Jessica Alba says she uses spy cameras to keep an eye on her daughters during distance learning
Jessica Alba knows the struggle of distance learning.
On Friday’s episode of The Ellen Show, the 39-year-old actress and entrepreneur admitted that she has a hack for making sure her daughters, Honor, 12 and Haven, 9, stay on track during school hours.
“I have spy cameras in their room and so I can see if they’re messing around, are they focusing, I can call them out. I’m like the voice from the ceiling coming in. Also if they fight, I can rewind and see who hit who first,” she told Stephen “tWitch” Boss, who was filling in as host for Ellen DeGeneres, via video chat.
Alba added that she’s found over that it helps her daughters when they stick to a routine as if they were still physically going into school.
“They get up, eat their breakfast, take a shower,” she said, “[they] do everything they would do if they were going to school, that has helped a lot with just organizing the day.”
While parenting through the pandemic has been challenging, Alba said that she and her family have managed with lots of binge-watching TV and bonding through TikTok dances.
Despite being one of the short-form video platform’s biggest stars, her kids are not impressed.
"They think I'm so cringey," Alba revealed. "They think I'm the most cringey mom, the definition of cringey. They actually said that I should use the hashtag #CringeyMom. I'm like, 'That's so mean! There are so many more cringey moms than me, guys!' And they're like, 'Even saying that, Mom, is cringey.'" She went on to admit that “in the beginning of their life, they didn't know I was an actress.”
"I remember when Honor was in like first grade, she was mortified and she came home and was like, 'Why didn't you tell me,’” she remembered. “She knew I was working at the Honest Company, that's how they knew me.You never told me you were gonna be in grocery stores or in Target!' And I was like ‘what are you talking about?’ And a friend brought a magazine to school and...she felt, put Honor on blast, and Honor was like 'What is going on? Why are you on this magazine? What is happening here?' So I had to break it to her that I was an actress and sometimes I do the magazines — and she felt so betrayed!"
This is not the first time the mother of three has talked about her experiences with motherhood. In a December 2020 interview with Women’s Health, Alba opened up about family life during the pandemic and what it has taught her.
“The pandemic has forced me to be comfortable with things not being completely buttoned up, with allowing myself to not always have the answer, for mistakes to kind of stay as is,” she said. “It’s also reinforced that real joy comes from the moments when, you know, we’re playing a game with the kids at dinner, or when [son] Hayes wants to show us his latest trick on the scooter, or from our family walks. That’s the stuff that truly matters.”
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