How do you balance work and life? It’s the question everyone wants an answer to — because so many people struggle with feeling not enough in one area of their lives. Especially when kids are involved!
Finding balance as a parent is less about weighing everything perfectly like the metaphorical Scales of Justice (work on one side and life on the other side, exactly the same) and more about finding a system that works for your family. Maybe that means spending a season more focused on your kids, then taking time to work on your career later. Maybe that means taking turns with a partner so you both can work and spend time with your loved ones. Or maybe it’s some other combination that allows you and your family to feel whole, complete, and happy — and whatever that means for you, don’t let anyone make you feel bad about your choice.
These celebrity parents certainly aren’t. Jennifer Lopez, Scarlett Johansson, Rihanna, and other stars have opened up about how they handle work-life balance in the entertainment industry, and while we can’t always relate — we definitely aren’t jet-setting around the world to perform sold-out shows or film movies — we can take some of their wisdom and experience to apply to our own lives.
There’s nothing wrong with admitting to struggling with a work-life balance. We all do it! But one common theme emerges among these A-list parents: what you decide to focus your time on outside of your kids (whether that be career, commitments, or personal time), it needs to be worth it. No matter how you split the pie chart of work, kids, and self-care, it’s never going to be perfectly even. And that’s OK!
Check out these celebrity parents’ quotes on how they feel about the work-life balance below.
Anne Hathaway
The Princess Diaries alum is mom to son Jonathan, born in 2016, and Jack, born in 2019, with husband Adam Shulman. Between acting and raising two boys, she definitely has her hands full — but she wouldn’t want it any other way.
Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer asked how Hathaway “maintains the joyous work-life balance so seamlessly” in a 2022 interview with Interview Magazine, and she responded, “No one’s forcing me to do anything. No one forced me to be a mother, and no one forced me to be an actress. Neither one was like, ‘Oh, how did that happen?’ Both my career and my family took the effort to build and maintain.”
And because she went into it knowing what she wanted, The Devil Wears Prada star tries to focus on gratitude. “And I mean, I’m human, I have moments. But like I said, when gratitude is an option, I’m going to choose that every time. It’s what I want,” she added. “I don’t know if it’s that I’m at a point in my life, or that the world’s in a place where it is, but there are no guarantees, and I’ve lived long enough to know that the only thing we can count on is the present moment. I don’t want to give anything away to unnecessary drama or negativity. I’d rather just be present with these things that I love.”
Gabrielle Union
Gabrielle Union isn’t afraid to get real about the not-so-glamorous parts of managing kids and a career. In a Dec. 2021 Instagram post, the Bring It On alum shared that she had to miss something important to her daughter Kaavia, born via surrogate in 2018, with husband Dwyane Wade.
“Hardest part about being a working Mom is missing important events in your kid’s lives,” she wrote. “Today I missed @kaaviajames holiday program at school and felt so awful to disappoint her. So I did the next best thing, and I became her hype woman before I left for work.”
In the past, she’s slammed the whole concept of work-life balance. She wrote in her 2021 book You Got Anything Stronger? that “nobody really cares” about how someone explains their work-life balance “because it doesn’t mean a damn thing.”
“It’s just about promoting the idea that some equilibrium exists as a possibility. A reach,” she wrote. “And that if you work hard enough, sacrifice even more of your time or self, you will achieve this feeling.”
“‘Balance’ is actually a multilevel marketing program—what we used to call a pyramid scheme,” The Perfect Find star continued, adding, “Deep down, you have known that this is a lie.”
Scarlett Johansson
As a mom to kids Rose, born in 2014, with ex Romain Dauriac, and Cosmo, born in 2021, with husband Colin Jost, the Avengers star has been trying to find work-life balance for a decade. In an interview with SheKnows in 2019, the Asteroid City star told us, “I think we as women, we stress ourselves out so much just trying to wear all these hats and do it all at the same time, and effortlessly. And there is such a higher expectation of women to succeed at everything. The bar is so high, and we set it for ourselves, too.”
She went on, “I think once you realize, ‘Okay, one of these things is going to suffer and I have to prioritize here,’ that in and of itself gives you a lot of space in your mind to reach your goals. I always say ‘be kind to yourself,’ and I think that allows you to actually get a bigger picture of what you want to achieve.”
In 2023, Johansson was still trying to figure it out. “There is no balance. If you figure it out, let me know. I’m looking for any kind of balance,” she said on The Skinny Confidential: Him & Her podcast.
The He’s Just Not That Into You actress explained that motherhood changed her “perspective.” She went on, “It helps the pieces of your life kind of fall into place a little bit I think when you have this other priority. … You go, ‘Wait, this job is going to take me away from my family for XYZ or I’m going to have to move them in an inconvenient way for this amount of time,’ and yeah, it’s a big change. I work like 15-hour days, you know, so if I’m gonna be working on something and have to relocate everybody, it’s adventurous in some ways for the kids, but they also need stability too.”
It’s good advice!
Jessica Biel
Jessica Biel — who once admitted that she has no idea what the secret is to being a perfect mom — got candid about work-life balance in a 2023 interview with SheKnows.
“I find it endlessly challenging to find the balance between being a mom, having a career, and finding time for myself and my husband,” the 7th Heaven alum, who shares sons Silas, born in 2015, and Phineas, born in 2020, with husband Justin Timberlake, told us. “I so often put myself at the bottom of my own list, and it never ever serves me.”
She counteracts this by finding time for herself. “I am a better all-around human in the world when I have prioritized my personal needs even for just a few minutes a day,” Biel explained.
Rihanna
Just like us, Rihanna struggles with maintaining a healthy work-life balance, too. The “Diamonds” singer is mom to sons RZA, born in 2022, and Riot, born in 2023, with A$AP Rocky. In a post-Super Bowl press conference in 2023, Rihanna shared, “The balance is almost impossible because no matter how you look at it, work is always something that’s going to rob you of time with your child.”
She continued, “That’s the currency now. The magnitude of how much it weighs when you make decisions on what you’re going to say yes to, it has to be worth it.”
James Marsden
After COVID gave James Marsden a built-in break from work to focus on his three kids, he has to make a conscious effort now to keep things balanced.
“My challenge [right now] is to take a break for a second and actually pump the brakes,” The Notebook star told PEOPLE in 2023. “It’s great to have all this work and Covid shut down everything for a good year and a half. But then when it came back, it came storming back, which was awesome and I’m so grateful to be working, but right now it’s like, I’m having to make sure I stop occasionally to take a breath, reintroduce myself to my children and live some life.”
Marsden is dad to Jack, born in 2001, and Mary James, born in 2005, with ex-wife Lisa Linde, and William, born in 2012, with ex Rose Costa.
Kelly Osbourne
Kelly Osbourne vulnerably shared her struggle with working after welcoming baby Sidney in 2022. In an Instagram selfie of the television personality returning to work, she wrote on Instagram: “I have a new found (sic) respect for working mothers.”
She continued, “I took my first job since having a baby. Having to leave him this morning was one of the hardest things I have ever done. This day can’t go by quick enough for me. I can’t want to have him back in my arms. 😢”
Apparently, her day at work did not go well. The next day, she shared a photo that featured her infant’s carseat, writing, “I could not leave him again so it’s #BringYourBabyToWorkDay.” It’s so hard, we get it!
Leighton Meester
Having kids created a lot of worry for Leighton Meester. The Gossip Girl alum opened up about her work-life balance in an interview with her husband Adam Brody for Interview Magazine in 2023.
“It’s inevitable that it’s changed it, and we’ve had these conversations endlessly,” Meester said about motherhood impacting her career. “I wouldn’t change anything and I’m proud of the mom I am. But I also feel like I’m open to a lot of self-doubt and worry, and to more extreme hypervigilance and neurosis.”
“All I can do is take it a day at a time. But when I’m with my kids, our kids, I feel like all I can do is be present. Then when I’m working, I miss them like crazy.” Meester admitted, “It’s hard not to feel as a mom that you’re not doing enough and I think that’s always going to be reinforced by our society.”
Meester and Brody share daughter Arlo, born in 2015, and a son, born in 2020.
Mila Kunis
Mila Kunis had some strong words to say at the 2017 Power Trip conference about work-life balance. “There is no such thing of balance,” she said, per Marie Claire. “F-ck balance! Something is going to take a hit, and you’re going to have to take it.”
“I didn’t see my kids today,” the That ‘70s Show alum, who shares kids Wyatt, born in 2014, and Dimitri, born in 2016, with husband Ashton Kutcher, added. “But I think that it’s okay. I’m coming to terms that I love what I do. It’s okay to have passions outside of your family.” Yes, girl!
Jennifer Lopez
Finding a work-life balance is critical for Jennifer Lopez, who is mom to twins Emme and Max, born in 2008, with ex Marc Anthony. “It’s super important for me, especially now, to prioritize my personal life and not just my work life,” the Atlas actress wrote in her On The JLo newsletter in 2022, per Harper’s Bazaar. “When I had kids 14 years ago was when I started thinking differently. Things changed for me. Little by little, my perspective has turned into a healthier work-life balance.”
J. Lo, who is also stepmom to husband Ben Affleck’s three kids with ex Jennifer Garner, said that her focus is “about my family first and foremost.” She added, “It’s about having enough time to be the woman, the mother, the partner and the person that I need to be for the important people in my life. It must be a very special project if it’s going to take time away from my family.”
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