It’s been a tough year on everyone, but especially moms! Navigating a global pandemic while also being there for your children has proven to be an unusual challenge. Celebrity moms have been candid and vulnerable about their struggles, their triumphs, and the lessons they’ve learned while raising their kids in a pandemic.
From Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, opening up about her heartbreaking miscarriage to Amy Schumer keeping it real about her less-than-glamorous quarantine, these stars haven’t sugarcoated the good, the bad, or the ugly.
Meghan Markle
The Duchess of Sussex had to navigate several moves with her young son, Archie, throughout the global pandemic. After the family had finally relocated to their Montecito, California, home, they’ve settled into a more laid-back lifestyle.
“We are doing well. [Archie] is so good,” the proud mom told the Evening Standard newspaper in October 2020. “We are very lucky with our little one. He is just so busy, he is all over the place. He keeps us on our toes. We are just so lucky.”
Then, during her sit-down interview with her husband, Prince Harry, and Oprah Winfrey, the pregnant duchess gushed about her almost 2-year-old cutie.
“Oh, my gosh. He’s on a roll. In the past couple weeks, [his favorite word] has been ‘hydrate,’ which is just hysterical,'” Meghan shared of Archie.
Her husband also revealed that the young family enjoys their new outdoor space, going for walks and to the beach.
“I guess, the highlight for me is sticking him on the back of a bicycle in his little baby seat and take him on these bike rides, which is something I was never able to do when I was young,” Harry told Oprah of their son. “I can see him on the back, and he’s got his arms out. And he’s like, ‘Whoooo,’ chatting, chatting, chatting; going, ‘Palm tree,’ and all this sort of stuff.”
During the pandemic, Meghan also opened up about suffering a miscarriage in an emotional essay for The New York Times. She wrote about caring for Archie during that heartbreaking time.
“After changing his diaper, I felt a sharp cramp. I dropped to the floor with him in my arms, humming a lullaby to keep us both calm, the cheerful tune a stark contrast to my sense that something was not right,” she wrote. “I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second.”
The couple has since announced that they are expecting a baby girl this summer.
Jennifer Garner
The 48-year-old mother of three has been embracing her quarantine life with her kids while also acknowledging the struggles of parenthood.
“This has been such a hard year for moms. We have had to say ‘No, no, no.’ We’ve had to watch our kids be home, miss out on things,” Garner told ET in February. “It is one thing to miss out on something as an adult, but to watch your kids miss something they have looked forward to or just how hard it has been to see them isolated and on Zoom every day.”
Last summer, Garner got candid about how difficult it’s been as a parent to see her kids struggle.
“I feel so lucky. I’ve been in the luckiest possible circumstance. I have a roof, I have food, I have health, and so does my family,” she said at the time. “I’m really thinking about my kids. And what their experience is going to be.”
And while she’s grateful her kids have access to the internet and good teachers, she added, “It is heavy. It’s heavy for everyone. And it’s just, how do kids in this world not just live in all this heaviness?”
Mila Kunis
Mill Kunis and her husband, Ashton Kutcher, have spent their quarantine with their two kids, Wyatt, 6, and Dimitri, 4, trying to keep busy.
“We just did a lot of drive-thru experiences… we’ve done all of them,” she shared on Jimmy Kimmel Live in February. “I’m not kidding you, I took my 4-year-old and my 6-year-old and my grown-a** husband to a baby rave… You felt like you were tripping on acid. They give you these glasses… My kids were like, ‘This is the best experience ever!’ I was like, ‘Oh no!'”
Kunis opened up to ET in January about her close-knit family’s quarantine life together.
“Our whole family is already co-dependent, so this pandemic just feeds into our entire co-dependency,” Kunis told ET. “And my husband and I were super co-dependent for, like, eight years and in this pandemic our kids are like, ‘Where are you going?’ And I was like, ‘The bathroom.’ We haven’t left each other. We’re in the house. Yeah, it was really weird for them. They forgot that we have to go out of the house…”
Kristen Bell
Bell and her husband, Dax Shepard, are known for keeping it real and that certainly applies to their approach to parenting in the pandemic.
“Homeschooling still sucks,” Bell told ET in June 2020. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it… my kids, we dyed their hair last week. So dying my hair has been one of the funnest things in quarantine.”
She added that her kids’ antics have led to some unexpected situations in quarantine.
“We have a 5 and a 7-year-old so we have had a couple near stitches situations,” she shared. “We’ve also definitely had to move the scissors because one of our daughters has cut her bangs more than a few times.”
During a podcast interview in September 2020, Bell also opened up about her daughter drinking non-alcoholic beer on a school Zoom call.
