Although Zoe Saldana is in an all-male household, she and her husband, Marco Perego-Saldana, raise their three sons in a gender-neutral environment.
The Guardians of the Galaxy Star rarely speaks publicly about her personal life, but in an interview with Us Weekly recently Saldana gave a glimpse of her experience of motherhood and marriage.
“We have a very gender neutral environment where my husband participates in a lot of tasks that were normally given to woman and vice versa. I get to do a lot of male things, which is, I don’t know, put the TV together, fix things that break. We’re sort of a very gender fluid household. I think it’s important to raise boys in that environment and girls as well.”
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This is not the first time Saldana and her husband, Marco Perego-Saldana, have challenged gender norms. When Saldana married her husband in 2013, who is an artist and former rugby player, he took her last name. Saldana, however, was apprehensive about his decision, at first. According to Us Weekly, Saldana said, “I tried to talk him out of it. I told him, ‘If you use my name, you’re going to be emasculated by your community of artists, by your Latin community of men, by the world.’ Marco looks up at me and says ‘Ah, Zoe, I don’t give a s—.'”
Saldana described some of her struggles as a mom in a house she describes as having “four boys because my husband is the biggest one.” The actress said, “Blowouts always happen in the most inconvenient time. I’ve had all of those. I’ve checked every box. Airport, public places, in the car, sitting and talking to people that you barely know. All of a sudden you smell something and you look at yourself and you’re full of s—t. It’s just, you know, c’est la vie.”
Saldana also disclosed her “proudest mommy moment”–her sons’ first words–and the most special thing her sons have taught her: “to be nice. As mommies we sometimes forget that,” she explained. “We’re caught raising and teaching and disciplining and cooking and cleaning and not enough time to play. I think that my kids always remind me when I’m being too boring. They go, ‘Mama, be nice, sit down and play with me.’ That’s what they’re teaching me.”
With love, equality and kindess, the Perego-Saldana’s seem to have it all.
