Reese Witherspoon, 33, a single mother with two children, Ava Elizabeth, 10, and Deacon Reese, 6, seems so much enjoy her life as mother and actress, whereas many single moms have some difficulties to manage their time between work and mom. She shares her thought through British InStyle magazine.
“I love my life without work and I love my life with work. My mother, who’s a nurse, called me the other day when I was really stressed out from working a 15-hour day. And she was like, ‘Yeah, but think of it as a part-time job’. And I thought, ‘That’s actually right, it puts it in perspective’. I work incredibly hard for three months, but then I get a break. It’s about really enjoying my time off. I have to ask myself questions such as, ‘Where do I relax the most? Where are my children happiest?’ My ideal scenario is to do one movie a year. But as an actor, I don’t think you can do an awful lot of planning. In fact, my new philosophy in life is: ‘I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it’. I used to spend a lot of time thinking about the future, as if I could magically predict it if I planned it enough. And then I realized, I can’t.”
Family is still the basic for raising kids, at first Reese Witherspoon who reported had broke up with Jake Gyllenhaal in early December, find “it’s really difficult” for her to “being far away from home,” she says, “LA is where my job is and I have to be close, but I never imagined that my children wouldn’t grow up next door to my brother’s children. Or that my mom and dad wouldn’t constantly be around.”
Look at the mirror to her childhood, while she has “dinner every night with her grandparents as a kid,” she has thought, “I think missing out on that is a hard compromise. At least I have a lot of southern friends in LA — I gravitate toward them. I think of those people as a part of my family: they take care of me and I take care of them.”
Having a few weeks off after finishing her latest film project, and just like every woman and mom, she will spend her time with kids and girlfriends by doing some exercise together with them.
“I try to exercise every day. I like to run for about an hour and I’m big into working out with girlfriends. It’s an acquired skill, being able to discuss your love life, children and friends — all while you’re running! But we have mastered it.”
And some fun things like every girl does with BFF, she says, “There are three of us who wear pretty much the same size, so we’ll get together on a Friday night and I’ll bring clothes I want to trade and they’ll bring theirs. We swap shoes and handbags a lot. I wore my girlfriend’s dress to a wedding recently. It’s fun.”
Filled her children free time to something more sporty, “when she [Ava} and Deacon get home from school, it’s more about gymnastics, horse riding, karate, or whatever,” she tells about her daughter Ava go through her closet “sometimes.” She says, “She’s almost as tall as me — it’s getting scary.”
Divorce with Ryan Philippe after seven years do marriage had reconsidered certain things, “but you just have to keep going.” Admitting that the world still stand but only needs some adjustment from what she has learnt.
“You have to keep it together for your kids and for yourself too. I’m trying to learn from the things that have happened in my life, live more in the moment and have more fun. Someone told me recently to live in the present, but make plans and take pictures. And I am. I’m writing more, I’m reading more. Going to more concerts.”
Knowing that her celebrity status could bring something to many children, she does some role beyond acting, “I especially love working and travelling with Avon. Signing on as their global ambassador matched what I was involved in doing personally; every charity I championed, like the Children’s Defense Fund and Save the Children, was for kids. But I discovered that, for me, the best way I can help kids is by empowering women. And all of a sudden I had this incredible sponsor behind these ideas I’ve been promoting for so long.”
“My favourite part has been going to the Avon representative conferences. The top sellers get together regularly and I’ll meet them and we get to ask each other whatever we want. They all have great stories and each one is different. I met one woman who was divorced and left to support three children. She couldn’t work two jobs, so she decided to be a representative and she did so well that she became a regional manager and now will be moving up again to be put in charge of a state. It’s amazing to see people’s drive to survive. It resonates with me. So I get to hug everybody and see that collective power of people working hard to take care of their families. It’s really moving.”
Being famous and admitted by the world through her works, she has finding her way,
“I believe we’re all the same — we’re all just people going through life, so maybe that comes through. I feel I’m so lucky to be able to do movies that create characters who are real women. I throw myself 100 per cent into things. It’s just deeply personal for me. I care a lot and I want to know that I’m making a difference. I grew up in a community where, every day of my life, my parents and grandparents would wake up and say, ‘What can I do for somebody else?’ In that sense, I do feel like I’m on this journey that has a greater purpose. I’m not totally there yet, but I’m finding my way.”
