Michelle Williams says you 'can't be equally good' at parenting and work
Michelle Williams knows balancing her acting career with being a mom is tough.
During a Monday appearance on the " Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard" podcast, Williams, 44, shared how she juggles life as a mother of four while keeping her acting career on track.
"Kids are such great life checkers. They force you to put your best self in front of them," she told podcast host Dax Shepard. "You can't abdicate your life and your work and your own desires, but you do have to put them in check and figure out which master you're going to serve."
The " Brokeback Mountain" star welcomed her first child, Matilda, in 2005 with her then-boyfriend, the late actor Heath Ledger. In 2020, she married director Thomas Kail, with whom she shares three children.
For her, being a working mom is about striking a careful balance — never letting her kids or her career go "unattended for too long."
"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 said.
"You can't be equally good at them at the exact same time, and you have to allow for that give and take, but then also replenish the other things. If you have a big period of being at home, you need to go back to what you've left unattended and put some light over there," she continued.
Williams says she also wants her kids to grow up seeing their mom work, which makes it hard to step away from her career for too long. However, the pull of being a mother is hard to resist.
"My best day with my children is better than my best day at work. I am more thrilled with that high than I am with a work high," she said.
This isn't Williams's first time speaking about being a working mom.
"So you have to figure it out because we have to stay in the workforce, even though it often feels like it's untenable. My heart obviously belongs to my children; they tug at it the most. But I really want to be able to have both," she told Entertainment Weekly in a January 2023 interview.
Other female Hollywood stars have also spoken up about balancing their personal and professional lives.
Naomi Watts, 56, said she tried freezing her eggs when she was in her early 30s to focus on her career.
"Because I came into it late — at least with my launching — I was told to work, work, work because it'll all be dried up at 40," Watts told Katie Couric in a January interview.
Cameron Diaz, who took a decadelong hiatus from Hollywood, said she spent those 10 years " trying to stay alive just like every other mother."
During Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit 2024, she elaborated on her decision to stop acting.
"It really comes to: What are you passionate about? For me, it was to build my family," Diaz said.
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