Dealing with the unexpected. Hilary Duff candidly addressed the ups and downs that come with trying to balance a career and her family.
“Mae has hand, foot and mouth [disease] and none of my other kids have ever had it so I’ve never seen it before. It looks awful and I haven’t been able to be with her all day because I am at work,” the actress, 34, explained via her Instagram Story on Wednesday, August 10.
Duff expressed her frustration with challenges including prior work commitments that keep her from her child. “I love my job so much but this is just a little shout out to working parents who have to leave their kids at times that don’t feel natural and goes against everything in your body to not be with them in times like that,” she continued. “I am sitting here feeling sorry for myself basically.”
The How I Met Your Father star concluded: “But you’re doing a good job, just like I know I am doing a good job and working hard for my family. But poor little baby and it feels so weird not to be with her.”
Duff shares daughters Banks, 3, and Mae, 15 months, with husband Matthew Koma. She also shares son Luca, 10, with her ex-husband, Mike Comrie.
The Texas native is not the only celebrity parent who recently dealt with hand, foot and mouth disease in her household. Earlier this month, Meghan King opened up about how her plans with her kids got ruined due to the health scare.
“Long story short, my kids got hand, foot and mouth disease and we had to cancel our Disneyland trip,” the Real Housewives of Orange County alum, 37, captioned an Instagram photo with daughter Aspen, 5, and twin sons Hart and Hayes, 4, on August 2.
At the time, King recalled not realizing at first that her children had contracted the illness. “Aspen asked me what those dots on her hands were,” she detailed in a lengthy blog post about how the symptoms got worse. “I’m miraculously managing to google this weird ‘dot rash’ that I can’t stop thinking about and I come across a page when it hits me: These kids have Hand Foot and Mouth Disease.”
The former bravo personality, who shares her kids with ex-husband Jim Edmonds, wasn’t thrilled that the family’s plans got put on hold. “Disneyland is cancelled. And I’m trapped with these poor babies. Quarantine PTSD is coming back in full force,” she added.
For King, the biggest relief was that her children weren’t “severely affected” by the sores. “They didn’t have fevers, and other than being a little whiney they felt fine, ate fine, and acted normal,” she continued. “Their contagious stage lasted maybe 3 days (I think?) and we cancelled Disney and I got to write this blog (yay).”
