“My mom is truthfully so devastated, she’s so upset. She’s not excited at all for me to have a baby.”
Drew Barrymore is sharing some of the life lessons she instilled in her daughters at a young age.
The 50-year-old actress and talk show host shared some of her best parenting advice and strategies for avoiding parental burnout in a new interview with “Real Simple,” published Sept. 10.
And one of the most important lessons she taught her two kids is to avoid a messy environment.
“If you clean up after yourself, you’re going to have more calmness in space,” she said in the interview. “Your head is as messy as your room is. Someone said that to me, and it changed my life forever.”
While she says messes can be “cute and charming,” Barrymore’s rule is simple.
“They can’t stay there,” she told the outlet. “They’ve got to get cleaned up so you’re ready for the next mess to be made.”
Barrymore became a mom for the first time on Sept. 26, 2012, when she and her ex-husband Will Kopelman, whom she divorced in 2016, welcomed their daughter Olive, according to People.
Their second daughter, Frankie, followed on April 22, 2014.
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Now that Drew Barrymore’s kids are getting older, she’s starting to notice just how different they are — especially when it comes to the messes they make (or don’t make).
“I have one daughter who’s neater than I will ever be, and one daughter who is beyond messy,” she told “Real Simple” — adding that she considers herself the “tidy type.”
“But someone reminded me that I was messy when I was young,” she continued. “And I was like, 'Oh my God, I’m expecting her to have my 50-year-old woman’s standards of cleanliness!'”
Drew Barrymore shares her strategy for overcoming mom burnout
Elsewhere in her interview, Barrymore opened up about the times when she feels she’s doing too much.
While staying tidy and avoiding messes that overstay their welcome are important to her, she understands that sometimes it’s worth letting those messes go to allow herself time to focus on other things.
“When I get burnout from trying to mom really hard and work really hard, I go, ‘You know what? This isn’t good,’” she said in the interview.
“And I know that at the end of the day, the most important thing in life is your relationships. If I’m not putting them first, then I’m on the wrong track,” she continued.
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According to WebMD, parental burnout is when “parents put so much of their time and energy into their children that they neglect their own needs.”
The effects of burnout can lead to “overwhelming exhaustion, emotional distancing from your children, and a sense of being a poor or ineffective parent,” per WebMD.
In her interview with “Real Simple,” Barrymore said she tries to teach her daughters the importance of taking time to “work on yourself” — which can help ease the effects of burnout of any variety.
“I do try to show them that the more you work on yourself, the happier you’re going to be, the more your friendships will thrive,” she said.
Barrymore also tries to model positive behavior by being kind to others.
“If you’re not good to someone, you will not only ruin their day, but guess what: You’re going to feel really bad about yourself. So nix that behavior,” she added.
Her advice echoes what she said in a January interview with AARP ahead of her 50th birthday.
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“My biggest thing to teach them is to be kind to people. Kind, safe, accountable. With a lot of funny,” she said of what she teaches her daughters.
