It’s not easy being a parent – but to feel as though others are judging how you’re bringing up your kids must make it even tougher. These 5 celebrity working mothers are doing their best to balance their busy home lives with their careers, and make parenting decisions based on what’s best for them. They have opened up on being judged by other parents and perhaps even judging others themselves, until they realised it is better for everyone not to pass judgement and to simply trust what makes the most sense.
Cate Blanchett
Cate feels judged by other parents on the school run: “You know there’s an extra judgment. You know they’re really observing how you parent. They don’t know that you cram everything in to make space for your kids like any working parent. Playing the lead in a film where you shoot for three months away from home is not an easy thing for me when my children are in school and my husband is running a theatre company. They assume you have a nanny and a driver and a chef. Who gives a sh-t whether I do or not? The fact is I don’t, but you know there is a certain circle of people – and we all get insecure – who then ask, ‘Why can’t she brush her hair?’ You just have to shrug that off.”
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth thinks women are all just doing their best: “I think we are all genuinely doing our best, it’s hard to have children and a career, and all some women seem to do is judge other women’s choices. I find that demoralizing and unhelpful.”
Jessica Alba
Jessica thinks it’s awful when moms feel judged by their decisions: “When you become a mom, the last thing you want to do is feel judged because everybody is trying to do the best they can. My girlfriend who is co-sleeping with her kids and may or may not be breastfeeding her 3-year-old shouldn’t hide that. She should be fine with that, and she shouldn’t feel judged, and then my friend who never even attempted really to breastfeed because it was too exhausting for her … she shouldn’t feel like she’s a bad mom.”
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Maggie says she used to be judgemental but now never passes judgement on other moms: “I used to be judgmental of the way other people would parent. I would look at someone talking on a cell phone while her baby was asleep in a stroller and think, ‘How can that mother have her cell phone out?’ Then you actually have a baby and you’re like, ‘She’s sleeping; I have 10 minutes; I’ll make three phone calls. I think so much of my judgment — not only about how people parent, but about people in general — went away when I became a mom.”
Jewel
Speaking on the topic of breastfeeding, Jewel says she chooses to breastfeed but doesn’t judge others who don’t: “I don’t think people should judge each other. Each woman does what she feels she can do. I was farm-raised so I think it’s important, but that’s just me and I don’t mind if other people don’t.”
