Category: Parents

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Hannah Waddingham Parenthood Parents

Hannah Waddingham: more people should talk about how exhausting motherhood is

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Hannah Waddingham has two movies out in theaters: Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and the live action remake of Lilo & Stitch. She just got back from Cannes and she’s been busy! Mr. Rosie and I saw M:I-FR and Hannah’s role is small, but important. She does a fantastic job in it. The rest of the movie had some absolutely wild stunt scenes. I’ve seen the behind-the-scenes stuff with that final action sequence (IYKYK), and holy sh-t, Tom Cruise really does think that he cannot die.

Along with being an in-demand actress, Hannah is a single mother to a 10-year-old daughter. She recently sat down with The Sunday Times. They talk about filming Mission: Impossible, her fertility struggles and parenthood.

“Thank God she is the utter joy of my life because it is unyielding responsibility,” Waddingham, 50, told The Sunday Times of her 10-year-old daughter in an interview published on Saturday, June 7.

“I feel like more people should talk about how exhausting it is,” she added, chuckling. “Not only physically showing up for them but being the best version of yourself, because they respond to actions far more than words.”

Waddingham, who does not name her daughter publicly, told the outlet that she decided she wanted to have a child when she was single in her 30s — but that the path to parenthood was a difficult one.

“I was told I couldn’t have children and then I went down the eastern medicine route, had my body balanced out,” she explained. On her 40th birthday, after conceiving her daughter without any medical intervention, she took her baby girl home.

Later, Waddingham separated from her daughter’s father, Gianluca Cugnetto, an Italian businessman. At 50, she’s raising her daughter as a single mother, telling the outlet that after her daughter suffered a health scare when she was 3 she only picks jobs that work with and for her life as a single mom.

“[She’s] my greatest champion and my most horrific critic,” Waddingham said of her daughter, who is now also showing an interest in the entertainment business after starring in a school production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

[From Us Weekly]

”[Motherhood] is an unyielding responsibility. I feel like more people should talk about how exhausting it is.” Amen, sister. We moms work hard and carry so much weight – physical, emotional, mental, etc. There are also so many threats to their safety – in school or out with friends – that even on the good days, you’re worrying. Now that I am a parent, I often compare myself to my mother and grandmother. I think about how I react to things vs. how my mother did and wonder if I’m doing better. I knew motherhood was going to be exhausting, but I wasn’t prepared for how emotionally taxing it would be to also have to be the “best version” of myself when I feel anything but. There are definitely times when I find myself ducking into another room to take slow, deep breaths to not lose my temper. Some days, it feels like you’re all learning and growing together.

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Dax Shepard Kristen Bell Parents

Kristen Bell loved leaving her 9 and 11-year-old daughters alone all day in Copenhagen

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Kristen Bell and Dax Shepherd have made a cottage industry out of oversharing about their relationship, their two daughters and their questionable parenting decisions. They’ve shared that they let their daughters, now aged 9 and 11, drink nonalcoholic beer, and that they don’t bathe them until they smell bad. In a recent interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Bell talked about how they let their daughters roam around an amusement park in Copenhagen by themselves for entire days, reasoning that it was fine because “they’re alive.”

Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard gave “free-range parenting” a try in Denmark.

While vacationing with daughters Lincoln, 11, and Delta, 9, the couple let the little ones roam around Tivoli Gardens on their own for hours at a time, Bell confessed on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Thursday.

“We stayed at this hotel that was right at Tivoli Gardens,” the actress, 44, explained to viewers of the seven-acre amusement park.

“The hotel opens up into the theme park and so we just were kind of like, ‘Are we going to free-range parenting and roll the die here?’” she recalled. “They woke up at like 6:00 every morning.

“They scanned their bracelets to go outside,” she continued. “[We] didn’t see them for seven hours. Just running around Copenhagen.”

The Golden Globe nominee called the experience “heaven,” explaining, “We just had coffee, we played Spades, and then around 3:00 we’d be like, ‘Anybody see them?’ And then one of them would run up and need a Band-Aid or whatever.”

When host Jimmy Kimmel asked whether “that was OK,” Bell joked that their children are “both alive” and the whole family “returned home.”

The “Veronica Mars” alum noted that the girls were “allowed on the rides without an adult” since “it’s real loosey goosey over there.”

[From Page Six]

Did the girls have cell phones that work in Europe and did they check in with them? (Update: probably not.) I guess it doesn’t matter because Bell is just going to tell a parenting story to get people outraged and then sit back and act like it’s everyone else’s problem. When my son was little we lived in Switzerland and Germany. Kids would regularly ride the public buses and trams by themselves, but they did so with a group of their friends. I would not let my son be alone at 9 or 11, even with a sibling, all day at an amusement park. An hour or two maybe, but I’m American and don’t adapt that easily. Plus I watch too much true crime. People argue that these places are safer than America and that it’s culturally acceptable to leave your kids to their own devices, similar to how it used to be in the US. I wouldn’t put it past Bell and Shepherd to have researched this park and taken this vacation just to have a story to tell about leaving their kids alone. It’s probably fine and it worked out fine, but this woman knows what she’s doing telling this story.

In another interview, with E! News, Bell said, of her 11-year marriage to Shepard, “We argue about absolutely everything, but there is a foundational trust that we’ve built that keeps us together and is quite stimulated by one another’s opinions.” That sounds kind of miserable to me.

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Mandy Moore Parents

Mandy Moore: a doctor told me I had a slim chance of getting pregnant

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Mandy Moore has two young boys with husband Taylor Goldsmith. Their names are Gus, age two, and Ozzie, one. While celebrities have different levels of exposure for their kids being in the public eye, Mandy has always been pretty open with her children’s lives when it’s in the context of her motherhood journey. She’s outspoken, but not to the level of overshare. Mandy’s talked about not feeling good enough as a mother, having two under two-year-olds being overwhelming, shared her potty training journey, and more. Honestly, most of what Mandy shares is pretty relatable.

I didn’t realize this but at some point, doctors told Mandy that she may not be able to get pregnant. They suspected that Mandy possibly had endometriosis and was planning on getting surgery to “fix” it so that she could get pregnant. But as the Universe would have it, Mandy ended up getting pregnant before her surgery happened.

Mandy Moore thought she’d have a difficult time getting pregnant before conceiving her two boys. On Tuesday, the actress reflected on her uncertain road to motherhood and being told she had a “slim chance” of conception in a candid Instagram post.

“I’ve always wanted to be a mom. Before bringing my two boys into the world with my love, @taylordawesgoldsmith, I was a mom to many many cats and at times, just as many dogs,” she began alongside a throwback video of her much younger self sitting on a couch with a cat under each arm.

“But there was a time when I thought I might not be able to have kids,” she continued. “I remember when the doctor told me there was a slim chance of getting pregnant… and then lo and behold to our surprise, I became pregnant with Gus.”

The “A Walk to Remember” star, 39, went on to call motherhood a “beautiful, messy, sleepless gift.”

It turns out that Moore, who shares her boys, August “Gus,” 2, and Oscar “Ozzie,” 1, with her husband, Taylor Goldsmith, prepared for her real-life role as a mother through her “This Is Us” character of Rebecca Pearson.

“Playing Rebecca on #ThisIsUs actually prepared me for it a bit — like changing a diaper for the first time and running around set with ‘triplets,’” she wrote in the vulnerable post.

“Being a mom on This Is Us to triplets at various stages of life and now being a mom to Gus and Ozzie, well, I’ve learned that as hard as you try and as good intentioned as you may be, it is impossible to ‘get it right’ all of the time.”

She wrapped up her candid note with a touching quote from the Pearson family matriarch.

“‘It’s my job to keep standing there with my arms wide open, waiting for you to maybe someday fall inside if you needed it,’” she wrote. “And if you do, I’ll love you. And if you don’t I’ll love you too — because that’s what it means to be a parent. You’ll see one day.’”

Moore enthusiastically concluded, “And to that I say, Rebecca, I see it!”

Moore previously opened up about the shock she felt when she learned she was pregnant in a 2021 interview with Romper. She revealed at the time that she had planned to get surgery to “fix” her “uterus issues” and potential endometriosis before learning of her pregnancy.

“Because of this issue with my uterus, I was very hesitant to believe it and put any stock in it,” she recalled. “I sort of was holding my breath until 12 weeks.”

[From Page Six]

After hearing her reproductive backstory, I’m so happy for Mandy. I know so many women who have had issues getting pregnant, but managed to do so despite the odds. Both of my SILs needed Clomid and my best friend went through several rounds of IVF, one of which resulted in an 11-week loss that almost broke her. She delivered to term two rounds later. If you’ve experienced difficulty getting pregnant and/or a loss, I’m so sorry. Please know that you aren’t alone.

I did love it when Mandy said, “I’ve learned that as hard as you try and as good intentioned as you may be, it is impossible to ‘get it right’ all of the time.” Say it louder for the people in the back, Mandy! I try to be open with my children when I make a mistake, which is not something I saw older generations in my family do. I want them to understand that I’m human too and that I’m making the best decisions I can regarding the situation and the information I have. Some scenarios may repeat but as they get older, there will be new ones that we’re all figuring out together. I think that’s the one thing to take away from life in general, that we’re all in this together.

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jennifer lopez Kids Parenthood Parents

Jennifer Lopez: ‘The teenage years are tough. They start challenging you’

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This story came out last week but I just saw it, so I apologize for my tardiness. Jennifer Lopez appeared on Live with Kelly and Mark to discuss her large, blended family. Although Jen and husband Ben Affleck are enjoying a big, happy family vibe, the fact is, when they united their two fronts, they ended up with a whole house full of teenagers. Of all of the things you want doubled when you merge households, teens are likely not your first choice. Jen told Kelly and Mark that it was kind of a shock to go from babies, who tend to listen to their parents, to these pre-teens and teens who “start challenging you.” I imagine if you multiple that by five, yeah, that would be “tough.”

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck have their hands full.

During a new guest appearance on Live With Kelly and Mark, the “Let’s Get Loud” singer opened up about her and her husband’s blended family. Between them, the couple share five children in total, four of whom are teenagers.

“That’s almost five teenagers. The youngest is 11, so he’s not quite [a teen], but preteen,” Lopez told hosts Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos. “He’s an angel.”

She added, “The teenage years are tough. They start challenging you and everything. You have this baby for a while and then it’s like your best little friend who loves being with you all the time, and all of a sudden they’re like, ‘Get out of my room.’”

Consuelos—who shares three children with Ripa—offered a few words of comfort to the multi-hyphenate: “But, you know they come back when they’re in their 20s.”

“Twenties?!” Lopez replied. “Jesus Christ! I’m so depressed.”

“It’s crazy, I feel like I had them yesterday. They were just babies a little while ago,” Lopez continued. “It’s the time when they are individuating and they are challenging everything you say and everything you do and everything you are. And that’s what it is. And you have to kind of just ride the waves. I feel like it’s like surfing. I’m just riding the waves—whoops, just got knocked over. Now, I’m back! I’m back!”

She also described the struggles of being a mother of teenagers.

“I think it’s particularly hard on moms a little bit. Because they always kind of love Dad,” she said. “They are always kind of like, ‘Dad’s the best.’ And I was like that with my dad too. My mom told me—and I’ll say it to you right now on TV in front of everybody—I understand you so much more now.”

[From Yahoo!]

Jen and Ben’s problem is numbers. Once they got five, it became mob rule. I’m kidding. Five teens sounds overwhelming to me and so far, teenagerdom is my favorite phase. Maybe because mine challenged me from the start, the little brats. No! Again, I’m kidding – kind of. I don’t know how to communicate with younger kids. I tend to approach things through discussion and four-year-olds don’t really have many counter arguments I can relate to. So once my kids brought their own viewpoints into the picture, our relationship took on a larger dimension. It’s just different for everyone, I think. But again, I have two and there are two adults. We’re not outnumbered.

I love Jen likening raising kids to surfing and getting knocked over by the waves of challenges. It’s an apt description. I also related to Jen telling her mom how much she understood her own mother now. I call my mom all the time and apologize for stuff I did as a kid as a result of having to deal with my own offspring doing it. What comes around goes around. I so get it now.

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Jennifer Garner Parenthood Parents

Jennifer Garner: ‘Being a mother was one thing I knew I was going to be’

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Jennifer Garner has a big profile in the latest Allure. The editorial is fantastic. I think Jen is pretty, but I don’t think she’s a great model. They did such a good job styling her, though. It’s a mix between ‘70s glam that she rocked beautifully and this Next Gen Blade Runner thing that plays perfectly into her stiffness and cut cheekbones. The interview is pretty good too, albeit not exactly earthshattering. Jen hit most of her common talking points: being from Appalachia, being a mom, loving being a mom, being known as ‘nice’, raising her kids, social media, and her family. So it wasn’t exactly shocking to read that Jen always knew she’d be a mother, no matter how that happened.

She knew she’d be a mom: Being a mother was one thing I knew I was going to be. I really could have been a mother in any way. I could have adopted, I could have fostered, but there was no doubt I was going to be a mom. I mean, I was the kid with the doll everywhere I went. And I had a babysitting company with my friend Carrie — C & J’s Babysitting — from, like, seventh or eighth grade.

Her kids will watch their dad on screen but not their mom: They don’t mind watching their dad, but they kind of want me to be their mom. They don’t want to see me upset and women cry more in what we do. And they don’t really want to see me in a romantic thing.

She trusts her kids (now): Your kids will really figure out who they are and what they are when they’re older, and most likely they will hew toward lovely. I have a lot of faith in my kids. I don’t love every behavior all the time, always. It’s gnarly growing up. We didn’t have the eyes on us that our kids have. I was such a first-time mom. [My eldest daughter] didn’t have a shot. She couldn’t have a free thought — I was all over her. I was a nightmare for everyone around me.

She pushes back on her ‘nice’ reputation: The problem with, ‘Oh, she’s so nice’ is that when I have any kind of boundary, people think of it as much more than it actually is. The problem is being recognized on a day where I’m not so nice or when I have blackness in my soul. I’ve definitely had days where I just can’t do it. I scowl at people before they can walk up to me. I’m not perfect, and I don’t think I’m rude, but I’m not good at being fake. I’m an open book of a person.”

She doesn’t read celebrity news: I learned a while ago that I’m way too sensitive to what is written about me, my family. The only things I have on my phone are The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal. I can’t even have CNN. I used to love the Huffington Post, but anything that has a celebrity section [she shakes her head. Sometimes, she sees other celebrities and has no idea] that they got married and had a baby.

She has an interesting take on social media: The paparazzi have calmed down so much for me that I’m back to being in the world. I’m not getting chased into the grocery store to have whatever is in my cart photographed. Maybe my life is happily boring enough that there’s nothing to see here. I think social media helped calm it down, actually. You have your own relationship with people.

[From Allure]

I said the exact same thing as Jen when I was single, that I would have kids regardless of my relationship status. For me, it was because I was becoming increasingly aware relationships weren’t my thing, but I wanted a child. Turns out, I love being married, at least to the person I married, and motherhood was not my thing (although I absolutely adore the people I mother). So I am both happy and jealous of people like Jen who wanted children so much and it turned out to be everything they wanted, in the way they wanted it. Jen has a lot going on outside of motherhood – producing, acting, Once Upon a Farm, etc. – so it’s not like she won’t have an identity when her kids leave. She just reached for her gold ring and got it in this area. I’m genuinely happy for her.

I was snarky about all Jen’s ‘mom’ talk above, but I’m not knocking her for it. I don’t think it’s because she can’t talk about anything else, I think those are the cards she’s willing to show. In this way, I feel I know Jen. She can deflect any subject by offering up topics that sound like she is opening up. But what is she saying above that isn’t surface level or something she’s already said? She’s created this perfect cocoon to protect herself and her kids all while letting us think she’s being vulnerable. I respect that.

One sweet note: the interviewer starts the article by telling Jen a story about her kid going to the same school as Jen’s (which Jen didn’t know). One day, the interviewer’s daughter had a mean girl situation happen to her and was in line trying not to cry when an older girl asked if she was okay and comforted her, making her feel better about all of it. The older girl was Violet Affleck. See? Jen not only loves being a mom, she’s obviously doing it well.

Photo credit: Allure and Instagram

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Brendan Fraser Parents

Brendan Fraser’s sons roast him for his dad jokes

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When Brendan Fraser won Best Actor for The Whale, he grabbed the people behind him so quickly and tightly, I thought the mane of red hair belonged to his on-screen daughter Sadie Sink. I learned minutes later it was his son Leland, who attended the ceremony with his brother Holden to see their dad’s win. Brendan also thanked his oldest son Griffin, who was not at the ceremony. Side-note, I also just learned that Griffin is a redhead as well. Rise up, Ginger Nation! (Said as mother to a ginger son.)

Prior to the ceremony, the boys walked the carpet with Brendan and his girlfriend Jeanne Moore. Kevin Fraiser and Nischelle Turner asked them what it was like having The Mummy as a daddy. Holden and Leland said Brendan’s jokes were as bad as mine. Gen X ‘rents, amirite?

The 95th Academy Awards is a family affair for Best Actor nominee Brendan Fraser, who is celebrating Hollywood’s biggest night with his girlfriend, Jeanne Moore, and two children, Holden and Leland Fraser. All four caught up with ET’s Kevin Fraiser and Nischelle Turner on the champagne-colored carpet, where Fraser’s kids shared their father’s best — err, worst — dad jokes.

“At the end of a conversation, we’ll say, ‘Oh yeah, right.’ And he’ll say, ‘Left,’” Holden offered, while Leland said, “I think my personal favorite has always been when we’re kids and I’d say, I don’t like broccoli,’ and he’d say, ‘Broccoli loves you.’”

While Holden quipped that his “dad jokes still don’t hit,” he admitted that his father’s “pretty cool; I’ll give him that he’s pretty cool.”

“I mean, he’s our old man and he’s always been cool. But we’re always gonna rag on him at least a little,” Leland added.

[From ET]

“When we’re kids and I’d say, I don’t like broccoli,’ and he’d say, ‘Broccoli loves you.’” Hand to Whoever, when I was a kid, I would say ‘I don’t like so-and-so,’ my dad would reply with, ‘So-and-so speaks quite highly of you.’ And my father is 32 years older than Brendan. Seriously, do dads receive some kind of handbook in the delivery room we don’t know about? The thing is, I totally buy Brendan Fraser, Dad Joke Guy. He looks the part. And those are crap jokes, Leland and Holden are right to hold his feet to the fire about them.

But what I’m hearing and what we saw on Sunday was a lot of joy from Brendan and his family. And that’s a beautiful thing, given the road he was forced to till to get there. As I have said before, I wish it had been another film that put Brendan’s career back in the spotlight, but at least he is back. And now he’s Academy Award winner Brendan Fraser and will hopefully get the work he deserves.

Can we love Ke Huy Quan any more?


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Busy Philipps Divorces Parents

Busy Philipps and her ex use ‘nesting’ custodial time, take turns at the same house

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Busy Philipps and her ex, Marc Silverstein, divorced last year after being separated for some time. They’re co-parenting their two girls, Birdie, 14 and Cricket, nine. In speaking with Yahoo Life’s So Mini Ways parenting series, Busy said she and Marc are using the ‘nesting’ strategy, where the girls stay put and Marc and Busy come and go. And while their living arrangements are consistent, Busy said their rules can vary. But, she said, she thinks that’s true of any parent, because it’s just too hard to monitor.

Philipps and her ex-husband Marc Silverstein use a “nesting” strategy when it comes to parenting, meaning her kids don’t move households but she and Silverstein do, taking turns coming to their family home and returning to separate residences. Still, Philipps knows there’s no way to have a standard set of house rules for her kids that remains no matter which parent is in charge.

“I don’t think you can,” she explains. “Married, divorced — I have no idea if that has ever worked for anyone, ever. Kids are so great at knowing which parent to go to when they want to have candy, and which parent to go to when they need help with their math homework. We try to have consistency, but with the understanding that hey, maybe Marc has had a hard work day, and he’s exhausted, so he lets them have more screen time — it is what it is. It’s a part of being adaptable in parenting as you are in life.”

[From Yahoo! Life]

As far as nesting (I didn’t realize that’s what it’s called) has anyone done this? I see the logic in it for the kids. Do the parents share a single residence for their night without the kids? Otherwise that would mean the family would need three residences. That sounds like the couple would need some extra income for this option. In theory, I think I’d like a space that was all mine. But that also means maintaining two homes: mine and the one with the kids. And I have another question, in the stable residence, where the kids are – do the parents share the same room or do they have their own room in the house, like the kids would if they were traveling between their parent’s houses. I’m so curious now. I’d assume, though, that kids’ lives are easier to make mobile that parents. But that could be my ignorance. I guess the best post-divorce living solution is whatever works for each family.

As for the difference in parenting rules, I see what Busy is saying. It’s true, two people are always going to do things a little differently. It’s important not to contradict the major family rules, but a little extra screen time or whatever does happen on occasion. Busy’s been vocal about Marc not pulling his weight with the kids, if his biggest infraction is giving too much screen time now, I’m sure she’s counting that as a win.

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