Jessica Alba Would Only Let Her Kids Become Actors Under 1 Condition
Actor Jessica Alba once shared that her mom would only let her continue acting if she made certain life choices. Alba didn’t seem as strict about her own children’s potential future acting aspirations. However, similar to her mother, Alba would only allow them to pursue a Hollywood career under one condition.
Jessica Alba felt her kids didn’t have to follow her footsteps
Thanks to Alba’s career success, her daughter Honor and her siblings enjoy a much different lifestyle than the Fantastic Four star had growing up. Alba became an actor almost out of necessity. Her parents were far from wealthy, and their lives were limited by financial hardship. However, Alba wanted more than that.
“I grew up in survival mode,” Alba once said in an interview with Glamour. “It was almost sort of what I was born into. My parents didn’t have a safety net, they were living paycheck to paycheck. And so the mentality of ‘tomorrow’s not guaranteed’… For me, I was like, ‘I got to do everything I can to keep my head above water.’”
In Alba’s case, people’s low expectations of her only made her more determined to succeed.
“I think because no one had any expectations that I would be successful, how could you fail? I wasn’t set up – no one was like, ‘Oh my God, you’re going to be…’ They were just like, ‘Here’s your life.’ And I was like, ‘This is some bulls***. I want a better life than that. I don’t want to be in survival mode all the time,’” she said.
She felt there was no better way to provide for herself than with acting, which she was naturally drawn to at a young age. Decades later, she’d achieve her acting dreams and more. She eventually considered leaving acting to focus on her Honest company, a brand that was worth $1 billion at one point. Because of her accomplishments, Alba could give her children the life she wanted as a kid. However, if Honor and her siblings wanted to follow Alba’s path, Honor would’ve needed to finish her education first.
“I was a child actor and it worked for me, given the circumstances I was in, but I’m lucky enough to give my daughter and my second baby a completely different life and an education that I never had the opportunity to have,” Alba said according to Daily Mail back in 2011. “When they’re done with college, if they want to get into the arts, that’s fine.”
Alba also felt waiting to become actors would benefit her children more in the long run.
“I think you will be a better artist the more life experience you have, but I wouldn’t encourage them to work in this type of environment as children,” she added.
Jessica Alba once explained why she was stricter than Cash Warren as a parent
It seemed that Alba wasn’t just strict about her children’s potential acting dreams. Alba was a much sterner parent than her ex-husband, Warren, in general. The Sin City star felt their different childhoods helped shape their parenting styles. Ironically, Alba was much more rebellious growing up than Warren was.
“I think it’s because I was kind of a naughty kid myself. I’d push my parents’ buttons and test them to see how much I could get away with,” Alba said to People. “[Cash was] the straight-A student who was everyone’s sweetheart. It was never in him to be naughty. I think I just know, from me being that other kind of child, how to cut off bad behavior and redirect it.”
This meant that Alba often put her foot down in situations where Warren wouldn’t.
“When Honor tries to do something she shouldn’t, I have to say to Cash, ‘Let her know right from the beginning that she can’t,’” she added. “I’ll put her in a timeout and tell her, ‘Think about the choices you’ve made.’ Then I’ll come back and say, ‘Now it’s time to stop crying and think.’ Then I’ll come back again and ask her, ‘Now, what did you learn?’”
But it’s not easy being the disciplinant in the family. Alba has even had to go to therapy with her oldest child, Honor, to mend a few cracks in their relationship. But their trip to therapy showed how much of a priority her children were, which superseded her career ambitions pretty quickly.
“Before I had kids, I was always so focused on my career, and it was always such a big thing for me,” she explained. “That’s probably the thing that’s surprised me the most about motherhood — just how secondary everything else is. Nothing else really matters to me aside from my children and their well-being.”
