When in the trenches of parenting or pregnancy, or any difficult time for that matter, sometimes it means the world to hear that someone else is going through the same troubles. From potty training to teething, and parenting mistakes to work-life balance struggles, moms need camaraderie, and when in trouble they certainly love moral support and company. And what better company is there than a few of Hollywood’s best and brightest moms?
I’ve rounded up the 15 celebrity parents who keep it real. They are open, they are honest and they don’t sugarcoat the ups and downs of parenting. They recognize that raising kids isn’t easy and are ready to share their experiences with the world, with a much-needed dash of humor. They aren't afraid of backlash, they just share the truth of parenthood with everyone.
They say it takes a village to raise a family. Well, these celebrities are more than qualified to be a part of fans' village. Read on to find out which celebrity parents all moms should be following on social media to brighten their day.
15 Kristen Bell Knows How To Let It Go
From her hilarious #momlife posts on Instagram to open, candid interviews about the realities of being a mom, Kristen Bell is one of the most real moms in Hollywood. And we wouldn’t expect anything else from one of the OG Bad Moms who also brought Anna from Frozen to the world.
Bell is open and honest about the difficult realities of being a mom and has no problem sharing the glamour that comes with raising kids as a Hollywood superstar.
“Every day when you're raising kids, you feel like you could cry or crack up and just scream 'This is ridiculous!' because there's so much nonsense, whether it's what they're saying to you or the fact that there's avocado or poop on every surface." Follow her on Instagram for a dose of mom reality that is heavy on the laughter.
14 Reese Witherspoon Doesn’t Sugarcoat It
From napping on set to the constant “news ticker” of parenting, Reese Witherspoon doesn’t sugarcoat the realities of parenting. The mother of three shared the perfect parenting analogy with Glamour.
“I don’t think there’s been an hour of my life since Ava was born that I don’t think of my kids. I call it my CNN ticker tape: Is Ava OK? Yes. Is Deacon OK? Yes. Is Tennessee OK? Yes. Back to Ava.”
And even though Witherspoon has done everything on the big screen from attending Harvard law school to hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, she still knows that parenting comes with a constant learning curve.
“I constantly question myself: Have I exposed them to the right amount of culture (no), do I spend enough time with each of them as individuals (probably not), do I have the right amount of work/family balance (who knows!). I’m trying,” she told Huffington Post.
13 How Drew Barrymore Finds Work-Life Balance
A mom who admits that getting your kids to behave in public without a tablet or phone? That’s our kind of mom. Actress, producer and entrepreneur Drew Barrymore understands the struggles of a working mom.
“Sometimes I feel like the two are pulling in different directions, and I feel really torn and freaked out in my head and my heart and kind of all over the place,” Barrymore told Working Mother. “I think there’s a lot of days where I feel like, 'Good, I took care of work stuff, now I can focus solely on my kids,' and I’m revitalized by work to just go and be a mom and nothing but a mom. And then when I lean in with my kids so much, I’m like 'Good, I’m glad I have something else to focus on.' It makes me feel re-energized."
And when asked about whether or not her two daughters Olive and Frankie may be following in their mother’s footsteps, Barrymore didn’t mince words. “I'd never let them become child actors. They'll have a chastity belt, a tracker system, no cell phones and we'll live in the middle of nowhere," she joked in an interview in Good Housekeeping.
12 Don’t Come For Chrissy Teigen
If you aren’t following Chrissy Teigen on Twitter, you should be. The model and Lip Sync Battle host shares everything from the highs and lows of pregnancy to the difficulties of parenting. And her clap backs are always worthy of a retweet.
When an internet troll criticized Teigen and husband John Legend for not getting pregnant naturally, she didn’t hold back. “Oh wow I didn't know you could do that. Would have saved me a ton of money,” Teigen replied directly to the tweet.
Her sassy responses are as real as it gets. And her honesty about what it takes to get her out the door is refreshing.
“My mom lives with us. I have hair and makeup people. I’m not getting up and doing all this by myself. If I’m not being done for something, I’m not going anywhere. A lot of hands go into it. We have help. It’s important for people to know that,” Teigen told Yahoo Style. “I have the utmost respect for mothers and single mothers who go to work and come home and make dinner. I do all these things because I have help. Luna goes down at 6:30 and has a nurse watch her, and I can cook dinner.”
11 Jenny Mollen Will Do Anything For The Perfect Pic
Actress, best-selling author and wife of Jason Biggs, Jenny Mollen might not be a celebrity mom you’ve heard a lot about, but with one Instagram post, she definitely became one of the most real.
“I wonder if Sid knows I’m just using him to get a pic of myself in a bikini,” Mollen captioned the photo of her with her son. With the filters of Instagram, it isn’t often that the social sharing app actually shows the real side of a celebrity’s life. Admitting to using your kid to get the perfect bikini pic, selfie or styled shot for Instagram is the epitome of being a real mom, celebrity or not.
In addition to her Instagram, Mollen’s honesty about the not so great parts—and the hidden bonuses—of parenting are refreshing. Speaking to ScaryMommy, Mollen told the story of when her son bit her in a swimming pool. “Instead of telling him not to bite, my gut reaction was to dunk him under the water. He was in shock, but I’m fairly certain my point was made.”
10 Honorary Bad Mom, Ryan Reynolds
While clearly not a “mom” it’s impossible to make a list of celebrity parents keeping it real without the king of tongue-in-cheek parenting references, Ryan Reynolds. Forget about What to Expect When You’re Expecting, Reynolds’ Twitter feed should be assigned to every parent at conception.
When describing the beautiful nursery that he and wife Blake Lively created for their daughter, Reynolds focused on the stunning mobile. “The mobile above my daughter's crib is just a whole bunch of NuvaRings. So she remembers how lucky she is,” he joked on Twitter.
He also gets real about the joys of parenting. “Being a father is the single greatest feeling on earth,” Reynolds tweeted. “Not including those wonderful years I spent without a child, of course.”
And Reynolds truly understands the importance of taking a little “me” time every now and again. “Tip: It's important parents take little ‘time outs’ for themselves too. Even if you feel pretty guilty when you return 14 years later.” Whether he’s joking 100% of the time or not, Reynolds Twitter feed says what all parents are thinking.
9 Serena Williams Crowdsources Her Parenting Advice
New mom and tennis superstar Serena Williams is super open about the struggles she faced while raising a newborn. From needing her own mom to using Twitter to ask the world parenting questions, we can relate.
During her pregnancy, Williams tweeted to the world asking for advice. “Any tips on how to turn over at night? I'm having trouble from going from my left ....to my right.... to my left side.” A struggle that all moms understand, Williams was greeted with over 1,200 responses from other moms offering their advice on how to make it through the night.
Her struggles comforting her daughter Alexis Olympia during her teething phase are all too relatable. “Teething- aka the devil - is so hard. Poor Alexis Olympia has been so uncomfortable. She cried so much (she never cries) I had to hold her until she fell asleep,” Williams wrote on Instagram.
She went on to ask for help on Twitter. "Nothing is working. It's breaking my heart. I almost need my mom to come and hold me to sleep cause [sic] I'm so stressed." Moms and dads all over the world reached out with more tips and also to commiserate with the new mom.
8 Olivia Wilde Embraced Her Post-Baby Stage With Bikinis & Humour
Olivia Wilde stole our hearts the moment she posed in that glamorous, boss photoshop where she breastfed in a gown. And from that moment on, she has always kept her journey through motherhood as real as can be.
In an essay for Shape in 2015, Wilde got extremely real about the realities of life after giving birth. "First of all, you haven't seen [down there] in months, even though it's all her fault you're in this situation. Now that you can finally confirm that she is, in fact, still there, she isn't the gal that you remember, and would rather you back off and give her some space (and an ice diaper) for the time being, thank you very much," Wilde wrote.
She also opened up about embracing her post-baby body, flaws and all. “I have stretch marks... I have a belly that’s permanently flabby from carrying three giant babies... My belly button is saggy… (which is something I didn’t even know was possible before!!) and I wear a bikini. They aren't scars ladies, they're stripes and you've earned them. Flaunt that body with pride!"
7 Busy Philipps & The Rough Days
Dawson’s Creek alum Phillipps is a rockstar on Instagram and vocal about the difficulties of parenting. When the mom of two daughters, Birdie and Cricket, posts on Instagram, it feels as though you’re chatting with an old friend. She doesn’t shy away from sharing the good, the bad and the ugly of being a mom.
When speaking to Kristen Hewitt, Philipps spoke of the struggles every parent faces—the rough days.
“Somedays you have great days where they are sweet angels, and you think, ‘Why don’t I have 47 more?!’ And the next day they do something to make you crawl under your bed the rest of the afternoon. So you know I just want to quit, I’ll become a mom that abandons their family and they can find me in Florida 40 years later. It’s tough, everybody has tough days,” Philipps said.
She went on to explain the solution every parent dreams of—getting rid of mom-on-mom judgment. “There’s not one right way to parent your children. A million different things work for a million different people and all of our kids are different. They just are. They are just not the same, you know that once you have more than one child,” she explains.
6 Even Anna Faris Has Parenting Mishaps
Everyone’s favorite House Bunny, Anna Faris takes a hard look at parenting through a lens of humor. She tackles some tough issues with grace and makes us laugh while doing it.
When speaking to HuffPost Live, Faris got real about what it really means to become a mother.
“As a woman, your identity changes. You are now a mom. So that’s the most important job in the world and the pressure and the guilt… and all the things that are wrapped up in that. I don’t think anyone can really prepare you for [motherhood]– even though they try.” In typical Faris style, she then joked “So, don’t have kids.”
On Twitter, Faris doesn’t shy away from sharing her #parentingfails aka all the moments that are completely relatable to the rest of us. Case in point, her lovely shot of her son Jack who clearly has just had an accident on the street. “Potty training is going so great! I'm a natural!,” she joked.
5 Selma Blair Shares The Single Mom Struggle
Mom of two, Selma Blair, prides herself on being open and honest about what life is like for a single mother. And the reality of being a single, working mother in Hollywood is that she just doesn’t have time to do anything other than keep it real.
When Blair and her son’s father, Jason Bleick in 2012, she found herself facing the hardest time of her life. "I did not have a support system. I was an older, tired, single mom," she said at an event of the Alliance of Moms’ Raising Baby. "As much as I loved my child, I was really lost ... lost for, like, four-and-a-half years. I kind of hit rock bottom."
She was able to recover and has come into her own as a parent. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t still struggle like the rest of us, especially when it comes to discipline.
“I hand it to moms that really know how to have a boundary early on, and that’s something really in this past year I’ve really had to be really strong about: a boundary,” Blair told People. “Because we’re buddies, we live in the same house. But no: ‘We’re not buddies. I’m your mom, and I’m here to teach you.’”
4 Amber Tamblyn Embraces The Unglamorous Side of Breastfeeding
The Sister of the Travelling Pants star Amber Tamblyn became a mom in 2017 and she has been keeping it real on social media from day one. Her Instagram shots show the truly unglamorous side of breastfeeding and pumping that moms all over the world truly understand.
From snaps of her onset breast pump surrounded by post-it notes exclaiming “DO NOT USE” and “FOR AMBER ONLY” to the iconic shot of her breast milk stained t-shirt, Tamblyn hasn’t shied away from the fact that breastfeeding isn’t easy.
She also trolled the world with the best-worst celebrity baby name announcement ever. "David and I are proud to announce the birth of our daughter, Dauphinoise Petunia Brittany Scheherazade Von Funkinstein Mustard Witch RBG Cross Tamblyn-Bey jr," the actress captioned a video of her daughter’s feet. Thankfully for the world and her daughter, the actress finally revealed that her daughter’s real name is Marlow Alice Cross. Much more accessible!
3 Alyssa Milano On The Lack Of Romance In Motherhood
From Who’s the Boss to Charmed, Alyssa Milano has always found a way to wow us through the television. But it’s her open, honest approach to motherhood that really earns her a place as one of the realest celebrity moms out there.
Her main takeaway? Parents and moms need to be more open with one another.
“I think the media portrays this very romantic idea of being a mom and we see all these ladies on the white sheets loving their babies and they have on makeup and they look so pretty,” she told Today. “And there’s an element of it that’s romantic, but it’s a very small part. It’s a really, really hard job. And I think if more women were honest about that, it would help. People would be able to commiserate more.”
2 PTA-Imperfection With Jennifer Garner
Taking her kids to school in her PJs, helping them hustle to sell girl guide cookies and supervising field trips--Jennifer Garner proves Hollywood moms are just like us. She also understands that work-life balance is no easy feat.
"There's an internal battle. I need to work, I need to work, I need to work, and I need to be home with my kids and the kids win,” Garner told Us Magazine. “It's about getting the kids up and fed, getting one to school, getting the other down for a nap, going to the grocery store, picking one up from school, getting the other one down for another nap, cooking dinner . . . I live my life at these two extremes. I'm either a full-time stay-at-home mom or a full-time actress."
But she also recognizes that this is something all working moms have to juggle. “My sisters both are working mothers. I understand that my being an actress as well as being at home isn’t some heroic thing. That doesn’t mean it isn’t confusing or difficult—especially that question of how you find a balance,” she told Parade.
1 Mila Kunis’ Biggest Parenting Mistake
The official Bad Mom herself, Mila Kunis is not one to put on rose colored glasses when sharing her thoughts on parenting. She shared with the world just how exhausting being a parent is—”I'm ragged tired. Who cares? My kids are healthy, I'm happy.”
But nothing is more relatable than Kunis’ biggest parenting faux pas. She told Babble about the first time she took Wyatt on a road trip without her husband Ashton Kutcher: “I was like, ‘I did it.’ I put her in the car. Like, I high-five myself. [As] I’m driving down the 101, I was like ‘Oh my God, I’m doing really good today,’” Kunis said. “She was being really quiet, and I was like, ‘Oh, let me look in the rearview mirror to make sure everything’s okay.’”
“And I look, and she’s happy as can be, but just not nearly strapped in... And I’m on the 101, and she’s just like blah, like fine in her car seat, nothing, no strap whatsoever. And I think I just turned white.”
References: redbookmag.com, parents.com, glamour.com, workingmother.com, today.com, instagram.com, scarymommy.com, buzzfeed.com, netdoctor.co.uk, huffingtonpost.ca, wmagazine.com, sheknows.com, kristenhewitt.me, scarymommy.com, parents.com, huffingtonpost.ca, romper.com, people.com, instagram.com, parents.com, parents.com, today.com, thebump.com, popsugar.com, instagram.com, instagram.com, instagram.com, theloop.com, instagram.com, instagram.com, instagram.com, foxnews.com, people.com, instagram.com, instagram.com