Finding her purpose! Drew Barrymore may be an A-list star, but her biggest achievements in life are her two daughters, Olive and Frankie.
“They’re my favorite people on the planet,” Barrymore told Entertainment Tonight in 2016, noting that she has become “such a better person” while being a mom. “I always love and try to live on the high road. I think you feel best when you behave or react or come from the ‘high road’ place. My kids have elevated that in a way for me that is indescribable.”
The Never Been Kissed star shares her two daughters with ex-husband Will Kopelman. The pair tied the knot in 2012, welcoming their first daughter, Olive, less than a year later. The former couple’s second daughter, Frankie, was born in 2014.
While the Santa Clarita Diet alum and Intern actor called it quits in 2016 and finalized their divorce in August 2018, they have made their two little ones their “first priority” as they work hard to coparent amicably.
“It really is about the tone you set, and you can talk until you’re blue in the face, but kids watch what you do every single day of your life, all day long, and that behavior and that example and that love and community and honesty is just, I think, what’s making everything feel safe for my kids,” Barrymore explained during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in February 2017. “And that’s really the intention I had as a parent — how do my kids have this incredible sense of, like, freedom inside their heart, because they know I’ve got them and their dad’s got them and the [rest of their family].”
She continued, “I got two families. I went from, like, zero to two and it’s a miracle and a blessing, and we do it in a way that I think a lot of other people are probably doing it too and sometimes, again, the road is different than what you tried to make it or what you expected and you just figure it out and figure it out with grace.”
While Olive and Frankie may be the E.T. star’s best gift, that doesn’t mean parenting them is always easy — especially when trying to balance parenthood and a career in Hollywood.
“People are like, ‘How do you balance?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t.’ I have to pick stuff. I have to stop doing stuff. I have to cut stuff out of my life. I always get in trouble for saying you can’t do it all,” Barrymore shared with E! News in 2018. “But it’s not that you can’t have it all. I just don’t think I can personally do it all at the same time.”
However, the Music and Lyrics actress finds beauty in the madness. “It’s so amazing ― after your kid is crying for 12 hours, you’ll start laughing and you love them even more. But the next day, the stupidest thing will throw you. Everything surprises you constantly,” she told Life & Style in 2015.
Scroll down to see more of Barrymore’s best quotes about motherhood: