But instead, the actress is doing something pretty rare: acknowledging that her reality as the highest-paid actress in Hollywood makes her parenting experience very, very different from that of the average Jane.
"I'm not a single mom with two jobs trying to get by everyday," Jolie told the New York Daily News Wednesday. "I have much more support than most people, most women in this world. And I have the financial means to have a home and health care and food."
Jolie was responding to a question about New York City mayor Bill de Blasio's wife Chirlane McCray, who recently spoke to New York magazine about feeling "mom guilt" when she still wanted to pursue her career after having kids.
“I was 40 years old. I had a life. Especially with (daughter) Chiara—will we feel guilt forever more? Of course, yes," McCray told the magazine. "But the truth is, I could not spend every day with her. I didn’t want to do that. I looked for all kinds of reason not to do it. I love her. I have thousands of photos of her - every 1-month birthday, 2-month birthday. But I’ve been working since I was 14, and that part of me is me. It took a long time for me to get into ‘I’m taking care of kids,’ and what that means.”
Jolie, on the other hand, says she's privileged enough to not have to feel such guilt - her kids, she notes during the interview, were right upstairs - and feels that wealthy moms like her really shouldn't complain.
“When I feel I’m doing too much, I do less, if I can. And that’s why I’m in a rare position where I don’t have to do job after job. I can take time when my family needs it,” Jolie told the paper. “I actually feel that women in my position, when we have all at our disposal to help us, shouldn’t complain. Consider all the people who really struggle and don’t have the financial means, don’t have the support, and many people are single raising children. That’s hard."
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