Eva Mendes on Why She Is Glad She Had Kids Later in Life

Eva Mendes is happy she had kids in her 40s, three years after she met her now-husband Ryan Gosling.

In a conversation with People, the actress recounted the public reaction to her being pregnant at 40 and how she couldn’t have imagined being a mother at any other point in her life.

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“When I was 40, it was a big deal for people when I was pregnant, and it wasn’t for me,” Mendes said. “And then I was 42 and I was pregnant with my second one and people were like, ‘Oh my God, you’re going to be so tired. That’s why people have kids in their 20s.’ I was like, that’s the most sorry, asinine thing I’ve ever heard.”

Mendes and Gosling met before starring in The Place Beyond the Pines in 2011 and have two daughters: Esmeralda Amada, 9, and Amanda Lee, 8.

She continued, explaining of parenting, “It takes more patience. In my 20s, I shouldn’t have even been around a child. I was just foul-mouthed and smoking. I could not have raised kids in any other era of my life but now, for sure.”

Following the birth of her daughters, the Hitch actress revealed her decision to step back from acting to raise them was a no-brainer for her and the “easiest” decision she ever made, adding that she didn’t feel pressure to do so but “felt it as clarity.”

“I was older, and I knew that my kids are going to be little once,” Mendes shared, “and whatever I do or don’t do right now is going to affect them the rest of their life. … Your career comes and goes but kids, yeah, that was easy for me. They’re just formative years. I wanted to be there for all of it.”

While Mendes and Gosling keep their relationship fairly private, over the past few months she was vocal about her support for her husband’s awards season campaign for Barbie — while on Channel Nine’s Today in Australia, Mendes referred to Gosling as her “husband” for the first time publicly. He’s also briefly given insight into their family, sharing that Mendes and their two daughters are his north star.

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