Julia Roberts, 56, recently opened up about parenting and honoring her twins Phinnaeus and Hazel Moder‘s 19th birthday during a December 4 interview with Extra. One week after the Notting Hill star took to Instagram to share a birthday tribute post for her kiddos, she told the outlet that she wants to respect the “privacy” of her twins. “It is something to be celebrated, and I know Instagram is a place where people like to share happy things and I love them so much,” she explained.
She also went on to share that the moment was truly serendipitous. “I really did just happen to come upon this cute picture and I thought… That allows me to share something as a proud parent of them without infringing on their privacy at all,” the 56-year-old said. Julia shared a throwback photo of herself holding her then infants in her lap on November 28. “19 There are no words for the joy, the fun, the wild rumpus of life together,” she captioned the snapshot at the time.
Elsewhere during the same interview, Julia opened up about her children’s relationships with technology. She stars in the upcoming Netflix film, Leave the World Behind, which prompted the topic. “I don’t think of them as dependent on their devices… We have never had an issue with that,” Julia said. “I think we can all spend less time on our phones, on our computers. I am guilty of playing too many New York Times crossword puzzles in a day… A little self-monitoring of it.”
The mother-of-three also went on to explain what she misses about the world prior to social media and smartphones. “I miss when you couldn’t get ahold of people, or they couldn’t get ahold of you,” Julia said. “Not only just that period, but then I think of a family coming together at the end of the day and you actually have things to talk about at dinner because you haven’t been in contact all day long a hundred times… or a busy signal.” Her new film will debut on Netflix on December 8.
Earlier this week, the starlet opened up to TODAY‘s Hoda Kotb about the same topic of raising children in a world with smartphones. “So for us, we just had sort of simple rules where we had a charging station where everyone’s phones go when you get home,” she told the talk show host. “There’s no phones at the table, certainly.” Julia also explained how she approaches parenting now that her kids are in their late teens. “I parent them the same way out of the house that I parented them in the house, which is ‘Are you getting enough sleep? You sound like you’re sick, are you drinking enough tea? Text me when you get home. I can see that you’re home safe and sound,’” she said. She shares all three of her kiddos with her husband, Daniel Moder, 54, who she married in 2002.