Hilary Duff says parts of pandemic parenting were 'hell on earth'
Hilary Duff is getting real about the ups and downs of parenting.
During a recent conversation with Romper, the How I Met Your Father star opened up about motherhood, including the recent criticism surrounding a video of her daughter Banks, 3, in the backseat of a moving car without a car seat.
“My publicist would absolutely kill me if I brought this up," she began. "There was this huge story that came out because my friend Molly [Bernard] was in the backseat of our car with Banks without her car seat. It's not like I'm driving on the 405 with my kids in the backseat without a car seat. You have no context. You don't know where I am."
“Do you know how many times I let my kids sit on my front seat once we get [close to our driveway] to pretend like they’re driving home?” she continued, adding that “mommy warriors” online were the first to criticize that decision.
“You’re telling me you’ve never put your kid in the backseat to drive a block before with an adult back there?" she added. "I’m like, ‘Happy new year to you, too.’”
Duff is also mom to son Luca, 9, whom she shares with ex-husband, NHL player Mike Comrie. She had daughters Banks and 10-month-old Mae with singer-songwriter Matthew Koma.
“My entire life’s mission is to be a good parent,” Duff explained. “I love being a parent with Matt. We are obsessed with our kids, even though we’re so exhausted.”
Still, as rewarding as motherhood can be, she admits her patience was put to the test when her eldest transitioned into homeschooling during the pandemic.
During lockdown, she explained, Koma “would come home and I had maybe a bottle of wine, and he’d be like, ‘Do I need to be worried?’ I’m like, ‘You’re not doing what I’m doing. I was having to hide from Banks because she was 15 months old, in that super [attached] phase, and Luca wanted me to be the teacher. It was hell on earth.”
“I felt like once one parent signed up for that, it was kind of like, well, the other person can’t just step in,” she said of helping Banks with homeschooling. “Because you have to know about this app and that app and this password and this thing. And we’re learning this in [social studies] and this is due. And you know what I mean? It’s a one-person kind of job.”
Despite being very in tune with her children, Duff said she still experiences the “craziest” mom guilt — especially when it comes to breastfeeding and, on occasion, enjoying a glass of red wine while she was in her third trimester with baby Mae.
“With Luca and Banks, I got to seven months. With Mae, I got to seven weeks, and I was like, ‘I’m done,’” she said of breastfeeding. “I spent all my time in that chair in the corner either feeding her or pumping, and I wasn’t making enough milk, so I was also having to supplement, so the whole feeding process was so long. I was like, ‘What am I doing? The guilt is why I’m staying here.’” She didn’t even feel guilty having an occasional glass of red wine in the third trimester of pregnancy. Then she adds, “I don’t want the mommy warriors to come after me.”
“I feel like I can never give my kids enough of me,” she added of her guilt. “Does anybody nail this? Do you think any mom just crushes it every single evening?”
“I wish I could tell you we were the family that all sits down and eats dinner together every night,” she explained. “Luca has after-school, sometimes we’re not getting home until 6:45, his sports and her dance, and it’s just constant shifts of food. Everybody’s eating something else because this person doesn’t eat meat, and Matt can’t have dairy and blah blah blah. We all sat down together like three days ago at the table, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re all sitting at the table together! What’s going to be our topic? Highlight of the day? Worst part of the day? Go!’ And Luca was like, ‘What’s wrong with you?’”
“I operate in two speeds,” the mom said. “I’m either running at full speed or I’m laid out. It takes a lot to lay me out, but when I’m laid out, I’m done.”
The Younger star has spoken out about her issues with breastfeeding before.
Last year, she spoke to Dr. Elliot Berlin on the Informed Pregnancy Podcast, during which she shared how she's handling postpartum life after welcoming Mae.
In general, Duff said breastfeeding has always been "really hard for me."
"I'd say it was the easiest with Luca. All of the babies latch really great, I'm just not a huge milk-producer, so it's emotional for me," she explained. "In fact, this is the first baby that I haven't supplemented with yet, so I've just exclusively been breastfeeding her. I'm going to keep trying that for a couple of weeks."
She continued, "Just still painful and it's hard, and it's even harder having the other two that I know need me so much, and this takes up such a huge portion of the day. It seems like every 20 minutes I'm feeding the baby, and I have to be sitting in one place, and Banks is still not quite old enough to understand, even though she has been amazing with the baby. It's just hard."
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