In the latest edition of Dear Drew, a segment, which gives viewers the chance to ask The Drew Barrymore Show host anything, Barrymore got candid and gave her honest advice and wisdom to her fans who asked all things motherhood.  

“Dear Drew, what’s one thing you didn’t expect when you became a mom?” one viewer asked the host, who shares two daughters Olive, 8, and Frankie, 7, with her ex-husband, Will Kopelman. She said she felt alone and terrified as a new mom. 

I was so under slept, I couldn’t eat, I was nervous all the time, and no one really talked about how intimidating and overwhelming it can be ... so I wasn’t really prepared for that.

She added that it was natural for moms to feel this way initially and that they shouldn’t feel alone like she did. And for mothers who were the opposite- casual and capable, Barrymore was impressed and called them a superhero and wished she could have been like them.

Barrymore Vows to Do Things Differently

Barrymore once admitted that she only knew what love really was after her kids were born. She is not alone in that thought. Drew realized that her true purpose in life was to be a good woman and raise more good women when the doctors told her she was pregnant for the second time.  

It is no secret that the actress had a complicated relationship with her parents, which she often talks about. Her father was an alcoholic, while her mother locked her up in an institution whom she later got emancipation from. 

When it comes to her own parenting skills, she says that she does not want to repeat her parents’ mistakes. The actress wants to protect her daughters and be consistent because she opines that parents only get one chance at parenthood, leaving little room for mistakes. 

Barrymore grew up in the limelight, and she started acting at 5; and by 7, she was a child star, and at 12, she was a drug addict. The actress understood the price of fame at a young age and vowed never to raise show biz kids. 

She Struggled with Divorce

The Charlie’s Angel star was married to Kopelman was four years before they got divorced in 2016. The actress confessed to her pal Chelsea Handler on her Netflix comedy series Chelsea that she felt like a failure and found it shameful and difficult.

In an interview with Sunday Today’s Willie Geist, she admitted that she had a hard time accepting her marriage to Kopelman was over. She did not want to raise her kids without a family when she grew up without one, which she found difficult to accept. 

I was, like, oh, the ultimate promise I wanted to make with you and for you was to have this amazing family. And I found them. And there’s something not working that isn’t livable. How tragic is that?

The reason for the couple’s split was that they were very different and wanted different things. It took the actress five years to accept her new reality and talk about her divorce more comfortably.