The 'Hitch' actress, who is now a fashion designer, dotes on her daughters. Although having kids was the "furthest thing" her mind at one time, she just can't imagine spending time away from them now.
Actress and fashion designer Eva Mendes, who has been with actor Ryan Gosling for at least eight years (the couple is secretive about exactly when they started dating), loves being a mother to her two daughters. The couple is parents to Esmeralda Amada Gosling, 4, and Amada Lee Gosling, 3. However, motherhood wasn't Eva's dream when she started out in her career.
“It was the furthest thing from my mind,” she admitted to Women's Health. However, what did change her mind was her longtime partner. “Ryan Gosling happened," she said, laughing. “I mean, falling in love with him. Then it made sense for me to have…not kids, but his kids. It was very specific to him," she added.
She recently admitted to E! News, “I’m just so obsessed with my kids that I don't want to leave them." The Hitch star added that her children were still too young. She has taken up the mantle of the matriarch of the little family with great aplomb, something Ryan has praised her for publicly. Her children are one of the reasons she isn't seen in press appearances with Ryan often.
“What people don’t know about me is that I love being home,” the celebrity fashion designer told Shape last year. "Instead of hitting the red carpet, I’d rather be with our girls," she said. However, she is open to the realities of what it means to raise two young children.
“We’re just starting to get out of survival mode,” the 45-year-old told Women's Health. “I’m starting to feel like a person again.”
When asked how she balances her career and motherhood, she was quoted by Today as saying, "I kind of have been figuring it out as I'm going along and it's just important to have a support system. I have my family, I have Ryan's family and that's just like, invaluable to have family around supporting you."
Another thing she said that would be relatable to all moms was about feeling guilty when you go back to work. "Oh my God, nobody warns you about the guilt that you feel when you do work!" she said in 2017. "I'm all for obviously taking care of myself — that's how I can take care of them of course — but that guilt that is just kind of always there. It's like, 'Ugh, this is gonna be there forever now'," she added.
Ryan is obviously not blind to the contribution she makes in the family. If anything, he is grateful to her for holding the fort single-handedly while he fulfilled his dream. On a very public platform like the Golden Globes 2017, the year he won an award for his performance in La La Land, he spoke up about how significant she is in his life.
"My lady was raising our daughter, pregnant with our second, and trying to help her brother fight his battle with cancer," he said, according to Women's Health. "If she hadn't have taken all that on so that I could have this experience, it would surely be someone else up here other than me today. So sweetheart, thank you," he continued.
The mother-of-two was more than touched by his gesture. "It was like a dream. But really, what I heard was that he said my brother's name. It was the most beautiful gesture, and I had no idea Ryan was going to say it," she said.
References:
https://www.eonline.com/news/968704/watch-eva-mendes-gush-over-her-2-daughters-and-ryan-gosling
https://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/a27116669/eva-mendes-ryan-gosling-kids/
https://www.womenshealthmag.com/relationships/a26657714/eva-mendes-birthday-husband-ryan-gosling/
