Sienna Miller has always been frank about motherhood. And now, as she's promoting her star turn in The Lost City of Z, she's getting extremely real about the anxiety that parenting causes — in a new interview with Allure.
Although Miller and Tom Sturridge, the father of her daughter Marlowe, are no longer together, she says that their family unit is still somewhat intact. That includes seeing Sturridge on a regular basis. "We do bedtime every day," Miller tells Allure. "We felt like as much togetherness as possible would be ideal, and fortunately we really love each other and are best friends, and so that works. It’s not that it’s not complicated, because it is.”
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But Miller is still very much a single mother. This story she tells the magazine is a perfect illustration of just how stressful that can be, even for a celebrity with plenty of resources.
“I had an amazing moment the other day where I just heard this ‘Mama!’ from upstairs,” she says. “I said, ‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’ And as I got to the landing I just smelled, like, puke. And she’d thrown up basically off the top bunk, so the splatters were like: Pow! Like all four walls. She had the norovirus or whatever. I was like, ‘I’m coming, I’m coming!’ And I skidded on the sick and fell. Whacked my head. Then I get her out of the bunk; she’s crying, covered in sick. I take her to the bathroom, take all her clothes off, and then the dog comes up and starts eating the sick. And I get her in the bath and in my bed, and I’m just, like, literally naked, mopping, and crying at midnight. You know, and that’s parenthood. You’re so enriched by it and so fulfilled, but at the same time, I look at these people who just don’t have any responsibility, and it feels like the responsibility is crippling.”
Here's the thing: Parenthood means adding to your (possibly already somewhat crippling) mountain of responsibility. Work, relationships, general adulting, plus kid — and thus, pretty often, kid vomit. Then there's the fact that even if you're the biggest star in the world, you will probably be judged by those closest to you based on how you raise your children. This goes for parents of any gender. So kudos to Miller for refusing to sugarcoat any of the stress and challenges that parenthood presents every day. Star Moms: They're just like us — which sometimes means naked, crying, and mopping.