Working with a little one waiting for you at home can bring on a serious case of “mom guilt” – and apparently, working in Hollywood doesn’t make you immune!
Actress-singer Hilary Duff told Redbook Magazine she’s working on feeling less guilty about juggling her career with being a mom to her young son, Luca.
“I always feel torn or guilty about something. I’m not working right now, and at first I stressed about that, like, ‘Oh, I shouldn’t stay still this long,'” she said in an interview in Redbook’s April issue. “And that’s ridiculous. I have a child; it’s totally fine to not be slammed all the time. It feels really good to not be on someone else’s schedule — besides Luca’s. I’m basically his chauffeur!”
Duff has been working since she was 6 years old, when she started out dancing with a touring ballet company and appearing in TV commercials and shows like Disney Channel’s “Lizzie McGuire.” Now says she’s trying to find the right balance between work, family and time for herself.
“As I get older, I feel more comfortable ‘leaning out,'” she said. “I don’t need to cram every day full, because I can and because I’m capable. I have worked my whole life.”
One of Duff’s methods to help her “lean out?” A daily gratitude list, mostly about Luca, with entries such as being grateful for the skip in his step.
And although Duff says being divorced was tough at first, it’s her new normal.
“Some of my friends tell me, ‘God, it must be so nice, you get a break from your kid because you share him.’ I’m divorced, and it sucks. Well, it did suck for a while; now it’s just normal,” Duff said. “But it’s true, I do get a break. I had Luca by myself for a few weeks, no help, when Mike was on the road, and when he got home I was like, ‘He’s yours! Bye!'”
Luca just celebrated his 5th birthday, with proud mama posting an adorable picture of their “Ghostbusters” costumes on Monday.
“My handsome boy is 5! Happy birthday to the sweetest of all time,” Duff wrote, following up an equally as touching post where she called the past 5 years “the BEST, hardest, most blessed years of my life.”
