Olivia Wilde on Breastfeeding, Being a Working Mom

2 minute read
Olivia Wilde breastfeeds her son, Otis, in a new issue of Glamour
Olivia Wilde breastfeeds her son, Otis, in a new issue of GlamourPatrick Demarchelier—Glamour
By Charlotte Alter

Actress Olivia Wilde’s cover shoot for the September issue of Glamour includes a photo of her breastfeeding her baby Otis, in a diner, in couture. Note that Otis is not wearing a diaper, so really anything could happen to that Roberto Cavalli dress.

Wilde notes that there’s “usually a diaper involved,” but otherwise the photo-shoot felt completely natural to her:

Being shot with Otis is so perfect because any portrait of me right now isn’t complete without my identity as a mother being a part of that. Breast-feeding is the most natural thing. I don’t know, now it feels like Otis should always be on my breast. It felt like we were capturing that multifaceted woman we’ve been discussing—that we know we can be. You can be someone who is at once maternal and professional and sexy and self-possessed. [But] I mean, I certainly don’t really look like that when I’m [typically] breast-feeding.

It’s worth noting that it’s much easier to breastfeed if you’re a well-paid actress, but much harder for working moms in low-income jobs to get clean places to pump milk and the time off work to do it. Wilde also notes that she doesn’t have any apprehension about continuing her acting work while raising Otis:

No, because of the example of my mom. My mom is such a badass working mother. That inspired me when I was pregnant. I wasn’t going to sacrifice myself because I was becoming a mother.

But that doesn’t mean she’s immune to the kind of self-doubt that sounds a lot like the well-known “Imposter Complex:”

I felt that I had been cast in films that, though I was very excited to be a part of, didn’t feel that they were actually the right roles for me. I felt like I was almost a fraud—like I somehow had become a kind of pinup version of myself.

Wilde’s glamour shot comes right smack in the middle of World Breastfeeding Week, and to celebrate the occasion we at TIME gathered together the 16 Top Breastfeeding Controversies.

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Write to Charlotte Alter at charlotte.alter@time.com