Rebel Wilson Says Her Friend Circle Has Shrunk Since Becoming a Mom ... And She's OK With That

There's no handbook to help you navigate the joys and challenges of parenting when you welcome your first child. Just ask Rebel Wilson.
"No one ever really teaches you that much about motherhood and how difficult it is. And I guess you want to hear from other moms," the actor tells TODAY.com.
The 'Bride Hard' star is the first to admit that she 'wasn't really in the mom world' before she and her wife Ramona Agruma welcomed daughter Royce in November 2022, so she had a lot to learn from other moms when she became one herself.
'I think mom friendships are super important because it's so hard being a mom. The more you can share and learn from each other, I think the better it is for everybody," Wilson says in a phone interview while promoting her partnership with Splash Refresher, a line of zero-calorie, zero-sugar sparkling and still flavored waters.
The 45-year-old stars in the brand's "Besties" campaign with her real life BFF Anna Kendrick. In honor of Best Friends Day, Splash Refresher has released a national survey about the importance of friendship to our well-being, particularly for moms.
It's a topic that resonates with Wilson, who has discovered how therapeutic mom friendships can be.
"Recently on a movie, my dialect coach had a daughter a similar age (to Royce) and then we did fun mom things like take our kids to the park and meet at the café, and talk about things to do with our children," she says.
Over the last few years, Wilson has come to rely on her mom friends as a sounding board when she's feeling uncertain about how to handle certain parenting scenarios. One of her besties, who is a mother of three and a lawyer, has taught her how to navigate guilt as a working mom.
'(She said), 'Even though you're not spending as much time with your child, at least your child sees you working hard for the family and that's a positive role model,'' she explains.
Wilson also calls on her mom friends for a sanity check once in a while, like the time she called this same friend to ask if she ever gets bored playing with her child.
'She was like, 'Yeah, sometimes like after an hour, I'm done and I want to go back and be a high-powered lawyer in Manhattan,'" Wilson recalls.
This hit home for the actor, who notes that she sometimes feels distracted as she transitions from her professional to personal life.
"It was kind of interesting to share those experiences with her of being a working mom who obviously sometimes feels guilty because I have to go to work and then sometimes feels like I can't be as present for my child because I'm thinking about work and I can't just sit and face paint for hours," she says.
With Royce now attending nursery school, the actor is hopeful that she will meet more mom friends.
"You feel less alone if you're talking about stuff," she notes.
With a busy career and a beautiful family at home, Wilson has a lot to juggle, and she acknowedges that her friendships have changed a bit after getting married and welcoming a child.
'My circle has become a lot smaller, and not like I deliberately intended it to be. I don't have a lot of social life because I'm either at work or my spare time is to my wife and baby,' she says. "So I feel like I've got, I don't know, three or four really close friends."
Although she doesn't see her friends every weekend, Wilson does aim to have "one really meaningful chat once a month" with them.
'It's very valuable because they've known me for a long time. They're very close friendships," she says.
Having friends that understand where she is at this stage of her life is rewarding for Wilson, who says she's 'a bit more boring now that I'm married and a mom.'
Still, quiet days at home with her family are pretty blissful for Wilson, who can't help but gush about how much of an "amazing mother" Agruma is.
'We just got some chickens and then the chickens laid some eggs. So she's making from scratch a meal for our daughter from fresh vegetables that she's growing in the garden and the fresh eggs we've got from the chickens,' she says.
Wilson applauds her wife's abundant patience and supportive, loyal nature, saying they "always have each other's backs."
"She just goes above and beyond and she's really suited to being a mother," she says.
This article was originally published on TODAY.com

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