Eva Amurri Talks Raising a Tween, Parental Burnout, & Her True Feelings About ‘Elf on the Shelf’

We all have things we swore we’d never do as parents that we’ve totally backtracked on since actually becoming parents. For Eva Amurri, lifestyle influencer, actress, and mom of three, strictly-healthy diets are the things that have flown out the window. A self-professed “foodie,” she was very picky about her firstborn daughter’s meals — making all the baby food herself at home, steaming and pureeing with pride. I’m going to do this forever, she vowed. My kids are going to eat the most elevated meals. But now that she has three kids (10-year-old Marlowe, 8-year-old Major, and 4-year-old Mateo), Amurri is that mom in the drive-thru with the rest of us, admitting that she relies on pizza or fast food “probably once a week.”

“That was something I never thought I would do,” the SheKnows holiday issue cover star tells us as she answers our burning questions for the latest installment of Parents Tell All. But if there’s one thing she’s learned about parenting, she says, it’s the value of releasing judgments and just doing what works for your family.

“You can’t hold yourself to a standard that isn’t tenable, and so I’ve learned to be less of a perfectionist and really let things go for the greater good of my sanity, and just our our overall vibe as a family,” Amurri reflects. “I’ve definitely let things go.”

Giving herself grace is a huge part of what Amurri calls the “cornerstone” of her parenting style — a tidbit of wisdom she gleaned from one of her favorite parenting books, Pamela Druckerman’s Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting. “Something I took away from that book, which I really value today as a mom, is just this idea that it’s only sustainable to your own happiness and identity as a woman if your kids fit into your lifestyle, and not the other way around,” she says. “So much of our life as a family does revolve around the kids, of course, but I think maintaining my own identity as a woman, aside from a mother, and also maintaining kind of our relationship as parents, is super important — and I think it’s made all the difference in my kids really growing up with a lot of respect and understanding for who we are as people.”

Watch the video to hear about the worst piece of parenting advice Amurri ever received, her thoughts on raising a tween, the place that makes her son “feral” … and her controversial opinion on that love-it-or-hate-it holiday staple, Elf on the Shelf.