This celebrity mom's parenting philosophy might be a little different than others, but she's raising her three boys with one important goal in mind: not to subscribe to traditional gender roles that so many people fall into as they get older. In a new interview with People, Zoe Saldaña opened up about what parenting with husband Marco Perego-Saldańa is like, including the way they have prioritized teaching their sons to "celebrate their feminine self."
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Zoe said she and Marco are 'teaching our little boys to honor women and to celebrate women.'
While talking to People at an event celebrating the brand Happiest Baby this week, she said it is very important to her to teach sons Cy, 8, Bowie, 8, and Zen, 6, to "honor themselves, their femininity, to celebrate their feminine self as well." But like anything involving parenting, that requires putting in the work to make sure they feel free to do that.
She wants her kids to feel safe expressing their feelings, even if it doesn't fit into a masculine stereotype.
"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," she told the magazine. "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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She called parenting the 'most amazing thing.'
Being a mom has made her "more mindful," knowing that little eyes are watching everything she says and does.
"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," she said.
This isn't the first time she's talked about parenting and gender roles.
In another interview with People back in 2018, Zoe said that she and Marco are aiming to create a "very gender-fluid environment" for their sons to grow up in, and that starts with them as parents setting a good example.
"He’s the bad cop, I’m the good cop and vice versa. There’s no such thing as, 'Mom’s the boss, listen to your mother.' No, listen to your father as much as your mother because we stand as a unit," she said at the time.
Earlier this year, Zoe gushed over how much she loves her children.
In an Instagram post she shared last March, Zoe shared photos and videos of her kids wrestling with their dog, Dolce, and said being their mother is a "treat."
"The laughs, the jokes, the @lego pieces everywhere, the brawls, the meltdowns, the milestones that ache so deeply, the achievements that make our hearts bursts … everything about you is meant to be just as it is. Stay wild, pure and free," she wrote.
