Christina Ricci is speaking out about the challenges she faces as a working mom — and is sharing her struggles despite repercussions to her career.
On Monday’s episode of Shannen Doherty’s podcast, “Let’s Be Clear,” the former “Charmed” star asked Ricci what it’s like to juggle work and a family.
The “Wednesday” star shares a 2-year-old, Cleopatra, with her husband, Mark Hampton. She is also mom to son Freddie, 9, whom she shares with ex-husband James Heerdegen.
“It is tricky,” Ricci admitted to Doherty 17 minutes into the episode. “I also …have an awareness of not making it about that it’s difficult for me because I have children. Because I don’t want anyone to be like, ‘Well, we won’t use her [for a project] because it’s so difficult for her because she’s a mom.’ …But at the same time, it is really difficult.”
Ricci explained that being away from home during the filming of her hit series “Yellowjackets” affected her relationship with Cleopatra when she was a baby.
“Last year I was commuting back and forth to Vancouver for ‘Yellowjackets.’ She didn’t know me. We had no bond. So that was very upsetting.”
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Ricci also explained why she was unable to bring her family with her to Vancouver.
“If you’re a series regular, you have to pay for everything, so I can’t… every time I go up and down, I can’t pay for four people, four flights, you know, and the rooms that you would need and all… it’s just too expensive to travel with everybody all the time,” Ricci said.
Although the “Addams Family” alum says that her “kids do not like it when I travel,” she said she does try to bring them along and involve them as much as she can.
“I think really the thing that I learned, especially with my son, is mixing him into my work life. Why can’t he come for the weekend to a convention and see what it’s like?”
Although Ricci said having Freddie do things like take pictures of her with fans at conventions has been “good,” she pointed out that spending time with him when he was younger was also a struggle.
“There are certain things, like my son was never sleep trained because I had to go back to work when he was 2 months old,” she said. Ricci said her ex-husband “wouldn’t help me at all with anything” and recalled having Freddie sleep in the same bed with her “just to get enough sleep to be able to work the next day.”
She said Hampton has been a much more supportive co-parent.
“I went and shot ‘Wednesday’ in Romania when she was 2 months old, and Mark did every single night all night long. Like I just slept and worked the next day, and it made such a huge difference. It was so much easier this time around. You know, you have to have a good supportive partner.”
Ricci certainly isn’t alone in fearing she may face consequences at work for expressing her grievances about the difficulty of being a working mom. A large body of research has found that working moms typically face biases at work, which sociologists call the “motherhood penalty.” Evidence-based research of how the motherhood penalty can play out for working moms in their careers include mothers being judged for being more committed to their family than to work or, paradoxically, being deemed a bad mother for being more committed to their work than to their kids.