Rose Byrne is very open about her adventures in parenthood.
The actress has two sons ― Rocco and Rafa ― with her partner and fellow actor, Bobby Cannavale. Since becoming a mom in 2016, Byrne has spoken about her experiences with breastfeeding, wrangling toddlers and more.
In honor of her birthday, here are 16 quotes about motherhood from Byrne.
On Learning The Ropes
“Every day, every hour, I’m like, ‘What is happening?’ I am learning on the job. I have no business telling anyone what to do.”
On Trying To Get Out The Door
“It takes a long time to leave the house ― maybe an hour, hour 45 minutes just to get out the door. To do anything, you have to bring so many things with you … Then when you get out, he just throws up everywhere or takes a big poop and you’ve got to go back inside again.”
On Bonding With Other Parents
“What’s great is there is such a community ― you can ask your mom, your neighbor or a friend. There is just a shorthand where you can just talk about [it and] it’s a real universal thing, which I love.”
On Parenting Fuel
“Who needs sleep, right? You just roll on coffee and love.”
On Gushing Over Her Newborn
“We’re like, ‘Ooh, he wasn’t doing that yesterday ― that’s amazing!’ I’m pretty sure everyone who knows us is sick of it.”
On Pregnancy
“I’m a little tired but feeling good. Everyone was very sweet on set today, and you always get a little bit more attention when you’re pregnant, which is fabulous.”
On Her Two Sons
“It’s pretty hectic. It’s funny, the little guy is a lot more aggressive than the big guy. He just goes in for the tackle and loves to pin him down. [Rocco is very patient], he’s kind of like ‘Oh get away from me’. And we’re like ‘Rafa take it easy! Take it easy!’”
On Preparing For Motherhood
“[Parenthood] doesn’t come with a manual and no matter how many friends tell you stuff nothing can really prepare you for it. A lot of my friends didn’t really tell me how hard it was and I was like, ‘why didn’t you tell me?’ and they were like ‘I couldn’t’ … There’s a bit of a code about not revealing how challenging it can be, which I am now breaking, but it’s also like the most wild, magical thing.”
On Having Her Breast Milk Searched By The TSA
“They wave this weird thing over the top of it, and there’s a whole production going on. They take it very seriously that it could be something … I just stand there and smile and tell them that it’s really breast milk and that it’s nothing.”
On Adjusting To Parenthood
“Being a mother changes everything. I feel like it informs everything I do, particularly for a job like this.”
On Her Support System
“I had a wonderful woman named Esther Santana at the beginning who taught me so much. My mother taught me so much, she came over and helped me. You really lean on people who’ve done it before. I did.”
On The Daily Grind
“[I’m] always like ‘don’t hit him,’ ‘put down the thing, it’s on fire!’ or ‘you didn’t eat the pasta!’ I’m not by any means a completely in control parent. I definitely am trying to put out fires all the time.”
On Exhaustion
“I’m still in a fog. I haven’t even left my apartment in three months.′ It takes an hour and forty-five minutes to get out of the house with a baby, and by the time I’m ready, I’m exhausted. I’m done, I’m going back in. I don’t care! I have a new appreciation for motherhood having just become a parent. Really, I’ve turned around a lot. It’s actually very true all the stuff that you go through, all the cliches, which is a big surprise to me. I’m tired, but even so, all of it’s great. But you definitely go into a cocoon.”
On The Circle Of Life
“I was already becoming my parents, even before I had Rocco. You know how that happens? One day, you’re like, ‘I’ve turned into my parents!’”
On Social Media
“There is so much aspiration around motherhood and fatherhood and families, particularly around social media. Presenting these sorts of ideas is what life is like in reality.”
On The Challenges Of Parenting
“It’s so challenging. Everything. From breastfeeding to having a newborn to trying to get a baby to sleep. It’s so overwhelming.”