Julie Bowen sometimes feels like a bad parent. “There are some weeks when I’m home all week and I can’t wait to get away from my children. And the second I do, I’m like, ‘God. I miss them!’” the Modern Family actress told Us Weekly on Monday, May 23 at the Laughter Is the Best Medicine benefit in L.A. “I feel terrible mom guilt.”
She added: “I feel mom guilt every time I leave the house.”
The 46-year-old and her real estate investor husband, Scott Phillips, are parents of Oliver, 9, and twins John and Gustav, 6.
“The [boys] bully each other with great regularity,” Bowen cracked to Us. “We just got a trampoline and I just watch. My parents were with me for the weekend. We were all just standing there and my parents were going, ‘This is so unsafe! Someone is going to break something!’ I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ They’ve got some aggression to work out. It’s fine.”
Bowen admitted she doesn’t always keep her cool when her trio misbehaves, though. “I’ve been known to shout. And I’m like, ‘I’m still at least using my words and not laying a finger on you!’ But there’s a moment where I’d like to,” she says. “They can definitely be a handful. And they definitely know that they are more powerful than me and my husband now. There’s three of them.”
The Emmy winner plays bossy Claire Dunphy on ABC’s Modern Family.