Like many A-list actors, Eva Mendes’ life may not always be relatable. But this week, she opened up about how she struggles not to yell at her children or treat parents with fear. Breaking the cycle of generational trauma is something many parents can relate to.
The 50-year-old entertainer appeared on the podcast Parenting with You with Dr. Shefali On Oct. 15, she spoke emotionally about how she was raised by her own parents and how she wanted to do things differently.
Specifically, training day The star talks about how she feels about yelling at kids, how she thinks there’s a cultural connection, and how she’s working to address the issue.
“I think one of the hardest patterns for me is yelling. Because I don’t yell when they need me,” she shared on the podcast. “I’ve never been a fan of ‘shut up.'” It’s not like a ‘mean’ cry, but that’s OK. I yelled. I think this kind of shouting is very cultural.
Mendes has two daughters: Esmeralda, 10, and Amada, 8, with husband and entertainer Ryan Gosling.
“It was hard for me to get through it without yelling,” she continued. “Sprinting and yelling, that’s the hardest thing for me.”
It’s hard not to yell when you’re trying to get your kids out the door on time to do something.
She explains why she finds yelling to be cultured in her parenting style.
“My mother was absolutely so loving and so amazing, but it was definitely like raising us in fear. The whole thing. What I’m really talking about is just being aware of that,” she said.
“I hope that in 20 years I won’t look back and go ‘Oh my God,’ because I really don’t want to grow up out of fear,” Eva choked up. “That’s it – I’m sorry, I’m getting emotional about this – because it’s so unfair to the kids. I hope I’m not unknowingly inflicting it on them through fear like I was raised to do. Some pressure.
Mendes was born in Miami, Florida to Cuban parents and grew up in Los Angeles, where he was raised by a single mother, Eva Pérez Suárez. She is the second of three children.
“When I was in my 20s, of course, I thought, ‘I’m not going to be like my parents,’ you know, the whole thing,” she said. “I was surprised how similar I was to my mother. I loved her. She was on a pedestal. But my house was chaotic when I was a kid. A lot of screaming. A lot of anxiety. Even though I had a loving family. There is a lot of confusion.
She reflects that her mother had a “very difficult childhood, full of trauma” and that the problem is not only a generational issue, but also a cultural one.
This is a topic that actors care about very much.
“A lot of times when people meet my girls, they say, ‘Oh, they’re so polite and so sweet.'” I’m like, “Oh, thank you,” but I’m like, oh no, I Hopefully they just imitate what they see and I hope I’m not unknowingly putting some kind of pressure on them through fear like I was raised with threats and fear.
As people always say when it comes to parenting: if you think about a problem regularly and work on it and try to break the cycle – even if you don’t do it perfectly, you’re moving in the right direction. You are showing how much you love your child.
