Jennifer Lawrence opens up about guilt she feels as a mother: ‘Every day of being a mom, I feel awful’

The actor welcomed her first child with husband Cooke Maroney in February 2022

Jennifer Lawrence has opened up about the guilt she’s felt since becoming a mother to her baby boy, Cy.

The 32-year-old actor recently sat down with Oscar winner Viola Davis for Variety’s annual “Actors on Actors” interview. Lawrence, who stars in the A24 film Causeway, welcomed her first child with husband Cooke Maroney in February this year. Shortly after, she had to return to filming Causeway, which paused production during the Covid-19 pandemic.

While chatting with Davis, Lawrence revealed that she experienced feelings of guilt after welcoming her son, and continues to second-guess her decisions as a new mother.

“I made the movie right before I got married and then we had the pandemic,” The Hunger Games alum explained. “Two years later, I’m pregnant, we go back, and we make the rest of it.”

Lawrence referred to starting a family with her husband as “the scariest thing in the entire world,” as she often asked herself: “What if I f**k up? What if I can’t do it?”

“Every day of being a mom, I feel awful. I feel guilty,” she added. “I’m playing with him and I’m like, ‘Is this what he wants to be doing? Should we be outside? We’re outside. What if he’s cold? What if he’s going to get sick? Should we be inside? Is this enough? Is this developing your brain enough?’”

However, Davis quickly assured Lawrence that every mother makes mistakes, including the time when Davis locked her child in the car during the “sweltering” heat.

“Jennifer, I locked my kid in the car, and it was sweltering hot outside,” the Woman King star responded. Davis explained how she was “stressed out going to Target” when she closed the car door and forgot her keys inside the car. She “screamed” and “threw [herself] on the concrete” when she realised her daughter was still in the back of the car, and rushed towards two men for help.

“I grabbed their necks and said, ‘My baby is in the car! My baby!’ And then what do I have in my hand? My phone,” she recalled. “So I called 911, and I proceeded to scream at the operator. Every expletive you can imagine came out of my mouth. They took her out of the car. And the reason why I’m telling you this story is it literally was seconds.”

Back in September, Jennifer Lawrence opened up to Vogue about becoming a mother for the first time. During the interview, Vogue’s October cover star revealed that her son Cy is named after American painter Cy Twombly, who is one of her husband Cooke Maroney’s favorite artists. Maroney is an art gallery director.

“It’s so scary to talk about motherhood,” Lawrence said at the time. “Only because it’s so different for everybody. If I say, It was amazing from the start, some people will think, ‘It wasn’t amazing for me at first’, and feel bad. Fortunately I have so many girlfriends who were honest, who were like, ‘It’s scary. You might not connect right away. You might not fall in love right away.’ So I felt so prepared to be forgiving.”

Lawrence also described the morning after she gave birth to her son as if her “whole life had started over.”

“My heart has stretched to a capacity that I didn’t know about,” she added. “I include my husband in that. And then they’re both just, like, out there – walking around, crossing streets. He’s gonna drive one day. He’s gonna be a stupid teenager and be behind the wheel of a car. And I’m just gonna be like, ‘Good night!’ You know? Like, who sleeps?”