they can't do well. You were told Michael was too fidgety, had ADHD and would never amount to much of anything. How did you see past those comments? What are your tips for moms who get comments like these? First, you have to look at the source they came from. And that may be a harsh statement, but definitely, if you're in a schoolhouse where you have a brand new teacher and the teacher says your child isn't going to do well, you have to look at the source and say, "Well, what experience do you have to back that comment?" That's number one. Number two: If it comes from a teacher who has great knowledge about education and children, then you go to other resources, as I went to the health profession. But I think there's a very big spectrum between having kids on medication compared to kids who need to have behavior modifications put in place. And that was one thing with Michael: He was medicated five days a week, none on weekends, none on holidays and none in summertime. But I was able to put parameters around him.
Did you ever think on any of those mornings of getting up early and driving your kids to swim practice that it might not be worth it? You know, because all three children did swimming, I often ask the girls now, "Should we have done something different?" and they say, "No." Swimming can take you down many roads, and one of those roads is that of an Olympian. I think that through sports, there are a lot of characteristics that were reinforced from the home—about being competitive, having perseverance, determination and drive for setting goals and reaching those goals. We all want our kids to set goals for short- and long-term. So maybe you're not going to get to be an Olympian, but think about the goals you are going to get along the way.
But as a single mom with three kids, how did you manage to get to all those practices, all those meets? I never had a child in the same practice time. They had different practice times, all different pools and we were just going all over the place. But I relied on other moms. We all became very close to each other. They knew I was coming down from another county, and we just picked up after each other and helped each other.
How did you balance having time for yourself and time for your three kids? Well, I'm a very energetic person, so I wasn't one to sit still. But me-time was when everybody was settled in their beds at night, and I was able to sit down in a comfy chair and look at a magazine or just exhale. I used to work in a school with a very young group of new teachers and I was the experienced one. So when Friday evening came, they all wanted to go to happy hour. But I had the responsibility of three children. I was always a firm believer that when you bring children into the world, you see it through and you don't let go of their hands until it's time. That's what I did in the household as a single mom. I kept on going, kept on supporting, nurturing, guiding, trying to figure out how to get what one of my kids wanted.
After winning his eighth medal in Beijing, Michael said there was so much emotion going through his head and so much excitement, adding, "I just want to see my mom." Tell us about your relationship with Michael. [Laughs] That's interesting—Michael is the baby of the family, so he's very attached to me. When I became a single mom [when Michael was nine], I realized I could go two directions: either stay focused on my family, or focus on just myself, and go the other direction. That's where the values from my home carried me through. My mother was a very strong mother: She was a mother of four and did not work outside the home until my father passed at a very early age, so her love and her passion was for her children. And I carry that kind of passion for my three kids. I mean, that's kind of what kept me going all the time. It's what I knew. It's the values I was raised with. My children and I are just very close. Michael and I will go to a [Baltimore] Ravens game and to sporting events, and the girls and I will go shopping. We just enjoy each other.
Do Michael's gold medals make you proudest of him, or can you think of another moment that makes you just as proud? It's not the gold medals that are hanging around his neck but it's what he is as a young man. He's very humble, he's very gracious, he just enjoys life and he enjoys what he just showed the world. It's that sparkle in his eye when he was on the podium. He was very emotionally moved during these Olympic games. This is our third one. [Michael] just wanted to soak everything in, what he was experiencing there—and to me, that was monumental for Michael. I had never heard that conversation before—when he was talking [to Bob Costas] about his imagination and imagining what he could become—and that he wanted to become Michael Phelps. He didn't want to become Mark Spitz; he wanted to become Michael.
In the 100-meter butterfly, Michael gave one of the great finishes in any Olympic event ever: With a final heave of his shoulders, he touched the wall before Milorad Cavic by mere milliseconds. What was going through your mind at that moment?
I thought, okay, he's gonna have a silver. 
I found myself looking up at the scoreboard, like I did in 2000, when he made the Olympic team. [I was] looking for a number two beside his name. That was a very close race. There could have been a three beside his name. But see, that shows Michael's mental toughness, actually being able to say [to himself]: "Okay, I'm coming this-close in, and I need to be able to get to the wall first." And he took that extra little short stroke, which put him into the wall before the other guy.
So what's the secret to being a great mom? Time and patience. To me, you bring children into the world and yes, it does take time, it does take patience— because no two children are alike. To me, you take every child and what their biggest strength is and you build upon that strength to make them have a consistently good self-esteem and make them feel good about themselves.
