Ewan McGregor Appreciates Technology – To a Point!
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These days, life for Ewan McGregor has him on his motorcycle touring all parts of the world, including "little walled Nubian villages in the northern Sudan, where you do everything in your power not to hit a donkey or a geep." Enjoying life to the fullest, Ewan has logged almost 40,000 miles on his BMW Adventure bike and admits that he is "in a position where I can do many things most people just daydream about."
While life on the road is wonderful, Ewan — who shares that "being on the bike opens me up emotionally" — says that the "horrible part" of his road excursions is being away from the people he loves most: his family. As the days passed, Ewan missed his wife Eve and their three kids — daughters Clara Mathilde, 12, Jamiyan, 7, and Esther Rose, 6 ½ — tremendously. The family turned to modern technology to help them bridge the gap and bought a satellite phone.
Although the 37-year-old actor admits that he is "not the sort of dad who carries pictures around in his wallet," it didn’t mean that Ewan wasn’t constantly thinking about his family, saying that the phone was a big relief as he was "able to hear their voices." Luckily for the kids, counting the days until Ewan’s trip was over not only meant being reunited with their dad, but also a three-week vacation! Says Ewan,
"We all met up in Kenya afterward, where we had three weeks to go on safari and travel around. It’s one thing to come home and tell the kids about something. It’s quite another to take them to a Masai village, which was great for them to see. One of my daughters is blonde and it was a real oddity for the Masai. They couldn’t stop staring at her!"
Click ‘More’ to read about why Ewan thinks telling your kids "No" is a good thing — especially when it comes to electronic gadgets!
An extremely successful actor, Ewan shares that although he hearsthe occasional "that’s Obi-Wan Kenobi" when he drops the girls off atschool, Ewan and Eve are more focused on being "very conscious aboutnot spoiling them." For Ewan, having polite kids with manners is "essential." He explains that "giving kids whatever they ask for is disastrous parenting."
While the McGregor family look totechnology to keep them in touch while they are separated by thousandsof miles, Ewan is quick to answer that this doesn’t mean that he rushesout to buy the newest gadgets for his kids. "I’m sorry, but when you’re12 you don’t need a new cell phone every few months just because a newone comes out. I’m not going to buy her the latest phone, I’m not goingto buy her an iPod every time one comes out, and I’m definitely notgoing to buy her a pony," says Ewan.
Crediting his attitude towardparenting for having "wonderful, wonderful children," the actor’sadvice to parents worldwide is simple: "Saying ‘no’ helps." As he goeson to explain that most adults don’t understand that if you are lookingto "produce really horrible obnoxious kids, say ‘yes’ to them all thetime," he laughs that while his kids are well-mannered, that doesn’tmean they are perfect!
"That’s not to saymy kids are always angels. Their fascination with fart jokes and thingsabout the bum is astonishing sometimes. But it makes me howl!"
Source: Best Life
- Posted on Sep 29, 08 at 6:00PM
- Permalink
- 12 Comments
September 29th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
You guys need to work on your comma placements.There are tons of errors.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Like Jon said on Jon and Kate Plus 8: “If we didn’t love them we wouldn’t discipline them.”
September 29th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
i was wondering what the age difference is between his two youngest it says 7 & 6 & a half so i was wondering how that would work?
September 29th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
I think the one of the girls is adopted Kelly.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Kelly-Jamiyan is adopted, so that explains the otherwise odd age difference. I am glad, however, that the post does not mention her being adopted. She is Ewan and his wife’s daughter, plain and simple.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Did they keep her birth name? Because the thing that stood out to me was that the middle child had such a different name from the two others.
His series just started on TV here, it looks very cool.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
I love him and the show that he and Charlie do. He adopted Jimiyan after Long Way Around and meeting her in one of the villages. HE is wonderful. I hope they do another trip. LONG WAY UP would be cool.
September 29th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
ok thanks thats what i was thinking because as you said her name is a little different but i agree with you Jaycee she is their daughter just as much as the other two
September 29th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Was the child’s adoption covered on CBB? I’ve been reading for several years now and I don’t remember hearing about it before. I always assumed he and Charlie Borman both had two daughters apiece!
September 29th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Lilybett- Yes, the adoption was covered on CBB. However, it wasn’t much more than a little blurb, which is probably why you missed it. At the time, Ewan and Eve hadn’t even released Jamiyan’s name yet.
Sarita- I, too, think they either kept Jamiyan’s birth name or the name Jamiyan is some form of her birth name. Jamiyan was adopted from Mongolia, and that does sound like a Mongolian name.
Anyway, I love all of their children’s names! Jamiyan’s name is just plan cute, and Clara and Esther are pretty, classical names.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Their adopted daughter’s full name is Jamiyansetseg but they call her Jamiyan (sort of rhymes with Damian), she’s from Mongolia. Ewan met her when he was doing “Long Way Round” and she was living alone with a few other very young children, and was only 2 at the time. He tried to adopt her then but there was a lot of red tape, so he made it possible for her to go to a children’s home and made sure she’d be provided for until she was 18. Then about a year or two after that, I read that he and his wife were finally able to adopt her and bring her to London. I’ve never seen any pics of her or read anything more about it than that.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Ewan keeps all of his children very much out of the media. On the programmes with Charlie, they are never seen where as Charlie’s girls are quite often on camera in the beginning and end parts of their journeys.
I know the Mongolian orphanages and the street kids really affected Ewan, so I wasnt surprised when he adopted a little girl. Its the first time I’ve seen all the girl’s first names in full though, its nice they have french influences in their names from Eve too.