Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves’ Rare Quotes About Their 3 Kids

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Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves' Rare Quotes About Their 3 Kids

Parenting partners! Despite keeping their three children’s lives pretty private, Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves have given glimpses of their life at home over the years. The couple met in 2006 at a club, and the Oscar winner told Playboy about the magical moment 10 years later. “I had a time in my life when I was fine going from here to there, bam-bam-bam — healthy, fluent, single years. … When I saw the woman who is now my wife, I was at a club making margaritas at my table with friends,” the Dallas Buyers Club star recalled in the 2016 interview. “When she walked in wearing this aqua dress, I went, ‘Whoa, what is that?’ … You can’t dial up that kind of woman. I have been very faithful with my wife, very selfishly. I like being under her spell. I don't want to break that spell." The couple welcomed their eldest son, Levi, two years after they met. Their daughter, Vida, arrived in January 2010. McConaughey proposed to the model in December of the following year, and the pair wed in Texas in June 2012. They welcomed their third child, son Livingston, six months later. [jwplayer 5c7Rl7pz-zhNYySv2] In April 2018, the designer exclusively told Us Weekly that people ask her “all the time” how she and the actor maintain their successful marriage. “[They’re like], ‘How do you do it?’” the Brazil native said at the time. “I'm always like, 'If you have the answer, please share with me because I'm also trying to figure it out.’ … [We do] a lot of staying at home, cooking together or getting a hotel room that is 10 minutes away from the house. Just the fact that you don't have to wake up to kids screaming for help with something. It already does something to a mom's brain.” The Just Try One Bite author added that family time in the kitchen is important for her and the True Detective alum. “We cook together,” the former Shear Genius host explained to Us. “Even if I'm running late from work I say, 'We're having a late dinner.' Does it happen every single day of the week? No, but it happens a lot.” Keep scrolling to read the Yummy Spoonfuls creator and McConaughey’s best quotes over the years about raising their kids, from discipline tactics to postpartum sex confessions. [podcast_block]

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Good Cop, Bad Cop

"I'm more consistently the yes guy," the Golden Globe winner told Town and Country in June 2020. "Sometimes loving your kids means giving them just what they want. Other times, it means tough love. Affluent people can give their kids everything they want, but they're not usually going to get what they need. Loving a child is a lot harder if you really give a damn.”

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Big Brood

"I'd like to have eight more kids, but my wife is not on the same page," McConaughey said at a February 2020 event. "I understand that. It's a lot easier for us [men]."

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Bruiser

The Texas native told Ellen DeGeneres in January 2019 that his youngest son is a "handful," explaining, "He sometimes doesn’t like to use his words enough to get his point across. He gets a little of that from me. I like to wrestle. We have a wrestling mat. When you come in the door that’s what we have out there, so if someone’s got really something that they want to contest and they don’t want to talk about it, let’s go up on the wrestling mat, gang.”

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Space Case

McConaughey would not go to space without his kids, he told reporters in October 2014. "I've got a family," he said when asked whether he'd follow his Interestellar character's footsteps.

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Cute Comparison

In September 2013, Alves exclusively told Us, "Home is the road. We're a traveling circus. ... [The kids] make their own beds, fold their own clothes. They get proud of being accomplished. It's not perfect, but they're into it!"

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Looking Back

In March 2013, Alves reflected on her C-section, telling The View cohosts, "I told the doctor right before, 'Once I'm there, just take a look because I know something's wrong.' They ended up finding all kinds of things in there that we had to take care of. ...I can't even pick up my kids, really. I really have to be careful."

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Postpartum Goals

"Where I come from, we believe in something we call a 40-day break after the baby," she told Style List in January 2010. "You have to let your body do its own thing. You give it time to recover and let everything settle down. You kind of respect all the hard work your body has just done and give it a break. For these 40 days, you really take it easy. By that, I mean no sex, light, healthy food, no trips to the gym. Then, after 40 days, you are good to go."

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Clarifying Comment

"Right now, I’m not vaccinating [my kids],” McConaughey said during the DealBook Online Summit in November 2021 when asked about the COVID-19 vaccine. “I’ll tell you that." The actor, who himself is vaccinated, added that he wanted more information on how it would affect them first.

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Cooking Up a Storm

Alves and McConaughey love to spend time with their kids in the kitchen. "They're in charge of breakfast," the mother of three told Us in July 2022. "My oldest does just, like, scrambled eggs with kale and turkey and, like, he really gets into it. And tomatoes and onions and cilantro. He mixes it all up and it's really good."

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Raising Teens

"You know, it's interesting because when you have little ones, you are physically exhausted, right? And I feel like when you get to the teenagers ... it's almost like you need more energy," Alves exclusively told Us in July 2022 after celebrating Levi's 14th birthday. "You need more brain power because it becomes all very about the mind, right? It's like a teenager [is] trying to find their identity and find how they're going to navigate their lives. So I think that ... for me, it's more challenging in a good way."

Watching her kids grow into young adults is "beautiful," Alves told Us. "It's inspiring. It also makes you look at a lot of things that you are doing as an adult as well, you know, when you get to that stage."

Credit: Courtesy of Camila Alves/Instagram

'Nothing Fancy ... Just Us'

The family celebrated Livington's 10th birthday with a classic children's party, featuring ice cream cake at a trampoline park in the family's home state of Texas.

"Nothing fancy … just us …," Alves wrote via Instagram in January 2023 alongside a photo of her son blowing out the candles on his cake. "December 28th it was Livingston’s birthday!!! All he wanted to do is go to Altitude the trampoline place in Austin and an ice cream cake! May your heart my son keep it’s simplicity as you grow in this complicated world!! You challenge me and teach me daily for that I am grateful! What a blessing you are! 💚💛💚💛💚💛💚💛💚💛💚💛 ."