Eva Mendes shares two daughters (10, 8) with movie star Ryan Gosling. They live a pretty private life. You don’t often see them photographed together, and that’s not because they’re not a strong family unit. They very much are.
They simply want to give their kids the most “normal” upbringing they can.
During a recent conversation on the Parenting & You podcast, the 50-year-old actress talked about how difficult parenting is, especially when it comes to patterns/bad habits.
I think one of the hardest patterns for me is yelling. Because I don’t yell when they need me, quote on quote, or I’ve never yelled, ‘Shut up!’ or anything. In my mind, it’s not like a mean yell. But it doesn’t matter, I yell. And it’s this yelling that I find so cultural but it’s like I’m having a really hard time getting through and not yelling. The rushing and the yelling for me.
She explained how her mother yelled a lot when she was a kid, so that’s likely where she picked it up. She admitted her mother “raised us by fear.”
I hope I’m not going to look back in 20 years and go, ‘Oh, shoot. I did that.’ Because I really don’t want to raise by fear. That’s the one…I’m getting emotional over [this] because it’s so not fair to the kids. A lot of times when people meet my girls and they say, ‘Oh, they’re so respectful and they’re so sweet.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, thank you,’ but I’m like, Oh no, I hope that they’re just mimicking what they see and I hope that I’m not unknowingly putting some kind of pressure on them through fear.
We think the fact that she’s worrying so much about it, and even getting emotional over it, is a clear sign she’s not raising them by fear.
You’re doing great, Eva!
