Angelina Jolie Is Having A Rough Time With The Stay-At-Home Mom Thing, Too

Like many parents, Angelina Jolie went into motherhood with a few ideas about the kind of mom she wanted to be. But the mom of six has since learned that expectations don't always align with reality, especially when a global pandemic rolls around to throw a wrench in all your carefully laid plans. In a new interview with British Vogue, Jolie claims she lacks "traditional stay-at-home mom" skills, making parenting and keeping house during a pandemic particularly tough. Thankfully, the six children she shares with ex-husband Brad Pitt are all willing to lend a helping hand.

"I was never very good at sitting still," Jolie told the magazine. "Even though I wanted to have many children and be a mom, I always imagined it kind of like Jane Goodall, traveling in the middle of the jungle somewhere. I didn't imagine it in that true, traditional sense. I feel like I'm lacking in all the skills to be a traditional stay-at-home mom."

I think it's safe to say few parents start off by imagining the mountains of laundry and dirty dishes children leave in their wake, let alone the chaos and frustration of overseeing Zoom playdates and virtual classes that the ongoing pandemic has added to the mix. Toss in six kids, four of whom are teenagers, and well, it's safe to say no one imagined that.

Despite a self-professed lack of traditional homemaking skills, Jolie manages to get by with a bit of help from her six children, who range in age from 19 (Maddox) to 12 (twins Knox and Vivienne). "I'm managing through it because the children are quite resilient, and they're helping me, but I'm not good at it at all," the actor and humanitarian confided to British Vogue. "I love them. I feel like we're such a team. It may sound clichéd, but you love and you try, and even if you burn the eggs, that doesn't matter in the end."

That love goes both ways, as evidenced by a story the 45-year-old mom shared with the magazine about her recent attempt to play with her kids on a trampoline. "We were on the trampoline the other day, and the children said, 'No, Mom, don’t do that. You'll hurt yourself,'" Jolie said. "And I thought, 'God, isn’t that funny?' There was a day I was an action star, and now the kids are telling me to get off the trampoline because I'll hurt myself."

Earlier in the pandemic, Jolie opened up about the high expectations parents often hold themselves to in a column for Time, noting too many parents wanted to do everything right.

"One thing that has helped me is to know that’s impossible," she wrote. "In fact, the more room they have to be great where you are weak, the stronger they may become. They love you. They want to help you. So in the end, it’s the team you build. And in a way, they are raising you up too. You grow together."