Natalia Vodianova found it "completely normal" to work and juggle motherhood in her late teens. The Russian model grew up in the poor district of Avtozavod with her mother and two half-sisters, until she enrolled in a fashion agency at the age of 15, and was quickly shuttled to Paris.
Natalia snapped up gigs for the likes of Saint Laurent and Louis Vuitton, and welcomed son Lucas,15, with then-husband Justin Portman when she was 19, a decision which felt natural to her.
Natalia Vodianova has her first child when she was 19 years old
"Where I come from, it was normal to have a baby at 19," she told W magazine. "Maybe most of the Western girls brought up with a family that was strong for them would say, 'You're very precious, are you sure about this guy?' No one told me I was precious in that sense, so love, for me, was that precious thing. It made sense to me completely. Would I recommend the same thing to my daughter today? Absolutely not."
Natalia is now a mother to five children, including daughter Neva, 11, and nine-year-old Viktor, whom she shares with Portman, as well as Maxim, three, and Roman, 11 months, her sons with new partner Antoine Arnault. The 35-year-old met Antoine, the son of LVMH founder Bernard Arnault, when she was in the process of divorcing Portman in 2011.
Though she hesitated at the idea of having more children at first, the model now lives a blissfully happy life in Paris.
The Russian model is now a mother of five
"I mean, I already had three gorgeous children," she recalled. "Maybe initially I was doing it more for him than myself, but, at the same time, when you're in love with a man, you want to reproduce him as many times as possible."
While Natalia's family life is very busy, the star continues to fulfil her contracts for Calvin Klein and Guerlain.
But her main focus is now charity work, and she spends her days at the Paris branch of the Naked Heart Foundation, the organisation she started to build safe and inspiring play facilities in impoverished areas across urban Russia.