Juliette Binoche talks about living in the moment

When it comes to parenting her two children — son Raphael, 14, and daughter Hanna, 7 — actress Juliette Binoche offers a unique take, telling ModernMom that she was "not born a mother."   

They teach me more than I teach them! That I can assure you! You learn to be a parent while they’re growing … I remember playing with my dolls all the time because I was genuinely drawn to that, to being a mother. But yet, when you’re actually being a real mother, with real children, it’s another story.

That’s not to say that Juliette doesn’t have some definite ideas about what kind of parent she hopes to be, however.  Raised in an "artistic" family that included Mozart at breakfast and museums on the weekends, Juliette feels that her upbringing instilled in her a certain ‘joie de vivre’ that her children can ultimately benefit from.

They are very passionate kids and they have activities that they cherish.  And that’s probably the best thing you can wish for a child, for him to have a passion so that no matter what happesn in their life, you know, of teenage time — when it’s the time of the love, the betrayal, the jealous, the hoping, all that — when they have passion, they can always go back to their world and their personal roots somehow.

The 43-year-old actress, who currently co-stars in Dan in Real Life alongside Steve Carrell, said that her favorite family activity is the one-on-one time she shares with the kids just before bedtime, reading books.  Said Juliette, "that’s really my treat."

Because I get to do all the voices and it’s very entertaining. And I have to say my daughter loves it too, she loves imitating and doing all the voices possible in the story. That’s fun. It’s wonderful because it’s the end of the day and you’re going to go into another world which is you know, the ‘moon time,’ the sleeping time. It’s just the story before you get into the imagination, the lifting into the dreams, that when you tell a story it’s already a part of it.  That’s what I love about it.

For more of the interview, visit ModernMom.com, where you can also read all the latest tips on parenting, finances, career, health, beauty, entertainment and more.

Source:  ModernMom