Actress Zoe Saldaña is again opening up about raising her three boys in a gender-neutral home, revealing how she is teaching her sons to “celebrate their feminine self.”
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While speaking with PEOPLE, 45-year-old Saldaña — who celebrated her 10th wedding anniversary earlier this year with husband Marco Perego-Saldaña, 44 — spoke about life raising the couple’s three sons, 8-year-old twins Cy and Bowie, plus 6-year-old son Zen. The ‘Avatar‘ star told the magazine that parenting is the “most amazing thing, but it’s real.”
She added, “We are here to set very big tones for them in life on how to be, how to react, how to regulate, how to repair, how to heal, how to stand up for yourself. So they’re going to be constantly mirroring what you do, knowing that you’re being observed at all times. It definitely makes you a lot more mindful than you have ever been in your whole entire life.”
She continued, “When you look at parenting, the whole thing about matriarchy and patriarchy, and Daddy’s little girl and Mama’s boys — my husband and I find that completely ludicrous and absolutely unhealthy for the upbringing of a child.”
Saldaña also noted that she and her husband, a producer and director, both have busy schedules and are “constantly adjusting and readjusting” as parents, but are also “very honest with each other about what your bandwidth feels like it can be.”
She explained, “Certain seasons, I’m the one that may be taking over all of the domestic operations so that my husband can mentally break away and focus on his creativity. And other seasons when I go completely back into work mode, then we’re switching off. I don’t think it’s ever an even share of the load, which is why I think it’s important to be absolutely transparent with your bandwidth and where you are and how you’re doing.”
She added, “But love comes with everything, so it’s always with the understanding that, ‘Today for you, tomorrow for me,’ and we’ve been constantly in that back and forth.”
Additionally, Saldaña spoke on raising her three boys in a gender-neutral home and making sure that they keep in touch with their feminine sides. The actress has been pretty open in the past about not giving anyone gender-specific roles.
Back in May 2018, Saldaña first spoke about her and her husband raising their three boys in a gender-neutral household. She told Women’s Health, “That ‘Mom’s the boss’ thing is not going to happen in our family, because that means he’s the fun one, the good guy, while I’m the disciplinarian. I don’t want my kids to look at women like, ‘Oh, god, they’re so annoying! They always come with structure.’”
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In her new interview with PEOPLE, Saldaña doubles down on her and her husband “teaching [their] little boys to honor women and to celebrate women.” She said it’s “very important” that the boys “honor themselves, their femininity, to celebrate their feminine self as well.”
Saldaña explained, “We’re very hard on our boys the same way we’re hard on women. And boys are encouraged to be strong and to suppress their emotions. And then once you learn to do that so much for so long, you become completely excommunicated from your feelings. We definitely understood the assignments and accepted it knowing that we were raising boys during a time when women’s movements are so important.”
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