Jessica Alba graces Parenting magazine April 2020 alongside her adorable daughters Honor Marie, 3, and Haven Garner Warren, 6 months. In the accompanying interview, the 30-year-old actress dishes on starting the Honest Company, getting back in shape, motherhood, her husband Cash Warren, prepping Honor for big sisterhood, and she also reveals a few of her “a ha!” mommy moments.
Jessica told ‘Parenting’ that, “I put on a lot of weight with [my firstborn] Honor; it took a long time to get back in shape. My husband [producer Cash Warren] made bacon for me every morning, and at night we ordered a minimum of five desserts.” However, with baby number two the actress says that, “[By then] I had a toddler to take care of and I was starting this business, so I made healthier food choices, did prenatal yoga.”
Speaking about motherhood, the actress admits that it totally changes your perspective. “Before I had kids, I was always so focused on my career, and it was always such a big thing for me. But once I had kids, it changed. That’s probably the thing that’s surprised me the most about motherhood — just how secondary everything else is. Nothing else really matters to me aside from my children and their well-being,” she told the magazine.
The actress admits she is turning into her mom. “When I was a kid, I told myself, ‘When I become a mother, I’m never going to say ‘Do it because I said so!’ to my children. I’ll definitely give them my reasons.’ Yep, I’ve totally said it — and without giving reasons,” Alba says.
Jessica confesses that she is the authoritarian and the bad cop in their house. “I’m the disciplinarian. I think it’s because I was kind of a naughty kid myself: I’d push my parents’ buttons and test them to see how much I could get away with. Cash, meanwhile, was always the perfect kid — the straight-A student who was everyone’s sweetheart. It was never in him to be naughty,” the actress says.
Next, she continues and explains that, “I think I just know, from me being that other kind of child, how to cut off bad behavior and redirect it. So when Honor tries to do something she shouldn’t, I have to say to Cash, ‘Let her know right from the beginning that she can’t.’ I’ll put her in time-out and tell her, ‘Think about the choices you’ve made.’ Then I’ll come back and say, ‘Now it’s time to stop crying and think.’ Then I’ll come back again and ask her, ‘Now, what did you learn?’”
On protecting her family from the press and malicious gossips, Alba says that, “You’d think that the best way to protect my family from the lies and criticisms the press can print about me would be to angrily deny them at every turn. But I’ve found out it’s better to do nothing, as long as it doesn’t deeply affect my family and their happiness. Whether it’s true or false, I won’t say anything.”
On little lies, Jessica believes that kids don’t always have to know the truth. “I serve Honor flavored sparkling water — she thinks that it’s soda, and that’s what I let her think. I told her that ‘brown soda’ is only for adults, and she believes me. Ha! And when the paparazzi follow us, and she asks me what they’re doing, I tell her ‘They’re just taking pictures. Isn’t that silly?’ I don’t want her to have anxiety, so I tell her they do that to everyone, not just our family,” the actress says.
The lovely starlet also says that one should’t put a brown paper bag on their kid for nothing. “Then I did some research and learned there are petroleum-based chemicals in a lot of babycare products, even some of the so-called ‘earth-friendly’ brands. Once I had bought brown diapers, telling myself, ‘You know what, they’re not cute, but they’re all-natural.’ I was resigned to the fact that anything healthy wasn’t going to be attractive. But then I found out that the inside of the diaper had that same petroleum-based stuff in it that the other diapers had. I’d put an ugly brown diaper on my kid for nothing!”
Speaking about starting the Honest Company, Alba told Parenting that, “I went to see Christopher Gavigan — he’s a leader in environmental health, and his book, Healthy Child, Healthy World: Creating a Cleaner, Greener, Safer Home, had taught me so much. I asked him if he’d be interested in starting a babycare-products company with me. Cash thought it was a great idea, too, so Christopher and I set about building the Honest Company. We deliver diapers, wipes, cleaners, and toiletries — all free of harmful chemicals — right to your door. And they’re cute! No brown diapers here!”
Read Jessica Alba’s full interview in the April 2020 issue of Parenting Magazine.
Photos courtesy of Parenting
