Weary older mothers ‘too reliant’ on nanny iPad
Hollywood actress urges parents to resist the easy option and make sure children are involved in family life
EXHAUSTED older mothers need to guard against a tendency to use iPads and other technology as childminders, Salma Hayek, the actress, has warned.
Hayek, who has a daughter and three stepchildren, argued that parents must make more of an effort to “drag” their children away from gadgets and force them to participate in life, and said that older mothers, like herself, who were often “exhausted”, had to be particularly vigilant.
She argued it was essential to compel children to join in with family life or risk leaving them in danger of complete isolation.
Hayek, 49, said she that her own daughter, Valentina, now travels with her to work to tempt her away from technology.
“You have to drag children into participating in life,” she told Red magazine. “It takes a lot of work and mummies are very tired because most of us work and life is exhausting, especially if you are an older mom like me, but you have to make the effort.
“And if you have a smart child, it’s harder.
“Now it’s so easy to just entertain them [with a screen], and you don’t have to go through the complaining for an hour about dragging them places.
“Drag them, and make them a part of your life. It’s about the human connection, and the things they can learn from participating in life. Otherwise, isolation starts to happen.”
Hayek has previously spoken about her delight at Valentina’s arrival, in 2007, after struggling to conceive. “I had a child late in life. In Tale of
Tales [the film], I identified with my character’s desperate desire to have a child, and maybe feeling that you could never be happy or complete, that your life is not complete, without this. I’ve had that yearning, that longing, and that pain … I always wanted to have a lot of children, and I was not able to. My body, as a miracle, had one. The huge blessing I’ve had is that my husband has three other children. So I have four. And they are all so different.”
She said she now tried to be with Valentina “as much as possible, even when I’m working,” adding that her daughter attended the magazine cover shoot and joined in, without “just sitting there on the iPad”.
Hayek, who is married to FrançoisHenri Pinault, the French billionaire and chief executive of Kering, also shared her advice for keeping the spark in marriage.
“Sex is not the key to a happy marriage, but it’s a side effect,” she told the magazine. “Although not every day! If it’s every day then it loses its charm.
“It’s so important to maintain your chemistry. You have to continue to laugh, continue to explore, continue to have fun with each other, continue to have romance.
“A good marriage, full of love, is my biggest accomplishment. Home is where my husband is. He is home.” The full interview appears in the July issue of Red, on sale on Friday.
‘It takes a lot of work and mummies are very tired because most of us work and life is exhausting, but you have to make the effort’