Jourdan Dunn says motherhood has taught her to “have patience.”
The 31-year-old British supermodel has a 12-year-old son Riley — who was diagnosed with sickle cell disease when he was 6 months old — and raising him on her own meant that she has been able to deal with any situation in her fashion career.
Speaking as part of British Vogue and YouTube UK’s series of free masterclasses – Vogue Visionaries — she said: “Motherhood has taught me to have patience. And it’s good because once I got back into work I was just not phased with what was going on on set. I was just patient. If something didn’t fit, or there was a delay, or there was, I don’t know, I don’t know, anything can happen on set, I was just calm and collected and know that this is, this is nothing, this is all good.”
Jourdan’s mother has helped her bring up Riley and she insists that all working mothers should be prepared to ask for help and never stay silent if they are struggling.
She said: “Don’t be afraid to ask for help. We all need help. And just find your tribe. If it’s other mums, if it’s, I don’t know, but find your tribe. Do not be scared to ask for help and support because we all need it.”
“Find, create your support system. I’m very blessed that my mum was very hands-on and she allowed me to travel the world and she was gonna be at home looking after Riley. But, for me it was hard because I just felt like I was missing out on so much and I just felt like my mum was now Riley’s mum and I was just the relative visiting and hearing about all of his firsts and that really hurt me for a while actually.”
“But then I kind of took it for ‘you know what, this is great because my mum and my son are forming this amazing relationship and I think it was just kind of getting over the guilt and reminding myself: I’m doing this for him, for us.”
Go to Youtube.com/watch?v=1t8RfPKaXCQ to watch the full video, Vogue Visionaries Modeling with Jourdan Dunn.
