Motherhood: Look Who's Talking
Motherhood: Look Who's Talking
In celebration of Mother's Day, The ShowBuzz dug deep in its video archives to see what some celebrity moms have said about motherhood. Click on the photos to view the videos.
Rachel Weisz
Rachel Weisz will remember 2006 for a long time. That's the year she won the Academy Award as best supporting actress for "The Constant Gardener" and gave birth to her first child. The child's father is her partner, director Darren Aronofsky.
In a Nov. 24 interview that year on The Early Show, she told Harry Smith: "I have fallen deeply in love. I am in love with a little boy called Henry. I mean, I'm a working mom now, so I have joined the club of all the millions of other women on the planet who are working moms, and I take my hat off to them. It's a balancing act."
Jennifer Connelly
Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Connelly is married to English actor Paul Bettany, with whom she has a son, Stellan, who was born in 2003. She also has a son, Kai, from her relationship with photographer David Dugan.
Asked in July 2005 how she has managed to take care of her own family and be a working mom, she said, "It's slightly complicated logistically because our jobs have us traveling a lot."
"It's really a great job," Connelly said. "And I'm really fortunate. I know as a working mother because I can bring my children to work with me. Not many mothers can say that. So I know I'm really lucky in that way."
Felicity Huffman
"Desperate Housewives" star Felicity Huffman admits to having doubts as a parent. She has been married since 1997 to actor William H. Macy. They have two children, Sofia, who was born in 2000, and Georgia, born in 2002.
Asked by Lesley Stahl in a Jan. 15, 2006, interview on 60 Minutes whether she was a good mother, Huffman answered, "I don't know." She went on to explain: "I'm there enough. I don't know if I'm patient enough, though. I don't know if I'm teaching them the right things."
In an interview the previous year on The Early Show she said, "I found motherhood to be so phenomenally challenging, and no one talked about it in the way that it actually is."
Debra Messing
Another actress who admits that combining motherhood and work is a challenge is "Will &Grace" star Debra Messing.
Messing is married to actor and screenwriter Daniel Zelman, whom she met in graduate school. In 2004, Messing gave birth to their son, Roman Walker Zelman.
"Most people are working, whatever, either working mothers, working fathers," she said in an interview on The Early Show Feb. 3, 2005.
"It's just the way things are in our country now, so everyone just does the best they can. I know that I'm luckier than most because I can take him to work with me on 'Will & Grace.' It's wonderful to have him close by."
Heidi Klum
German-born model Heidi Klum says motherhood has been a revelation: "It's the most amazing thing," she said after the birth of her first child, Helene "Leni" Klum. "For me, now I'm second. Before, I was always first. Now, my daughter's first."
Married to singer Seal, she is the mother of three, the youngest born in November. Helene's father is Italian race-car driver Flavio Briatore. Seal is the father of her two sons.
In a December 2004 interview on The Early Show, Klum said she isn't about to become a stay-at-home mom like her mother was: "I'm different than my mom. I've traveled too much, and I've been too much out and about," she said. "I'm a little bit more curly and fast than my mom is. So I want to still be the way I am, because I'm happy the way I am. I think that's going to be good for my daughter, too. I just have a different lifestyle than my parents did."
Madonna
Madonna has shocked audiences more than once in her singing career. But when it comes to raising her two children, she is a stickler for the old-fashioned rules.
"The No. 1 rule," Madonna said in a 2005 interview on The Early Show, "is to be grateful and say, 'Please' and 'Thank you.' Yeah. That's the No. 1 rule. … Cleaning your room, that's another one. Brushing your teeth."
And if they don't do those things?
"I just scream and nag at them, like most parents."
Married to director Guy Ritchie, the "Material Girl" is the mother of Lourdes, born in 1996, and Rocco, born in 2000. Lourdes' father is trainer Carlos Leon. Ritchie is Rocco's father.
In 2001, she told Charlie Rose that her own mother died when she was young and said it was "like having your heart ripped out of your chest. Like a limb missing. The ultimate abandonment. And it was such a great mystery to me where she went. And that was a part of me that was waiting for her to come back. So, you know, it's just a great sense of loss that you learn to adjust to …"
That may be one reason that Madonna is conflicted by motherhood. "On the one hand, the idea of marriage and the sort of traditional family life repulses me," she said. "But on the other hand, I long for it, you know what I mean? I'm constantly in conflict with things, and it is because of my past and my upbringing and the journey that I've been on."