Scarlett Johansson has opened up about the challenges of life with a toddler, admitting that she often feels like she's in an 'an emotionally abusive relationship' with her child.
She described her daughter as having 'very intense emotional swings' in an admission that will resonate with a lot of other toddler mums going through the same thing.
The 38-year-old opened up about some of the challenges of early motherhood and how they're just the same for celebrity mums during Monday’s episode of The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast.
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The mother-of-two shares her eight-year-old daughter Rose with her ex Romain Dauriac and one-year-old son Cosmo with her husband Colin Jost.
The actor recalled to the podcast's hosts Lauryn and Michael Bosstick that her perspective on parenthood switched when her daughter turned three.
She explained: “I remember my daughter when she was two, I said: ‘This is great. I don’t know what everybody is talking about.'
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"And then she turned three, and it’s like being in an emotionally abusive relationship."
Johansson talked about how 'crazy' it was when Rose turned three and that 'reasoning' with the toddler is impossible.
She said Rose has 'very intense emotional swings and is so bossy and adamant, and also these huge mood swings, constant mood swings'.
But despite the toll on herself, the Black Widow star confessed that she couldn't help but feel for her developing daughter: "Those poor little guys, I feel bad for them. It must be a lot…You’re like up and down constantly.”
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Switching her thoughts to her one-year-old son, Johansson described the baby stage as 'so lovely'.
She enthused: “They’re so cute. They sit there and they love you and then that’s it.
"And you just get love from them.”
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But she adds that this stage doesn't last for long and everything changes before you know it, lamenting: “You get a lot of grief from toddlers. Everything you do is wrong.”
Johansson has shared various parenting insights over the years.
During a 2022 interview with InStyle magazine, she discussed how Rose was at a stage where she was constantly asking questions: "'Why are you tweezing your eyebrows? Why are you curling your lashes? What’s a tampon? What’s it for?’”
She continued of the 'why' stage: “She asked me why my underwear went up my butt crack, and I had to try to explain what a panty line was.
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“I was like: 'Cause you don’t want a line in your pants,’ and she was like ‘Why?’ And I was like, 'Cause then you could see my underwear,’ and she was like ‘But you are wearing underwear.’ Like I know, it’s weird.”
Despite discussing her experiences of motherhood, Johansson keeps her children largely out of the spotlight and doesn't use social media.
On the podcast she talked about abstaining from social media to avoid the anxiety it causes.
“I honestly am too fragile of a person to have social media,” she admitted. “My ego is too fragile. I can’t deal with it. My brain is too fragile, I’m like a delicate flower. I have enough anxiety, honestly.”
Amelia Jones