After raising two children into adulthood, Reese Witherspoon, 49, says she is parenting her youngest differently.
During an appearance on The New York Times’ podcast “The Interview,” Witherspoon spoke about the challenges of juggling motherhood with her Hollywood career.
“I’m exhausted. I’m completely wrung out and tired,” Witherspoon told host Lulu Garcia-Navarro as she described what parenting her youngest feels like now.
Even so, the years of experience raising her oldest kids have given her a clearer sense of what matters this time around.
“I’ve been parenting for 25 years. I also feel very comfortable that I know the little things that aren’t as important. Like I had a friend say, ‘I’m not there for pickup. And is that OK?’ Absolutely. You know, you can’t be at every soccer game, every morning meeting, pick up, drop off, make the lunch, do the volunteer stuff,” Witherspoon said.
She added that there’s “a lot of pressure on women” to do it all.
“That’s like unpaid labor, you know, and I am so grateful for the women who show up and do it and include me in it, you know, when I choose to show up. But that’s a whole other set of pressures on women constantly, you know, to show up and be the perfect mom,” Witherspoon said.
The “Legally Blonde” actor shares daughter Ava, 26, and son Deacon, 21, with her ex-husband Ryan Phillippe. She also has a son, Tennessee, 12, with her ex Jim Toth, whom she divorced in April 2023.
During the interview, Witherspoon also reflected on what it was like to become a mother in her early 20s, long before most of her Hollywood peers were starting families.
“I went through everything that new moms go through, sleepless nights and long days, endless bottle feedings, and breastfeeding, and trying to learn lines and go to do auditions, and organize childcare,” the actor said.
When she had her first child, she didn’t have a nanny, only a sitter who watched her baby “three hours twice a week,” she said.
“It was really hard. There were roles I couldn’t take. I wasn’t just in service of my career. I had to sort of have this immediate balance of family and career,” Witherspoon, adding that she learned to draw boundaries at a very young age.
“It was really hard. But I figured it out,” Witherspoon said.
In August, she shared in an Instagram post that raising kids while working in Hollywood left her “deliriously tired.”
“I’d cry working 14 to 17 hours, sometimes all night long, and still woke up early for carpool,” she wrote in a caption on the post.
A representative for Witherspoon did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular hours.
She’s not the only Hollywood star to open up about the difficulties of raising children while building a career in the spotlight.
In November, Keira Knightley said she now avoids roles that would take her abroad for long periods because of her kids.
“It wouldn’t be in any way fair on them, and I wouldn’t want to,” Knightley told The Times. “I’ve chosen to have children, I want to bring them up, so I’ve had to take a major step back.”
In a May interview, Michelle Williams said that balancing her career and motherhood is like figuring out “which master you’re going to serve.”
“Because the truth is, if work is going well, somebody else is taking care of the kids. And if you’re in a high point with your kids, the work is shoved to the side,” Williams told Dax Shepard on the “Armchair Expert” podcast.
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