Gabrielle Union has one answer for those who ask how she’s able to balance her seemingly amazing life: She doesn’t. The gorgeous star recently opened up about the “perfection” expectation placed on women and she isn’t having any of it.“I talk a lot about the myth of ‘balance.’ You can’t be everything to everybody because [one of those things] isn’t going to be amazing,” she tells Ebony magazine.“[As a woman,] you have to be a freaking CEO of a Fortune 500 company [and] have a perfect relationship,” she continued. “We have to make time to donate at an animal shelter. We must be everything, and it’s like, when do you just sit on the toilet and scroll Twitter? I need all that time.”
Union is currently promoting her new film, The Public, while also juggling being a wife to husband Dwyane Wade, step-mother to his three sons, and a businesswoman with her own “Flawless by Gabrielle Union” haircare line. She also has a successful fashion collection with New York & Company.But she says that she has found freedom from trying to do it all perfectly when she realized that her husband is held to different expectations.
“Once I realized my husband is never asked how he balances it all because they don’t assume that he has to have balance—bringing home a check and having career success is enough for him—I stopped subscribing to it,” she said. “I was like, ‘Well s**t,’ if we’re only holding certain people to those standards, I’m going to go ahead and opt out.”
She added: “I do my best, and magically, the kids are OK with that. My husband’s OK with that, and my co-workers are fine. I do my best, and that’s not balance…I’m sorry I can’t make every practice or game. It’s OK to give yourself a freaking break!”
Amen!
