Salma Hayek is turning 55 and the mother-of-one — who shares a birthday month with 13-year-old daughter Valentina — is definitely in her prime.
The actress and activist has called herself “a late bloomer” in the areas of marriage and motherhood (Hayek wed fashion CEO François-Henri Pinault at age 39 and gave birth to Valentina at 41), but happiness was worth the wait. “…I always wanted to have a lot of children, and I was not able to,” Hayek told the U.K. publication Red Online. “My body, as a miracle, had one. The huge blessing I’ve had is that my husband has three other children. So I have four. And they are all so different.”
And while we might not see Valentina living life as typical Hollywood royalty, we’re thankful for her mom’s insights on their super-tight bond, from prioritizing family over her career to pandemic parenting and the inevitable ups and downs of raising a teenager, which at times, has left Hayek bewildered. She recently told InStyle that an attempt to bond with her daughter over meditation didn’t work out.
“She’s like, ‘I cannot think of anything more boring! And if I’m going to meditate, I’m going to do it on my own time,'” she recalled. “She’s amazing, and she mesmerizes me over and over, but you know, when I talk to her, I find myself out of words.” Sounds like a typical mother-daughter relationship to us!
Here are other relatable quotes that Hayek has shared about parenting. Happy birthday, mama!
On Prioritizing Quality Time As a Working Mom
“I try to be really present with her, and really listen to her, and make it up day by day,” Hayek told Red of Valentina, then 8, in 2017, “because they change so quickly.”
“I try to be with Valentina as much as possible, even when I’m working,” said Hayek. “She was with me on the cover shoot and she felt like a participant – she wasn’t just sitting there on the iPad. This is so important. You have to drag children into participating in life. It takes a lot of work and mummies are very tired because most of us work and life is exhausting, especially if you are an older mom like me, but you have to make the effort.”
“And if you have a smart child, it’s harder,” she added. “Now it’s so easy to just entertain them (with a screen), and you don’t have to go through the complaining for an hour about dragging them places. Drag them, and make them a part of your life. It’s about the human connection, and the things they can learn from participating in life. Otherwise, isolation starts to happen.”
On Being an ‘Embarrassing’ Parent
In June, Hayek appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers to promote her film Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, which Valentina had “insisted” on watching. “She never wants to see my stuff, but she insisted on watching this one and to go with her friends,” said Hayek revealing that she felt self-conscious by her “raunchy” performance.
“I was really nervous and embarrassed,” Hayek told Meyers. “I said, ‘Don’t bring your friends, I’m really going to embarrass you,’ and she’s like, ‘You embarrass me all the time, every day, so what’s going to be different?'” However, Valentina gave her mom’s performance a top-notch review. “I was quite impressed with that,” said Hayek.
On The Power of Maternal Instinct
“Every woman has a maternal instinct inside and I think that it’s important that all humans try to have that experience and apply that maternal instinct to some living creature,” Hayek told HOLA! in 2017. “You don’t have to have children, but be responsible and take care of animals or a plant. Take care of another being.”
On Her Pregnancy Journey
“I got gestational diabetes, which I didn’t realize at first. It occurs in women who have high blood sugar levels during pregnancy,” Hayek shared with American Baby in 2008. “I didn’t know whether I was feeling bad because I was pregnant or whether something was seriously wrong. I was nauseated for nine months, which can be one of the symptoms.”
On Handling The Newborn Days
“Pregnancy is all a blur now,” Hayek told American Baby one year after her daughter’s birth. “But I remember the advice that my aunt gave me — my aunt who never had any babies. She spent some time with us when Valentina was not even 1 month old, and she said to me, ‘Put her to sleep yourself every night. Sing to her and cradle her in your arms and sit by her side — every night. Because one day, you won’t be able to carry her anymore, and it’s going to happen really fast.'”
On Being a ‘Late Bloomer’ In Parenthood
Although Hayek waited to start her family, she’s grateful for the extra time. “I think I’m a better mother because I had her later,” she told Town & Country in 2019. “But I do get tired. I’m not going to lie.”
In fact, she had more freedom to develop her career, she told the U.K.’s Sunday Times. “I had reached a place in my career [where] I’d done a lot of things, I was so excited to be a mother.”
On Staying Close to Her Daughter
“When it comes to my career, what I do is I only do roles that are shot in a way that I’m never more than two weeks away from my family,” Hayek told People adding that she sometimes feels pulled between her husband and daughter.
“Sometimes the hardest things to balance is motherhood with marriage,” she said lightheartedly. “You just have to remind yourself that you have that other big kid too to look after.”
On Cherishing Her Daughter’s Milestones
Last September, Hayek shared an Instagram photo of Valentina as a newborn in honor of the girl’s 13th birthday. “Valentina, I never wished for someone to exist as much as I wished for you to come into my life,” wrote the actress. “….You are my greatest teacher, my greatest joy and my greatest hope. I loved you before you were born and I’ll love you forever. Happy birthday, my shining star.”
On Pandemic Parenting
Hayek has shared that her teen, like many others, struggled with being on lockdown during the pandemic, especially because she couldn’t see her friends.
“My daughter Valentina was very independent and did her online schoolwork on her own, but she didn’t enjoy it. She also really missed her friends,” she said in an interview with The Telegraph, per Hello! magazine.
On the Power of Breastfeeding
In 2009, on a trip to Sierra Leone, Hayek famously breastfed another woman’s child after learning that local mothers stop nursing earlier than planned due to disapproval from their partners, according to ABC News. Hayek was still breastfeeding Valentina at the time. “Am I being disloyal to my child by giving her milk away?” she said, per the outlet. “I actually think my baby would be very proud to share her milk. And when she grows up I’m going to make sure she continues to be a generous, caring person.”
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