Jodie Foster Didn't Tell Her Kids She Was an Actor When They Were Young: 'I Didn’t Want Them to Be Confused'

The mom of two kept her kids out of the spotlight while forging forward with her iconic acting career

Jodie Foster just wanted to be Mom to her little ones.

The actress, 61, opened up about her parenting style while raising sons Christopher “Kit” Bernard, 22, and Charles Bernard, 25, during her appearance on The View on Friday.

"I don’t know why, I guess I just didn’t want them to know me that way," Foster told the panel, explaining why she didn't tell her kids she was an actor when they were growing up.

"I wanted them to know me as their mom and the person who went away to work and stuff. I just didn’t want them to be confused about what I did for a living."

Foster also recalled a funny moment that briefly threw her older son off her trail.

"I brought my oldest son, he was probably about 3 — well, he was 3, because I was pregnant with the other one — I brought him to set one day and I bought him a little plastic tool belt and stuff. And I was like, ‘Yeah, and this is this set and this set and this set.’ And for a really long time, he thought I was a construction worker. He thought I did construction," she laughed.

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Related: Jodie Foster’s 2 Children: All About Charlie and Kit

Her boys are now all grown up and while they're proud of their mom, they don't go out of their way to see her movies.

"They have no interest in watching my movies with me. I think they’re going to catch True Detective, cause they’re really into that. And yeah, there’s a few films that I would never show them because I would be worried about being teased," she said.

"Nell, for example, they’ve never seen because they do tease me often about that, even though they’ve never seen the movie."

Foster shares her children with her former partner, Cydney Bernard, whom she split from in 2008. The actress married Alexandra Hedison in 2014.

In 2007, Foster opened up about how the need to keep her kids' lives private and safe stems from growing up in the spotlight herself.

"I have a psychological need to create a really safe, normal life for them [my kids], because if there was anything I missed in my childhood, that was it," Foster told Psychologies Magazine at the time. “I really craved having a routine, stable life and that’s what I’ve given to my kids.”

Speaking with PEOPLE about Kit in 2016, she shared, “My little one is just the nicest person I’ve ever met.” In another interview with Magic Radio the same year, she said, “he’s a little sensitive,” and added that she “waited many, many years” to let him watch her film The Silence of the Lambs.

Unlike his older brother, Foster has said Kit isn’t interested in pursuing a career in the entertainment industry. “My younger son is really shy and I can promise you he will never be an actor,” she told The Guardian in 2018.

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