Jessica Alba’s honest struggle
How she juggles motherhood with being a star and a tycoon
If movie star-turned entrepreneur Jessica Alba’s Instagram is anything to go by, the stunning mumof-three’s life appears to be an exciting whirlwind of glamorous events, magic family moments and luxury holidays.
But when the 38-yearold meets Woman’sDay to talk about her latest role in TV show LA’sFinest, she insists she’s much like any other working mum.
With daughters Honor, 11, and Haven, seven, and one-yearold son Hayes at home, and a booming business to run, she’s completely honest about the exhausting reality of juggling her work and home life.
“You just try to parent as best you can, given the dayto-day circumstances,” she says, confessing that she and her husband Cash Warren barely got a wink of sleep the previous night because Haven had been unwell.
“She was sick with a hacking cough and I had to move her upstairs as I didn’t want her to cough on the baby,” Jessica explains, giving a glimpse into her refreshingly normal sounding household.
Risingstar
After taking up acting at the tender age of 12, Jessica got her big break at 18 when she landed a part in James Cameron’s DarkAngel series. An impressive string of film roles followed, including
Honey,SinCity and Machete, and Jessica quickly became one of Tinseltown’s hottest young actors.
But it was after meeting entrepreneur Cash, 40, and becoming a mum for the first time in 2008 that she realised there was another life outside of Hollywood.
“I stopped working for a while as an actress, because I was focused on my business and family,” says Jessica, who went on to found the Honest Company, which specialises in baby and beauty products.
“My priorities took on a different weight because I wanted to have a personal life and a relationship, and I never got to do any of that before,” she says. “I’d been acting since I was 12, so I was living this very nomadic life and although I had family and friends, I was never able to have a birthday and be surrounded by them because I was too busy! Having Honor really forced me to choose to create a life outside my career.”
Even now though, she’s still searching for balance in her life.
“I have a really hard time trusting stillness,” she explains. “The only time I’ve ever allowed myself stillness or a moment to breathe is my last month of pregnancy with all three of my kids, and probably their first month in the world. I’m so tired that my body just stops and I get to look at a little person and cuddle them, breastfeed them, cry with them, then wake up and look at them, and change their diaper and feed them. It’s such a simple thing,” she muses, “but I guess I’m always wishing that I knew how to be that still more often.”
Familyfirst
While it’s clear that being a mother is her greatest achievement, Jessica baulks at the suggestion of having more kids. She’s simply too tired!
“I don’t think I have it in me because even now, when I get home in time for bath and bed with the kids, I’ve worked a 10 to 12-hour day. So then that’s another two hours of me not eating, going from being in work mode to mom mode, and being so tired at the end of the day. I’m like, ‘but I still haven’t eaten anything or looked at my emails!’”
She tells us that while her oldest daughter Honor is going through a tween stage – desperate for her own space where she can write, draw and play the piano in peace – Haven is besotted with her baby brother. She loves nothing more than helping her mum with the daily baby routines.
“My seven-year old has become the most responsible one for the baby,” she says with a smile. “She’s in our room at six in the morning, pulling the baby out of the crib to change his diaper, then she helps to bathe him. She loves taking care of him.”
While her family is undoubtedly Jessica’s first love, it was a call from her friend and fellow actress Gabrielle Union that lured her back to acting. The pair play kick kick-ass ass detectives in
the action action-packed packed series LA’sFinest, and Jessica has loved every minute of it. “You’ve seen two men do this a lot in films like BadBoys,LethalWeapon
and MeninBlack, as well as lots of TV shows,” she says. “You just don’t get to see women have fun and do action together because we’re put in a box as the sidekick or girlfriend, so it was cool to play roles usually written for men.”