Listen to Rhea Perry interview Marilyn Woodard about Creating Great Homes!

Short Text Interview

Marilyn started college with the idea of majoring in Theatre, her great love. Then she met her Darling, who shoved Theatre out of first place. So, she switched to Home Economics because it seemed a lot more useful. The Home Ec department included Interior Design which became another lifelong love.

Marilyn has been making a home with Darling for 35 years. In that time she has studied Marriage, Interior Design, Parenting, and Home Economics. Now that
her children are grown she has the time to help
others who are discovering the joys and pitfalls of
Creating Great Homes.

Q. So what is your great love, today?

I have a passion to see families succeed. That means they stay together for life and they love being together.

I love helping younger moms and dads navigate parenting and marriage. I learned a lot of things the hard way. But I also learned a lot from my parents and from mentors.

Q. Where does Creating Great Homes come in?

This is where I give back what I was given. It used to be that people had mothers and fathers living close by, extended family or church families. And that was where they went for help.

Now, the intact nuclear family is pretty rare. But it is still most people's ideal. People who were raised in day care want to stay home with their children. So people are trying to start homes never having seen an example of a functional family.

Today's husbands and wives may have had no father, or several "fathers". They may have had no mother or several mothers with whom they competed for their father's attention.

How do they know what they can or should expect from their partners? It gets more complicated when children arrive. When they need advice, where do they go? Research shows that they go to their peers -- who probably know as little as they do -- and they go to the Internet.

Creating Great Homes is the Internet destination for people who want friends and mentors -- an online community where they can get smart, practical advice from people who have blazed the trail!