Emma Thompson and Maggie Gyllenhaal were the cover girls for the August issue of Good Housekeeping. I saw the issue but I always forgot to check out the interview for some reason. I should have known better – Emma is always a great interview, and she always has sh-t to say. Emma and Maggie are doing promotion for the Nanny McPhee movie, in which Emma revives the character she adapted for the screen. By the way, did you know that both Ralph Fiennes and Ewan McGregor are in the second film? True story. Anyway, through the course of the Good Housekeeping interview, Emma basically blasts the concept of “having it all” – a great family, motherhood, a great career, etc. But Emma is not Gisele. She’s not looking down her nose at us. Instead, she’s saying she’s one of us, and that she has lots of problems too:

She has long juggled her work as an actress with raising a family. But Emma Thompson believes that no woman can have the perfect career and be a faultless mother – at the same time.

The 51-year-old Oscar winner, who has a ten-year-old daughter, said trying to ‘have it all’ rarely works well for anyone in a family. She argued that the only way to manage motherhood and a full-time job was by enlisting hired help, something she insists she won’t do.

Her intervention comes at a time when the idea of ‘having it all’ is under attack from working mothers who find themselves run into the ground as they chase an impossible dream. Even its most ardent cheerleaders such as novelist Fay Weldon are thinking again as they see the effects on family life.

A recent survey by Grazia magazine revealed that one in ten women who has had children wants to give up work completely. The debate was further fuelled by Samantha Cameron, who is expecting a child in September and quit her full time job as creative director of Smythson, where she has worked for 14 years, within days of her husband becoming Prime Minister.

Miss Thompson made the comments in the US edition of Good Housekeeping magazine with actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, with whom she stars in the forthcoming sequel to Nanny Mcphee.

The British actress is married to actor Greg Wise, 44, and in addition to ten-year-old Gaia they adopted a 16-year-old Rwandan refugee named Tindyebwa Agaba, who is now 23.

Speaking to Good Housekeeping, Miss Thompson said: ‘I don’t want your readers ever to think they have to have it all. I think that’s a revolting concept. It’s so false! Sometimes you’ll have some things, and sometimes you’ll have other things. And you do not need it all at once; it’s not good for you. You can’t be a great mum and work the whole time necessarily; those two things aren’t ideal.’

‘We have an awful lot to work on and to debate about in relation to our working lives, because it isn’t working for a lot of people, particularly for a lot of women. The only way you can have it all is by delegating all the running of the home to other people – which I don’t ever want to do… So you do it yourself, and it takes time and energy and effort. And if you give it the time, it’s profoundly enjoyable.’

Miss Thompson added that when she had Gaia at 41 she was still not a ‘grown up’ but the experience has forced her to mature very quickly.

She does not have a regular nanny and she and Wise take turns to work so one is always home with their daughter.

She added: ‘We’re all supposed to be happy all the time. What is that about? Why have we lost contact with the possibility of saying, “Do you know what? I can’t do that. Sorry, I can’t manage that as well.”‘

In the interview Miss Gyllenhaal, who is married to actor Peter Sarsgaard -with whom she has a three-year-old daughter, Romana, told how Miss Thompson had inspired her to put her husband first more in her life.

The 32-year-old said: ‘Emma, you kind of gave me the idea that a part of my life, a part of my mind, has to be devoted to my husband. My mother’s generation has been bucking against that. But I’ve just been finding so much pleasure in sacrificing sometimes for my husband – going to where he’s working and tidying up his trailer because he couldn’t manage to do it, and bringing him things that will make him feel better, and being a wife in a more classical way. It feels really right to me.’

[From The Daily Mail]

As much as I think to myself, “Yeah, if I had Greg Wise at home waiting for me, I would never leave” I totally respect the realistic vision of family life Emma is presenting. I like when moms are honest. I like when anyone is honest, whether it’s Cameron Diaz not playing the “I can’t wait to be have babies!” game and simply acknowledging that she doesn’t feel the need to be a mother, or when it’s Emma saying that the idea of “having it all” is a trap. A trap we design for ourselves, for the most part.

Good Housekeeping cover courtesy of Celebrity Baby Scoop. Also: Emma in NYC on June 10, 2010. Credit: WENN.