I think that when you become a mom... you don't really worry about the small stuff. I'm just way more centered. It makes you focus even more on what your goals are in life.
Becoming a mother cannot help but change things. An author's life is reflected in their writing, whether they want it to be or not, and parenthood is one of the biggest life changes there is.
There are generations of women who left the workforce to be moms, and their kids grow up, and they think, "Well, what now?"
What I hated then - and hate now - is the way that people say to girls like me who get pregnant young that it ruins your life. Having a child doesn't ruin your life - having a child is a blessing.
One of the hazards of making a major discovery early in your career is the burden of expectation, not helped in my case by becoming a wife and mother soon afterwards. I'm sure some people think it was a flash in the pan.
In giving birth, I knew that I would have to take a break after I had a baby; I just didn't know that it would be, like, six weeks long. Taking a six-week break was a very big deal for me. I have never taken that long of a break from stand-up other than my honeymoon, which was 14 days long.
If I hadn't had a baby, a part of me thinks I might have turned up on the red carpets all the time and gone, 'Hi, it's me!' Maybe other people do it because they haven't got kids and they've nowhere else to be. But because I have, I don't feel like that.
I had worked my whole life. Until I became a mother, that's the only way I measured my value.
There is a whole generation of women and it was as if their lives came to a stop when they had children. Most of them got pretty neurotic - because, I think, of the contrast between what they were taught at school they were capable of being and what actually happened to them.
If I didn't have children, I think my life would be a failure.
I don't think anything changes after marriage. Things change in a big way after becoming a mother.
My own cabaret is constantly evolving with what is occurring in my own life, so motherhood is a natural addition to it.
I want to break the stereotype that when an actress becomes a mother, she can only do certain type of roles.
When 'Frozen River' started to get really big, I was four months pregnant. So when these agents and directors wanted to meet me, I was coming in pregnant, and people didn't really take me seriously. They thought, 'This woman is not going to shoot another movie again. She's going to become a mom, and that's what happens.' But that was not the case.
There have definitely been ebbs and flows in my career, but, you know, part of the reason is that I'm a mom. I have a five-year-old daughter. She really factors into my choices, and I never want to go too long without seeing her.
Recently I started to appreciate my body a bit more from before I had kids. But it completely changed, and I have had to work hard at getting it back to where it used to be.... I used to be obsessed with working out.
Becoming a mother has helped make me a tougher, stronger writer.
I don't think a baby will change my career because I don't plan to go about my career any differently. I'm gonna work hard because I love to work, and I love what I do. I think a baby will just add more happiness to it.
The experience of having a child does crack you wide open. I felt like I suddenly had to rebuild the skin that I'd grown over the years before having a child. Perhaps that might be quite interesting in terms of acting.
My life before children I don't really remember. I've heard references to it, but I really don't remember.
Before motherhood, I had a feeling that unmarried women are the strongest. However, that changed after my son was born.
I absolutely don't want to suggest that women are unreliable because we're mothers - on the contrary. But the question of who brings up the kids has a material effect on all women's careers.
Motherhood definitely took the focus off of my work. And I didn't mind. I had a few panics when I thought that if I wanted to work I couldn't get a job anymore and then I would get one once in a while and it would make me feel better.
When I had Mason, I was really ready to leave the business of acting, but still wanted to do work that I could control.
I was at home, pregnant, and everybody was telling me, 'You're on a roll, don't have another baby, wait a while.' Looking back, I realize my career was peaking when I was having babies, for God's sake!
