Much of parenting is all about learning as you go, and pivoting when necessary. Just ask Anne Hathaway.
Last month the Oscar-winning actress, currently earning raves for Colossal, shared a photo of her year-old son Jonathan on Instagram. The baby boy can be seen rocking rad lion-print PJs as he watches his famous mother, a United Nations Global Goodwill Ambassador, give a speech at the UN on paid parental leave. Jonathan is only shown from the back, and Hathaway was making a point about being a mother in honour of International Women's Day. Despite her good intentions, however, she now says she regrets posting the pic.
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"I had never posted a photo of my son, and I decided to post a shot of the back of his head, and almost as soon as I’d done it, I wished that I hadn’t," the 34-year-old star told Jezebel in a new interview. "I felt like I had broken some kind of a seal in inviting people into my life. And even though I felt as though I had done it in as protective a way as I could, even though it was a moment I was incredibly proud of, I don’t know that I’ll ever do it again."
She added that she's now taking a more cautious approach to social media. That'll include posting content to Instagram Stories, which she deems a "little freer and a little looser," rather than her static Instagram feed.
"I’m a big believer that you gotta mess things up sometimes to really see them properly, so if I made a mistake or I messed up, I know how I feel about it much better now," she explained. "Instagram, when I first started, it was so much fun. And it was a great way to be silly and kind of do things off the cuff. And now, because of the time we live in, I think words and pictures are carrying a much greater weight. Or, much less depending on how you engage with it."
It's not the first time Hathaway, who is married to longtime love Adam Shulman, has spoken up about "mommy guilt."
"When [my son] Johnny was a week old and I was holding him and I was in the ninth level of ecstasy, I just all of a sudden thought, 'Mommy guilt is invented nonsense,'" she told Elle last month in reference to her support of paid parental leave. "We're encouraged to judge each other, but we should be turning our focus to the people and institutions who should be supporting us and currently aren't."
Hear, hear.