How Jill Wagner Balances Acting and Parenting: ‘Need to Be Present’
By Movieguide® Contributor
Jill Wagner explained how she balances working as a full-time actress while remaining connected to her family and being a good mom to her daughters.
“I don’t have it figured out, you know. I can only say this. If I was to give a little piece of advice, it would be based on what I do in my own world with my own family,” Wagner said in a video for Great American Community. “It is hard because I have a career that takes me away—not that I don’t take my family with me, but sometimes…they’re not able to come with me. So how do I manage that?”
“I try my best I can. We try the best we can,” she continued. “You know, everything doesn’t have to be perfect. But we do things like, let’s talk every day, let’s try not to let it be a couple of weeks without seeing each other.”
Wagner shares daughters Army Gray and Daisy Roberta with husband David Lemanowicz. Lemanowicz is also dad to daughter Lija.
When she’s able to spend time with her family, Wagner emphasizes quality time, ensuring she is present to make the most of the moments they have together.
“I just have to try to remember that when I talk to them I need to be present. And I think that even if you are with your children or your husband or wife or loved one, when you are with that person, that you really need to take that time to like focus on them,” she explained. “If it’s with your kids, take that time to play with them, get down on the floor with them if they’re little; if they’re grown up, have a conversation about something, you know, laugh. Don’t be on the phone, don’t be distracted. Really give that person one hundred percent of that five minutes that you may have to spend with them.”
While it is difficult to balance work with parenting, Wagner believes it is a gift to be able to do both. She believes everyone should be allowed to chase their dreams, but that does not mean they have to sacrifice having a family. Instead, she views herself as a role model for her daughters, showing them how high they can reach for their own futures.
“As far as struggling with a career and also being a mother, you know, it’s something that I want to teach my girls. I want to teach my girls that you can have it all. As a woman, we can go out, and we can do whatever we want. We can also be great mothers,” she said. “It’s not an easy combination, but it’s certainly doable. Women do it every single day, and they do it beautifully.”
The actress previously spoke about how much he loves being a mom.
“Through all of that tiredness in being a parent, I start thinking about how—especially being a mom—how wonderful it is to be a mom,” Wagner said. “They really, really are truly a gift from God. It seems like I’m getting to live a whole other life through them.”
She’s called motherhood “the honor of my life.”
Movieguide® previously reported:
Actress Jill Wagner recently opened up about her thoughts on motherhood, including how viewing the world through her children’s eyes keeps her young.
Wagner spoke about her daughter Army, who was born in 2020, and how she is starting to understand what being a mom is.
“In the last couple weeks she’s really started asking me questions like, ‘So, Grandma Juju is your mom’ — my mom, Judy,” Wagner explained. ”It’s just the joys of being a mom and seeing them grow.”
Her youngest daughter, Daisy, has just started talking and the actress called the milestone “an amazing thing.”
“[It] just such a short amount of time,” Wagner said of her daughters’ childhoods. “I mean really, if you think about it, my stepdaughter Leah, she’s getting ready to be a teenager soon and it seems like the little girl that I once knew is gone.
