Reese Witherspoon’s most relatable parenting moments

Since having her first child at 23, Reese Witherspoon has been candid about the highs and lows of motherhood.

The Little Fires Everywhere star is mom to Ava, 21, and Deacon, 17, with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe. In 2011, she married Jim Toth and gave birth to their son Tennessee in 2012.

We love it when the Oscar-winning actress opens up about her life as a mom of three. She’s honest, funny, and totally relatable.

Need proof? Read on for some of Reese Witherspoon’s most relatable quotes about parenting.

“I don’t think there’s been an hour of my life since Ava was born that I don’t think of my kids. I call it my CNN ticker tape: Is Ava OK? Yes. Is Deacon OK? Yes. Is Tennessee OK? Yes. Back to Ava.”

“I was 23. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was young. It was shocking. When people ask, ‘When’s the best time to get pregnant?’ I say, ‘Pick the best day for when your entire life is gonna change.’ There’s no good time to have your world turned upside down.”

“There’s a lot of compromise. You take the food out of your mouth, the clothes off your back, the sleep out of your life. Every bit of that sacrifice is truly worth it. Because that’s what makes me wake up on a Sunday. It’s not movies or my job, it’s my kids.”

“I was terrified, too. I got pregnant when I was 22-years-old and I didn’t know how to balance work and motherhood. You just do it.”

“I’ve had three kids. And then after each child, I had a different experience. One kid, I had kind of mild postpartum and then one kid, I had severe postpartum where I had to take pretty heavy medication because I just wasn’t thinking straight at all. And then I had one kid where I had no postpartum at all.”

“We don’t understand the kind of hormonal roller coaster that you go on when you stop nursing. Like no one explained that to me. I was 23 years old when I had my first baby, and no one explained to me that when you wean a baby, your hormones go into the toilet.”

“People know not to call me before 8:15, because 8:15 is when everybody needs to either be on the bus or at school and then my whole life starts at 8:15.”

“No one’s really doing it perfectly. I think you love your kids with your whole heart, and you do the best you possibly can.”

“Somebody was saying to me the other day, ‘Oh, people get less interesting when they have kids.’ I just don’t think that’s true. I feel like I was so confused before I had kids, I almost got in my own way. Having kids made me clearer about who I was as a woman. I just wanted to exhibit good qualities for my daughter. I was a little competitive before I had kids—probably really competitive, to be honest. It really made me let go of that.”

“I started noticing a couple years ago that I wasn’t seeing women as the stars of movies. I’m seeing them as the guys’ girlfriends, or so-and-so’s wife. I just thought: God, if I don’t start buckling down and start producing some movies, what’s my daughter going to see in the movies?”