Drew Barrymore is doing some wishful thinking when it comes to the traditional family dynamic she once dreamed of.
The talk show host, 50, who divorced husband of four years Will Kopelman, 46, in 2016, recently gave insight into how she felt post-separation.
“Everything to me was very devastating,” she explained on the March 21 episode of The Drew Barrymore Show. “[It] took me a long time to recover from if it wasn’t in the traditional family dynamic that I swore I would do for my family because I did not grow up that way.”
Drew, who shares daughters Olive, 12, and Frankie, 10, with Will, continued to explain how her experiences growing up—with her estranged mother Jaid Barrymore and actor father John Drew Barrymore, from who she emancipated herself from at age 14—have impacted how she feels today.
“It’s weird stuff like that,” the 50 First Dates actress reflected. “It’s soup when you’re sick. I remember all the kids at school would go into the office to call their parents when they were sick and I could never get a hold of anybody. And I was so jealous of those kids who would call and be like, ‘Mom, Dad, come pick me up.’ I just would sit there and be like, ‘What’s that like?'”
And while her family situation did not turn out as she hoped, Drew is still focused on giving her daughters the best life possible.
“They’re really, really good,” she said in a January episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “Every day is different. Every hour is different. They’re my North Star, my compass.”
She continued, “I love that in the life that I got to live before I knew them, my priorities were different. And ever since I came into the world, I understand what the purpose of my life is. It’s wild.”
Drew—who was previously married to Jeremy Thomas and Tom Green— continued to give insight as to how her past affected her parenting journey and how she has continued to learn and evolve as a mom.
“If you don’t grow up in a perfect way with a perfect family, you fear the blueprint and you go, I want to do things differently,” she explained. “I felt unconfident, like this was the stakes of my life and it took a few years, honestly, to have that confidence.”
For more of Drew through the years, read on.
