Sarah Jessica Parker Quit ‘Sex And The City’ For Motherhood
Sarah Jessica Parker is on the cover of Vogue this month talking about her new movie about working motherhood I Don’t Know How She Does It, and how she manages to make time for her three kids. In the feature story, she admits that although acting in and producing Sex and The City was something that she loved to do, she walked away from the double shift to parent.
Eve MacSweeney writes in Vogue:
The 20-hour days on set, during which she also worked as producer, were no longer viable once she became a mother. ”It wasn’t hard when I didn’t have children,” [Sarah Jessica Parker] says. ”I loved it. But I ultimately chose to stop doing the television series because I felt like it required, and deserved, a lot of time when I really wanted to be a parent.”
The mother of son James Wilkie and twins, Loretta and Tabitha, also expresses shock at how much she and kids manage to accomplish in a day while also describing the standard internal “list” of doctor’s appointments and errands that she considers before going to sleep. She says that she and her I Don’t Know How She Does It protagonist and working mother Kate Reddy have much more in common that her other other cinematic alter ego, Carrie Bradshaw. Describing her daily grind between juggling kids and attending business meetings as ”like a ship avoiding icebergs,” SJP says that she and husband Matthew Broderick don’t have any live-in help when it comes to their little ones.
At 46, Sarah Jessica also expresses how grateful she is to be an older parent to young kids and how her child-free youth makes her a more dedicated parent:
Being a little older as a parent, Parker says, means that she’s probably a lot more patient than she would have been. ”I guess I think there are things about it that I hope have made me a better mother,” she says. ”I’ve had a lot of opportunities to do the things that I wanted to do, like sleep. I have slept till 11:00 for a lot of years. Honestly, the only thing that I’m concerned about is the energy: I hope I can maintain the energy. I think about all the years I’ve spent parenting James Wilkie and everything I put into it, and there are two of them.”
SJP’s points about the benefits of parenting later prove to be sharp contrast to young ladies aiming for motherhood as the ultimate fulfillment. While motherhood is undoubtedly a experience that nearly all women find to be rewarding, Sarah Jessica’s personal observations about patience, fulfillment, and even simple luxuries like sleeping in, remind us that parenting later in life may be better suited to some women.
(photo: vogue.com)
