Zoe Saldaña is urging her three sons to “celebrate” their “feminine self.”
The “Avatar” actress, 45, has eight-year-old twins Cy and Bowie, and six-year-old Zen, with her artist husband Marco Perego-Saldaña, 44. She says they are raising the youngsters to “honor themselves” as well as their “femininity.”
She told People magazine about wanting to defy gender norms when it comes to teaching her children about life. “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. We definitely understood the assignments and accepted it knowing that we were raising boys during a time when women’s movements are so important.”
Zoe and Marco celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary earlier this year and she added they are trying to lead by example when it comes to raising their family.
“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. It definitely makes you a lot more mindful than you have ever been in your whole entire life,” she said.
The Guardians of the Galaxy actress also recently showed off a tattoo of her husband’s face, and has previously opened up about her desire to create a gender-fluid household.
“When you look at parenting, the whole thing about matriarchy and patriarchy, and daddy’s little girl and mama’s boys – my husband and I find that completely ludicrous and absolutely unhealthy for the upbringing of a child. You’re giving them a very distorted and limited view on what a female role is supposed to be in a family and what a male role is supposed to be. Certain seasons, I’m the one that may be taking over all of the domestic operations so that my husband can mentally break away and focus on his creativity. And other seasons when I go completely back into work mode, then we’re switching off,” she told People in a 2018 interview.
