She does not worry about repeating her own parents' toxic patterns, in fact, she considers motherhood as a chance to get parenting right!
Everything that happened in Drew Barrymore's life by the time she was 14 seems unreal, except, it was very real for her. Her mother and father split when she was only nine and she started having unrestricted access to drugs and alcohol as her mother frequented pubs and parties. Not to mention, fame and the complexities that came with it. She was a household name by the time she was seven all thanks to Stephen Spielberg's movie E.T.
As a child, she was deprived of a nurturing and wholesome environment because of her parents' unavailability, emotionally and otherwise. However, now that decades have rolled, Barrymore has accepted her past and decided to learn from it so she knows what not to do as a parent.
In an interview with GH, the 50 First Dates actress explained what is it like to be a mother herself and how does she approach it. "I'm an overachiever parent, and not because I think I'm going to repeat the patterns of my parents," she explained. "That's not my fear — I've already broken that pattern in my life. But having grown up in the opposite way, I'm raising my children with all consistency, all protection. This is my chance to get it right."
So she vowed to herself and her daughters, Olive and Frankie, that she will never let them be in showbiz as long as they are kids. "I'd never let them become child actors," she said.
And while she went on to joke, "They'll have a chastity belt, a tracker system, no cell phones and we'll live in the middle of nowhere," she actually has a sound approach planned. "In reality, I'll just lead by example by being spirited, classy, consistent, philanthropic, hardworking, loyal to my friends and there any second they might need me," Barrymore said.
But because she is protective of them, it does not mean that they can't dream of having their own future, in fact, she empowers them through her healthy parenting. “I always explain to [my daughter] that I love my job," Mother Mag quoted her. "I don’t say ‘I have to go work’ with a grimace on my face, because I fear it will make her feel negative about something a lot of moms must do to provide."
She went on, "My friend once said, ‘Never make your child feel like work is the bad thing taking you away from them,’ and I realized a lot of us tend to do that to try to make our kids feel better and that work is the yucky thing taking us away. I want to empower my daughters to think work is good and necessary. And can even lead them to the road of their dreams.”
Also, having gone through so much as a child, she does not worry about the rebellious teenage years of her kids, she is actually looking forward to it, claims Cheatsheet. “When my kids… figure out some of the things I did in my childhood, I’ll be like ‘Yeah, and that makes me all the more insightful to when you’re pulling crap on me.’ I was born for teenage girls. You’re my karma and… I know everything you’re up to.”
The single mom has had a rocky love life. She parted ways from her last husband Will Kopelman, the father of her children in 2016 and she reveals that she had never fully understood what love means until her daughters came along. "I thought I knew what love was, but holy cow, I did not," she said. "I could never have imagined the kind of love I have for my children."
And while she is trying hard to bring up her daughters to be amazing human beings, she credits them for making her the woman she is today. "I am who I am because of my daughters," she says.
References:
https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/is-drew-barrymore-married.html/
https://www.mothermag.com/drew-barrymore-on-motherhood-and-work/
