Keeping it real.
Being a mama is amazing, the most amazing thing most of us will ever do. But it is also hard work – and let’s not pretend it isn’t.
Which is why we love when other mums – especially ones in the public eye – admits this. It makes us all feel a little bit better about the days when we find this parenting craic pretty relentless and wonder if we will ever have it all figured out.
Busy Philips is one of these celebrity mums we love for keeping it real. The actress, who is mum to 10-year-old Birdie and 5-year-old Cricket doesn’t pretend to know everything about parenting. Nope. Just like the rest of us, Philipps is just trying to do the best she can.
“I call myself the all-over-the-place, doesn’t-have-a-plan mom. Is that a parenting philosophy? On a daily basis, I’m just trying to hold it together,” Philipps tells Parents in the magazine’s November cover story.
The mum-of-two explains in the interview that she’s essentially winging it when it comes to big parenting topics like sleep, sugar and screen time. She just does what works for her family when it works for her family and leaves it at that. “Our family has no absolute rules about screen time or sugar or anything. I mean, Marc and I were raised that way, and we turned out fine.”
Not one to let motherhood slow her down, the 39-year-old is currently about to launch her own chat show, and admits that she is finding it hard learning to say no to certain things no that her career is set to get busier than ever.
“I’m an overextender. I agree to everything. But now, with my own TV show, I have to learn to say no,” she tells Parents. “I was signing up to be Cricket’s room mom at her elementary school because I knew it would make her happy, and then it occurred to me that that would be a truly insane thing to do. You can’t volunteer for everything, and that’s okay.”
And guys – it is okay. Much as mums are super-heroes, we can only be in so many places at once, doing so many things, meaning, of course, we can’t always make everyone happy at all times. We can only do our best, and part of that is making sure we are happy (at least some of the time).
“I live to make sure everyone is happy, but I also make sure I’m taking care of my own mental health. I see a therapist. I work out almost every day because cardio knocks out my anxiety. It makes me happy when I spend time with friends and see bands, so I do that.
