Drew Barrymore is getting real about the challenges of being a parent in self-isolation.
Appearing on the “Today Show” this week, the “Santa Clarita Diet” star admitted to having “cried every day, all day long” while trying to homeschool her daughters Olive, 7, and Frankie, 5, during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I don’t know if there are good days and bad days,” she told Savannah Guthrie Tuesday. “There are good hours and bad hours.”
At first, Barrymore was finding creative ways to stay active with her kids. But just as she thought she’d established a routine, she explained, “School started, and it all went out the window.”
Still, she’s chosen to view her experience as a wake-up call to the reality that teachers experience in their professional lives.
“It was the messiest plate I’ve ever held in my life, to be the teacher, the parent, the disciplinarian, the caretaker,” she said. “And I thought, ‘Oh my God, and teachers have children.’ Do they survive it because they get to go away and work with other kids?”
The actor is also the founder of Flower Beauty. Her company recently teamed up with a number of other cosmetics and lifestyle brands, including Victoria Beckham Beauty and Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, to raise more than $6 million for coronavirus relief.
Amid the struggles Barrymore has experienced in adjusting to a new reality, she’s chosen to remain optimistic.
“Happiness is a war you fight every day,” she said, “The victory is if you accomplished any of those wins, that is a win.”
“I march in the army of optimism and I am looking for recruits,” she continued. “But I am very real about it. I am not some vapid hippie who’s like, ‘You just gotta be happy, man.’ This is the way and the direction I will point my compass.”
She’ll next be seen in “The Stand-In,” which was originally slated to premiere at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival this month. Instead, the romantic comedy is aiming for a release later this year.
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