If even Megan Fox feels guilty about parenting, let’s just give up now.
The Transformers star told Parenting magazine she never feels like she’s the perfect mom to sons Bodhi, 4 months, and Noah, almost 2, even though she’s cut her moviemaking down to one film per year.
As a mom it’s hard because I don’t feel like I’m ever giving either one of them 100% of my attention or 100% of myself, so I carry a lot of guilt. Do they each understand how special they are and how much I love them? And are they understanding that they’re unique? It’s hard to make each one feel like an individual when you have to raise them together and manage them together all of the time.
Fox said she has cut down on her hours on the set so she can spend more time with her boys, but feels it’s important to keep making movies so that she can support them in the future (next up is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, out in August.)
I’ve never been an extraordinarily ambitious girl or career-oriented, but especially once I got pregnant with my first son and now [having] my second, it’s so hard to be a working mom especially when your heart is not in your work, when your heart is with your family. I have to make one movie a year because I have to invest in their future and I have to be able to pay their way through college and be able to provide for them. I’m looking for movies that will shoot in Los Angeles, for projects where I’m part of an ensemble so I can shoot in and out in 10-20 days. It’s all about trying to spend as little time away from my kids as possible.
So she works 10-20 days a year and feels guilty? Gwyneth Paltrow knows how that is.
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Write to Charlotte Alter at charlotte.alter@time.com