Kerry Washington may be one of Hollywood's most beloved actresses, but she does her best to keep her three children out of the spotlight. The Olivia Pope actress is mom to Isabelle and Caleb with her husband Nnamdi Asomugha, and stepmom to the NFL player's daughter from a previous relationship.
She has explained that while she would love to share how cute her family is, she doesn't want them to feel exploited in the world of social media.
© GettySo instead, she's taken a new approach: "I have moments where I take pictures or videos of one of my three amazing kids and I wanna post it online, and I tend to just send it to my parents or my shrink instead. I'm like, 'My kids are so cute and I don't wanna post about them, so look how cute they are!'"
Here's everything that Kerry has said about her kids, and motherhood in general.
Taking her kids to work
Kerry and Nnamdi welcomed their daughter Isabelle Amarachi on April 21, 2014, and it wasn't long before she returned to set on Scandal. In 2015, Kerry revealed that she often brought her daughter to set, explaining: "I'm really blessed because my daughter gets to be at work with me a lot so that's really fun and wonderful."
She added in the Entertainment Tonight interview: "Everybody at work really likes it. She brings a lot of joy wherever she is so it's fun to have her around."
Being a girl mom
© GettyAs a mother to two girls, Kerry revealed that she really cares about women's issues as it makes her "want to do more and better" for her children.
"I do think being a 'girl mom' makes you think about these issues in a different way," she said at Time's Women of the Year gala. "They just make me want to do more and better and be there for them."
Raising siblings
© GettyWhen her 10-year-old daughter became a big sister, Kerry revealed that Isabelle settled right into the role: "She is loving it," she told Holmes Place, adding: "I like that we have two. I am an only child, but my husband has many siblings. He can give some tips."
Being a stepmom
© Axelle/Bauer-GriffinAs far as Kerry is concerned, the 'step' in stepmother means nothing, as she corrected Today's Craig Melvin when he referred to her as "a mother of two."
She said: "I am a mother of three," in reference to her husband's daughter from a previous relationship.
Setting an example for her kids
As a Black woman, Kerry revealed that she has often discussed racism and Black history in her household - particularly amid 2020 discussions of Black Lives Matter.
She told Jimmy Kimmel: "It's really important that we start to introduce the idea of race with a Black history that begins before teaching kids about what Black people were told they couldn't do," she said. "Black history and Black people were a lot of things before segregation and Jim Crow and the civil rights movement."
She also revealed that she took a candid approach to her own appearance - often wearing it in its natural texture - as she wants her kids to know "their hair is perfect as it is," adding: "They don't have to change it or straighten it. They can, but they don't have to."
