Producer and Actor Eva Longoria Says This is Her Secret to Balancing Work and Motherhood

Compared to earlier centuries, modern women are more unstoppable, and with all the feminine power we see in media and learn in our classrooms today, we all know that this is just the start of an empowering revolution.

Part of this is letting a woman choose her own future and decide whether she wants to pursue the path of motherhood or choose her career instead. While some women see this as a roadblock in their career development, others don’t let the daunting task of raising kids get in the way of their successes.

Some are even fortunate to have figured out the perfect formula for balancing work, relationship, and childrearing altogether, and one of those lucky few is the new mom Eva Longoria.

Just eight weeks after giving birth to her first-born Santiago, Eva Longoria went back to work with her new series, Grand Hotel

Best Weeks of Her Life

The multihyphenate Mexican-American actress had her first child in June 2018 at the age of 43, and just eight weeks after welcoming her son, Santiago Enrique Baston, she started working again as an executive producer of ABC’s drama series Grand Hotel. She brought her son to work, even posting the photo of the baby boy and calling him her assistant director in the caption.

This doesn’t mean that she didn’t like being at home and taking care of her family. In fact, she told in an interview with Entertainment Tonight that the first seven weeks after welcoming her first bundle of joy were the best ones of her life.

Of course, at first, the Dora and the Lost City of Gold actress was overwhelmed with responsibilities and struggled to perform the balancing act that every working mom does.

Aside from being an actress, director, and producer, Eva is also a restaurateur, an immigrants’ and women’s rights activist. The multi-talented woman even launched her own clothing line in early 2017!

She said in a different interview that people used to ask her how she is able to juggle so many roles in her life to which she answered that though she didn’t have any kids before, she treated her projects as her own baby and now, it’s different because she now has a real baby in her arms.

‘Lucky’ Parents

She said that she took her transition slowly, asking help from her baby nurse, her mom, and her mother-in-law and even getting bits of advice from her friends, especially Kerry Washington whom she called her doula or birth companion.

Eva Longoria calls her friend Kerry Washington her doula or birth companion

Eva also revealed that she got “lucky” with her baby as she describes Santi a happy and healthy boy, after having a smooth start in parenting with her husband Jose “Pepe” Baston.

The hard part, she continued, was feeding and pumping regularly especially on days when she was on set or working all day and had to perform her maternity duties at work. Even though her 1-year-old is an easy one to take care of, she still had no trouble sleeping because there are times when she’s not getting any rest due to her busy schedule.

Raising a Feminist Son

Motherhood is complicated but for the Black-ish director, raising a child to become a good human being is more challenging, especially now when a lot of people are speaking up about their bad experiences at the hands of seemingly good people.

Eva, who is one of the Time’s Up Movement’s founders, said that at an early age, she wants her son to know and value equality and feminism. With her new series Grand Hotel, which premiered last June as a showrunner, she made sure to hire more female staff in the production team.

Eva Longoria wanted her son to be a good person who values equality and feminism

While Eva may seem to have it all — from her healthy son and a loving husband to a new series, and an upcoming film coming in theaters in August — she still believes that every parent-child relationship is different and hers is not the golden formula that’ll work for every mom.

What is important for her right now is to be a good mom to her son who in return will share the kindness he received from his mom to the world.