The actress spoke on a talk show about balancing her career and being a young mother when she was trying to make a mark in the industry.
Motherhood is a hard and tedious job as women have to dedicate their entire time and energy to nurture her child. Providing the kids with everything that they require is essential because all the effort that a woman puts in the initial years helps define the kind of people their child will grow up to be.
It's even more difficult when they are celebrities because they not only have to juggle work and home but they also have to make the tough decision of figuring out priorities. As young mothers, this phase of life can sometimes be really overwhelming. But actress Reese Witherspoon is one such example who handled motherhood and career in the best way possible.
The actress is accomplished in a lot of fields, be it acting, producing, entrepreneurship, or being an author, all of these didn't come easy to Witherspoon. But nothing matched the level of difficulty she faced being a young and naive mom at an age when others just start thinking about their future.
Recently while talking to Drew Barrymore on the talk show The Drew Barrymore Show, the actress opened up about the struggles she went through after becoming a mom at just 22 years of age. Barrymore admitted that she was "amazed" by Witherspoon, referring to the 44-year-old welcoming her first child, Ava, in 1999, reported the Independent UK.
She said, "I was so amazed by you being this young mother who was able to take all that on. How did you balance work and motherhood at that point? Because I was just trying to balance work. How did you both?"
Witherspoon, without any hesitation, replied, "To be completely candid, I was terrified. I got pregnant when I was 22 years old and I didn't know how to balance work and motherhood. You just do it, you know?"
The Legally Blonde actress then went on to explain that, at that time, she wasn't sure where her career as an actress was headed. It was also the time when she was just beginning to get noticed in movies with films like Election and Cruel Intentions. That's when the challenges arose with work and motherhood.
She said, "I didn't know if I was going to have steady work. I hadn't established myself as someone who could demand that [a project] shoot close to my kids' school. I didn't have any real power or leverage within my industry, so I was just like every other mom trying to figure it out."
Talking about parenting things that every other parent would relate to, she continued, "There's a lot of compromise. You take the food out of your mouth, the clothes off your back, the sleep out of your life. But every bit of that sacrifice is truly worth it because that's what makes me wake up on a Sunday. It's not movies or my job. It's my kids."
The Oscar winner previously spoke about her struggles with postpartum depression on Jameela Jamil’s I Weigh podcast where she confessed that she had a "different experience" with all her three kids, reported The Metro.
She said, "One kid I had kind of mild postpartum and then one kid I had severe postpartum, where I had to take pretty heavy medication because I just wasn’t thinking straight at all. And then I had one kid where I had no postpartum at all."
According to People, back in September 2019, the Big Little Lies star had shared a video via her social media company Hello Sunshine, where she said, “I’ve been a mom since 1999. I got pregnant when I was 22 and delivered when I was 23.” She admitted that she "was scared" in the beginning because "Everything you believe. Everything you eat. Every piece of independence you have. You can’t go out without thinking about another person. You don’t sleep anymore."
But the arrival of her daughter made her realize that with kids, “your entire life will change.”
Witherspoon is a mom to Ava Elizabeth, 21, and son Deacon Reese, 16, whom she had with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe. She also has a son Tennessee James, 7, who she shares with husband Jim Toth, and with all her kids by her side, she's "glad" that she had them when she was young.
She believes that as women age, it becomes difficult to have babies as “having little kids is more physical and it’s really hard on your body," and having her youngest child as 37 was "much harder” for the actress. She revealed when she was due with son Tennessee, she had to "depend on the kindness and support of my mom friends. It’s really about your support system, your family structure.”
However, everything worked out and as the dedicated actress waits for the release of the third installment of Legally Blonde while working on drama series Big Little Lies and The Morning Show which also stars Jennifer Aniston, she's proven that she's capable of being both a loving mother and a successful woman in the industry.
For Witherspoon, her three kids are her life and she wouldn't trade anything to be where she is right now. She said, “Being a mom is really great, it’s a big part of my life. I would say it’s the biggest part of my life.”
References:
https://people.com/parents/reese-witherspoon-says-she-was-terrified-of-becoming-a-mom-at-22/
