Emily Blunt is sick and tired of being asked where her kids are, when her husband isn’t asked the same.
In a recent interview, the 39-year-old actress said working in the same industry as her husband John Krasinski, 43, has “hugely” brought gender disparities to light.
“It is interesting that women are still made to feel defensive of their choices to work, and men are not,” she told Porter.
Sharing an example, the actor explained that when she was on set in Atlanta, it was “amazing” how many people asked where her kids were.
“I thought, ‘I bet Chris Evans isn’t being asked that question, or Andy Garcia, or Jay Duplass.’ And you just normalise it,” she said.
Blunt said she would find herself over-explaining or over-compensating to appear like she could still do everything work-wise and be available to her kids. Sound familiar?
The actor isn’t the first – and sadly won’t be the last – to experience this questioning surrounding the whereabouts of her offspring. In October, Megan Fox – who has three children – posted a series of selfies on Instagram and, of course, someone just had to comment: “Where your kids at?”
Taking no prisoners, Fox responded: “Wait wait wait. I... have kids?!? Oh my god I knew I forgot something!! Quick, someone call the valet at the Beverly Hills hotel. That’s the last place I remember seeing them.
“Maybe someone turned them into lost and found.”
But Fox, like many mums who work, finds it difficult to juggle the two. In an interview with Glamour earlier this year she revealed she has to travel for long periods of time and her children have to attend school. “I wish I could take them out to travel with me, it would make things a lot easier,” she said.
“I cry often ... because it is hard and not because of pressures that anybody else or society puts on you, but it is just hard being separated from them in that way. They are my DNA.”
In the same month that Fox was forced to defend posting child-free selfies, director and actor Olivia Wilde set the record straight after months of people questioning her maternal instincts because she was regularly photographed without her kids in tow.
Rather than people assuming she was keeping them out of pictures for their own privacy, people jumped straight to the conclusion she’d “abandoned” them. It was that question again: Where are your kids?
In an interview for Elle magazine’s November issue, Wilde said: “I share custody of my kids with my ex. If I’m photographed not with my kids, people assume I have abandoned them, like my kids are just somewhere in a hot car without me.
“The suggestion is that I have abandoned my role as a mother.”
She added the reason people don’t see her with her children is because she doesn’t let them get photographed. “Do you know the lengths that I go to to protect my kids from being seen by you?” she added.
The director pointed out there’s a huge double standard at play, because men in the public eye are rarely even asked about their kids, let alone judged for the way they choose to raise them.
She told Variety back in August: “When people see me not with my kids, it’s always ‘How dare she’. I’ve never seen anyone say that about a guy. And if he is with his kid, he’s a fucking hero.”