Emma Thompson has a regular career as an actress and a lifetime job as a mom, but she doesn't think the two should be done simultaneously.
"You can't be a great mum and keep working all the time," the two-time Oscar winner told Britain's Daily Mail Saturday. The 55-year-old actress, who the article indicated is worth around $50 million, said she took a year off to "spend more time with my family" recently, and called it a "birthday present to myself. I didn't actually act or write. I was just a mum. ... I taught drama at my daughter's school, cooked meals and had fun."
Thompson has a 26-year-old adopted son and a 14-year-old daughter, and added, "I highly recommend others to do the same if they can afford it. ... Motherhood is a full-time job. The only way I could have continued working would have been by delegating the running of the home to other people. I never wanted to do this, as I find motherhood profoundly enjoyable."
The actress, most recently seen playing "Mary Poppins" author P.L. Travers in "Saving Mr. Banks" has rarely been shy about speaking her mind; she was quoted in Vanity Fair last week railing against the social media generation: She said she'd "rather have root canal treatment for the rest of my life than join Twitter."
Thompson isn't the only actress to recently talk about working while being a parent; Gwyneth Paltrow made headlines in March when she told InStyle U.K., "You make choices as a wife and mother, don't you? You can't have it all. I don't care what it looks like."
But fellow A-list actress Angelina Jolie says she's structured her schedule so that her children can get plenty of attention from her even as she works — and recognizes she's in a good place to do so.
"I actually feel that women in my position, when we have all at our disposal to help us, shouldn’t complain," she told the New York Daily News last week. "Consider all the people who really struggle and don’t have the financial means, don’t have the support, and many people are single raising children. That’s hard.”
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