Serena Williams has won 23 Grand Slam titles and built a venture capital firm, but she has also “always wanted to be a mom.” She shared how she went a little “extreme” with being protective of one of her daughters.
Williams opened up about her parenting philosophy during a live taping of Michelle Obama’s podcast, IMO, recorded at the NBA All-Star Mothers’ Brunch in Los Angeles. She revealed that for the first six years of her daughter Olympia’s life, she never spent a single night away.
Serena Williams never left her daughter for a day till she turned 6
Sitting across from the former First Lady, Serena Williams explained just how tightly she has wound her life around her daughters. The tennis legend said, “I really try to be a present parent.” She also told Obama, “And sometimes that’s hard, especially with the lives that we live, it’s very hard to be present, but I try to be extremely present.”
Then she revealed the rule that guided her early years of motherhood, saying, “Everything is around my kids,” and that “I didn’t leave Olympia until she was six for 24 hours,” admitting it as “a little extreme,” but also owning up to herself with “that’s who I am.”
Obama, who raised daughters Malia and Sasha under the intense glare of the White House, reacted warmly to Williams’ admission, calling it “beautiful.”
Williams, who shares 8-year-old Olympia and 2-year-old Adira with husband Alexis Ohanian, told Obama that she never mapped out a formal parenting plan. Instead, she took inspiration from her own upbringing. Her mother, Oracene Price, raised five daughters with structure and emotional intelligence that Williams still follows. She admitted that she would “just kind of pick and choose out of some of the things that they raised us with, in particular with my mom, how she raised us.”
And for Serena Williams, what ultimately matters is to “show up every single day” for her daughters. As she told Obama, “I’m a person that’s raising my kids, and that’s teaching them how I want them to live and how I want them to be.”
Originally reported by Ishika Mishra on Momtastic.
