Work in progress! Nobody’s perfect when it comes to parenting — not even Jennifer Lopez.
The Hustlers star, 51, has been focusing on family amid the coronavirus pandemic as she isolates at home with her twins, Max and Emme, 12, fiancé Alex Rodriguez and his daughters, Natasha, 16, and Ella, 12, whom he shares with ex-wife Cynthia Scurtis. With the world going through new changes every day, Lopez has been grateful for the opportunity to enjoy little moments with her loved ones and to learn more about herself as a working mom.
“I actually loved being home and having dinner with the kids every night, which I hadn’t done in probably — ever,” the Grammy nominee told WSJ Magazine in an interview published on Wednesday, November 18, for their 2020 Innovator series. “And the kids kind of expressed to me, like, the parts that they were fine with about our lives and the parts they weren’t fine with.”
Lopez has spent years keeping up with her busy career, traveling the world on tour and starring in acclaimed movies. Her downtime with her kids has been “a real eye-opener and a reassessment” of “what was working and what wasn’t working” for her family.
“You thought you were doing OK, but you’re rushing around and you’re working and they’re going to school and we’re all on our devices,” she told the publication. “We’re providing this awesome life for them, but at the same time, they need us. They need us in a different way. We have to slow down and we have to connect more. And, you know, I don’t want to miss things.”
Though the health crisis has brought on a number of challenges for families around the globe, the “Let’s Get Loud” singer has cherished the chance to watch her kids grow.
“I feel like everybody aged, like, three years during this pandemic,” she teased. “I watched them go from kind of young and naive to really, like, grown-ups to me now. When did this happen? They’re not our babies anymore. They’ve been given a dose of the real world, with the knowledge that things can be taken away from you and life is going to happen no matter what.”
Lopez shares her twins with ex-husband Marc Anthony, from whom she split in July 2011 after seven years of marriage. Since her March 2019 engagement to Rodriguez, 45, the Second Act star has seamlessly blended her family with his. While the pair’s wedding plans have been put on pause amid the pandemic, they’re looking forward to sharing the special moment when the time is right.
“J.Lo wants to marry A-Rod shortly after things go back to normal,” a source told Us Weekly exclusively in April. “She wants to marry him and celebrate their love in front of her family and close friends.”
