12 Celebrities Who Chose to Not Hire a Nanny and Instead Care for Their Children Themselves

In the modern world, hiring a babysitter to look after children is quite common, especially among celebrities, because their rhythm of life is sometimes so crazy that many don’t even take leave from work after childbirth. But, as it turned out, there are several celebrity families who decided that they could cope without help and who enjoy all the difficulties of parenthood every day.

At Bright Side, we were inspired by Hollywood parents who took childcare into their own hands. Let’s look at them together.

1. Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher

The star couple raises a daughter and a son together. Mila and Ashton decided that they would take care of their children without someone else’s help. The paparazzi regularly catch the spouses doing their everyday activities on a walk, at the supermarket, or at an amusement park. And the children are always with them. After the first child was born in the family, Ashton went on The Ellen Show, and she asked him: “Do you have a nanny? Only you and Mila are taking care of the child? ” To which Ashton replied: “Yes, there are only 2 of us,” which caused a round of applause. He continued, “We just want to know our children. We want to know what to do if the baby is crying, or sulking. And I think the only way to achieve this is to be with them.”

Mila Kunis believes that when it comes to feeding their babies, moms should do what makes them happy. And for Mila, what made her happy was breastfeeding her daughter, Wyatt, wherever she wanted. Mila Kunis is one of the most stylish actresses — when she walks the red carpet, she is just stunning. But her look at home is very different from her look at work. When spending time with her family, she clearly prioritizes comfort when it comes to clothing.

2. Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds

These famous parents are raising 3 daughters: James, Inez, and Betty. They find it really important to spend time with their children as much as possible. They do their best to make sure that their work schedules don’t overlap. When one parent is at work, the other one stays with the children. When it comes to events, the family attends them together. However, Blake and Ryan don’t want to immerse their kids into Hollywood life too much.

Blake said once, that she had always wanted a big family. And she would love to have 30 children if she could. While Ryan dedicates the majority of his tweets to his children. And he does it in a really funny way, like: “My daughter’s only 6 months old and already drawing. I’d hang it on the fridge but honestly, it’s absolute garbage.” In reality, Ryan is a caring father. In one of his interviews, he said that he had no problem waking up 5 times in the middle of the night and changing diapers, and as exhausted as he was, he still had this stupid grin on his face all the time.

3. Reese Witherspoon

Despite the fact that Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe are divorced, they both fondly recall raising 2 kids together at the beginning of their careers. “I imagine it would have been more difficult if we weren’t as hands-on as we were or if we allowed them to be raised by nannies, I think then they would become spoiled,” Phillippe says. He’s glad that he and Reese took care of their kids on their own. “We have 2 incredible little people that we’ve raised. I’m proud of us for that fact.” Reese gave birth to another son in her other marriage. Her grown children from her previous marriage are helping her to raise him.

Reese Witherspoon with her 13-year-old daughter Ava holding her brother

4. Jennifer Lopez

When Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez had their twins, a boy and a girl, they decided to not hire a nanny. They divided their responsibilities into shifts. After the couple separated, Lopez was helped by her mother, cousin, and close friend Arlene.

After the divorce, the singer decided to hire a male nanny for her son, because she felt he needed more of a man’s influence. “The poor boy is surrounded by women 24 hours a day. He jumps on me, hurts my neck, he’s so aggressive, like all boys. I realized that he needed a companion, a good guy who he can have fun with and discharge his energy with,” she said in an interview.

5. Jennifer Love Hewitt

When Jennifer’s daughter was 18 months old, the actress was expecting her second child. In her interview, she said that they didn’t have a nanny because it was really interesting to do it all themselves. Having become a mom, she realized that everything is secondary compared to kids. “My kid is healthy, there are no sniffles, they’re sleeping, life is good! It really puts that into perspective,” she says.

Though it’s probably not that easy to raise children without help, Jennifer looks happy. She wrote on her Instagram, “The best thing I have ever done will always be marrying my husband, having our kids, and watching them change and grow every day.”

6. Celine Dion

This singer has 3 sons: the eldest son René-Charles and twins Nelson and Eddy. Celine decided to use in vitro fertilization because of years of failed attempts to conceive. “I didn’t have these children to not take care of them, to give myself to them 200 — 300 percent,” she explained in her interview. The family didn’t plan to hire a nanny. “Sometimes it’s tiring, but I’m happy to do it day by day,” she said. However, Celine wasn’t completely without help, she was supported by her mother and sister.

7. Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling

The couple has 2 daughters. After giving birth to her first daughter Esmeralda, Eva said, “I’m a very hands-on mom; I don’t have a nanny. No matter how tired I am, I just do it.” She finds time to pamper herself when her daughters are asleep, even if it’s at 4 a.m. Eva tries to be with her kids as long as possible and posts photos of them together. “They’ve won,” she captioned the photo below.

8. Jessica Alba

The actress is a mom of 3. Jessica pays her family for their help because caring for children is also a job, which is quite hard and emotionally draining. When she had her third child, she published a post saying that she had learned everything from books, and wrote thanks to the author, “My sweet Nanny Connie, nearly 10 years ago she came into my life and showed me the ropes with my newborn baby Honor. She taught me how to bathe, breastfeed, and soothe my new baby. And taught me about the importance of taking care of myself and gave me the space to have all the feels and not feel so alone.”

9. Jenna Fischer

The actress who stars The Office TV series is a mom of 2 children, a boy and a girl. Jenna said in her interview that she had no help at home: no driver, chef, personal trainer, or nanny. “Like other working moms, I’m trying to figure out how to balance it all. I’m just trying to figure out how to do everything myself,” Jenna says.

She adds, “When I say I’m going jogging with my son or eating certain things or whatever, there’s a tendency to be cynical and say, ‘Of course, because someone cooked it for her’ — or ‘Of course she’s on a date, because she had her nanny watch the baby.’ No, absolutely not. I want people to know that.”

10. Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves

The actor and his wife, a Brazilian model, have 3 children. It’s Camila who mostly takes care of them. She says, “We’re just like a regular family. We do everything together. And we try to keep our life as simple as we can.” Camila’s mother lives with them and she helps to raise the children and helps around the house. “I don’t have a bunch of different nannies that circle around. There’s nothing wrong with a lot of nannies. I just like to be very hands-on,” Camila says.

3 months after having her last child, Camila returned to work. Those were difficult times because she had to wake up at 5 a.m. after a night of breastfeeding. “It’s hard to be back to work with such full force early on because your brain is not fully there. You have baby brain,” she joked in her interview.

Matthew once said, “I remember at 8 years old, it’s really the only thing I ever knew I wanted to be was a dad. I’ve got a large hand in shepherding my 3 children up until they’re 18 and out of the house. That’s the thing I think I do most honorably is having 3 autonomous, conscientious, confident children.”

11. Scarlett Johansson

The actress was quite critical about nannies once. Long before having her own child, she said that she could never imagine someone else raising her children. She would probably have the 14-year-old coming over and playing Candyland with her children. She thought that it was better for her daughter to stay with someone close to her age than spend the day with an unrelated adult. Scarlett said, “I don’t know that I could ever hire someone full-time to look after my children. That’s not how I was raised. I couldn’t imagine raising my kids like that. It’s just not my style.”

12. Sarah Jessica Parker

The actress who stars in Sex and the City is a mother of 3. She doesn’t have a live-in nanny. Sarah Jessica says that she and her husband Matthew Broderick try to be hands-on and use a nanny’s service only when they really need it. She thinks that full-time parenting, sans nanny, should not be a luxury or anything special or praiseworthy to partake in. “That’s something that’s important to both of us, and we don’t shirk it, because what’s the point in having a family if you’re not going to really participate in it, you know?” the actress says.

Have you ever used a nanny service? Tell us about your experience in the comments.