Jane Fonda admits she didnt know how to be a mom: Im trying to show up now

Posted by Almeda Bohannan on Wednesday, May 8, 2024

Jane Fonda is still finding her footing as a parent.

The actress admitted in a recent interview that while she was “not the kind of mother that I wished” for her three children, she is now “trying to show up” for them.

“I’ve studied parenting, and I know what it’s supposed to be now. I didn’t know then,” the 85-year-old said on “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?” on CNN.

“I have great, great children — talented, smart. And I just didn’t know how to do it,” she continued of her life’s “biggest regret.”

Jane Fonda is belatedly “trying to show up” for her three children. Stewart Cook/Shutterstock
The actress admitted on CNN that she wasn’t “the kind of mother” she wanted to be. CNN

In recent years, Fonda has spoken candidly about her relationship with her adult children: Mary, 55, Vanessa, 54, and Troy, 49.

“When I die, I want my family to be around me,” the Oscar winner explained to Net-a-Porter in March 2017. “I want them to love me, and I have to earn that. I’m still working at it.”

“I didn’t know how to do it,” she said. Getty Images

Fonda became a mom in 1968 when she and then-husband Roger Vadim welcomed daughter Vanessa.

While married to her second husband, Tom Hayden, the “Grace and Frankie” alum gave birth to son Troy in 1973 and adopted daughter Mary in 1982.

Fonda did not have any kids with her third husband, Ted Turner.

Fonda is the mother of Mary, Vanessa and Troy. Shutterstock

The “80 for Brady” star’s parenting tactics aren’t the only thing getting better with age, as she revealed last summer that her sex life improved later in life.

“Women, I think, tend to get better [over time] because they lose their fear of saying what they need,” she explained to Andy Cohen in July 2022.

“We waste way too much time not wanting to say: ‘Wait a minute, hold it, hold it, no, no, no. Slow down, and a little to the left,'” Fonda added.

The “Grace and Frankie” alum previously shared her motherhood regrets in 2017. janefonda/Instagram

“But when we get older, it’s like: ‘No, I know what I want. Give me what I want.’”

At the time, the legendary exercise video host characterized her sex life as “solo” and “private.”

In March of the previous year, she admitted to Harper’s Bazaar that she would only have sex again with a younger man because she has a “thing about skin.”

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