Angelina Jolie opened up about looking after her six kids amid the coronavirus quarantine and admitted it’s “impossible” to be a “perfect” parent.
The Oscar winner, 44, who shares kids Maddox, 18, Pax, 16, Zahara, 15, Shiloh, 13, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 11, with ex-husband Brad Pitt, wrote about the challenges all moms and dads are facing in a candid post for Time magazine’s Parents newsletter on Friday, April 24.
“Now, in the midst of this pandemic, I think of all the mothers and fathers with children at home. All hoping they can do everything right, answer all needs, and stay calm and positive,” she wrote. “One thing that has helped me is to know that’s impossible.”
“It is a lovely thing to discover that your children don’t want you perfect. They just want you honest. And doing your best,” Jolie continued. “In fact, the more room they have to be great where you are weak, the stronger they may become. They love you. They want to help you. So in the end, it’s the team you build. And in a way, they are raising you up too. You grow together.”
The Maleficent star also reflected on her troubled youth on Friday and admitted, “I never thought I could be anyone’s mom.”
“I remember the decision to become a parent,” wrote the humanitarian, who adopted her first child, Maddox, from Cambodia in 2002. “It wasn’t hard to love. It wasn’t hard to dedicate myself to someone and something greater than my life. What was hard was knowing that from now on I needed to be the one to make sure everything was OK. To manage it and make it work. From food to school to medical. Whatever would come. And to be patient.”
“I realized I stopped my constant daydreaming, instead staying always ready for any break into what I was doing or thinking to answer a need,” Jolie added. “It was a new skill to acquire.”
The actress spoke about how the family is doing earlier this week during the Time 100 Talks live virtual event series.
“We’re all locked in,” she said on Thursday, April 23. “We’re doing all right.
Us Weekly confirmed last month that Maddox had returned to the U.S. from college in South Korea as the virus spread.
“Maddox is home from school and focusing on his Korean and Russian studies until school reopens,” a source told Us in March. “Angelina has the other children on a routine by waking them up early every day and getting them started on their school tasks shortly afterwards.”
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