Olivia Wilde is featured in People Magazine’s Most Beautiful issue. There was a focus on moms this year, and so many of the “most beautiful” interviews are about motherhood and parenting. Olivia has two children with Jason Sudeikis: 4-year-old Otis and 18-month-old Daisy. Apparently, Otis is like so many little boys nowadays: absolutely obsessed with Disney movies, especially Disney movies about girls/women, and marketed TO girls and women. This is something of a trend inside Hollywood and beyond: little boys getting completely hooked on the Disney marketing directed towards girls. Adele’s son is apparently obsessed with Elsa from Frozen. Charlize Theron’s son is also obsessed with Frozen. Megan Fox’s son loves to dress up in princess dresses. And Olivia Wilde’s son thinks he’s Moana.
Olivia Wilde tells PEOPLE for this year’s The Beautiful Issue that she finds it intriguing how kids have no judgment over gender-specific activities or colors, and wants to keep it that way for as long as she can.
“[Otis] loves Moana, obviously, and when he thinks about Moana, he thinks of himself as Moana,” says Wilde. “I love hearing him sing … it’s the best when you can watch them singing in the backseat of your car, and he’s just like, ‘I wish I could be the perfect daughter!’ And he’s just belting it out. That’s so great because at a certain age he’s going to be like, ‘Well, I can’t, that’s … ‘ you know, and he still doesn’t judge things like pink, or dance or gymnastics. These aren’t things that are gender-specific yet. I don’t know why at a certain point we tell them that’s for boys and that’s for girls, but I’m going to do my best to not force that delineation,” the actress declares.
Wilde says her daughter Daisy also has the same lack of self-awareness and she hopes to help maintain that way of thinking.
“Daisy is a total hambone, she will do anything for a laugh. She’s totally un-self-conscious and I find that so beautiful,” Wilde says. “They’re just the funniest people. They become your best friends. And that’s something that I don’t know if I knew.”
“I knew I’d love them so much, but you genuinely just love hanging out with them, and you love their observations and you love learning about them as opposed to just telling them, ‘Okay, now say these words, and read these books and think these things,’ because they come up with far more original ideas than we ever could.”
I’m really enjoying this movement, by the way. This non-gender-specific branding, “let boys enjoy so-called girl-things” movement. I do wonder about it from Disney’s perspective though – is Disney doing this on purpose, or is it a happy accident? For decades, Disney just directed all of its princess marketing at little girls. But as it turns out, little boys were watching too and so Disney ended up tapping into a market they probably weren’t expecting. Anyway, this is one of the ways we, as a society, fight toxic masculinity. It’s okay for boys to identify with Moana or Elsa or Belle or Rey from Star Wars. If they identify with heroines, maybe they’ll grow up into boys and men who understand that women are people too.
Photos courtesy of Instagram, WENN.
OMG…THAT BABY LOOKS JUST LIKE HER DADDY!!!!!!! IT’S ADORABLE!!!!!
She really does, though I think Otis looks even more like his mom than Daisy does her dad. It’s really uncanny in the photo above.
I agree about Babyboy!!!! I was my Daddy’s “twin” too…at that age!
Will preface this with I don’t have kids, have nieces and nephews but in our household we’re total dog people. Help me understand calling your toddler your best friend? I get liking to hang out with your kids, but best friend?
My son is 2.5 yo and he’s my best friend….
My 8-yr-old daughter is my best friend, and I’ve found that I have thought of her that way since she was 2 or 3 years old. As others have explained, it doesn’t mean that I rely upon her for advice or emotional support or anything like that; it just means that I enjoy her company & have fun with her, more than anyone else.
It gives me pause too. I have two older teens and I’ve just started sharing things with them that would have been totally inappropriate to tell younger kids. The were and are my favorite companions but until they are grown being real friends is a stretch and can harm them if boundaries are not set. Besides I married my best friend.
I also dont understand why people have to label different relationships as best friends. You are supposed to be close to your own children…
They aren’t the best friend you go to with your marriage troubles. They are the best friend you hang out with and laugh all day. The people you most want to be around are your best friends, but not every friend has to be for every thing.
(I’m saying this coming off several hours in pre-op with my 13yo girl who had outpatient dental stuff, and we laughed and talked and cut-up the whole time even though/especially because it was stressful. That’s your kid, but that’s also a best friend.)
Thank you for this comment! <3
I’ll contribute a bit of my own experience with this. I live with three small children that aren’t mine, but I’m very close with the oldest boy who is my godson. I call him my “best buddy” or “the snuggliest bubs.” Sure, he’s not a grown up version of a best friend. He’s not somebody who can help me solve adult problems. But I’m clearly one of his favorite people, and he’s one of my favorite people, and there is something deeply endearing about the simplistic needs of children. We hang out together. He makes me smile. I get to watch him grow up into a full and complex person. It’s good stuff.
It’s not really about being a “best friend” in the traditional sense. It’s the fact that kids force you to grow *with* them. You’re helping them grow into the person they’re meant to be. They’re helping you discover another facet of yourself as “parent.” You get to share jokes and experiences and affection in ways you can’t share with anybody else. A good parent-child friendship has some element of friendship to it because it means you can trust one another.
Agreed with everyone else. You have to look at it without thinking about it like an adult best friendship. I’m home all day with my toddler, he’s my best little buddy because we spend so much time together, he makes me laugh, we can be goofy together or just chill out and read books, etc. Obviously, I’m his parent first but I don’t think it’s weird to call your toddler your best friend lol
Daisy looks a lot like January Jones son.
Nope. Look up a pic of Claudia and Matthew’s youngest, Clementine.
Great. Us women have gone through that to: using trousers, playing cowboys (argh), doing “boys” sports etc. This will leads us to a freer society.
I don’t think it’s Disney’s doing AT ALL that these films are being interpreted as less gender-specific. You walk in any Disney store and it’s still quite segregated in the “pink is for girls and blue is for boys” way. It makes me happy that they’ve expanded their Star Wars merch to include girls sizes (something I desperately wanted when I was little instead of wearing oversized boys shirts — always loved me some Star Wars), but that is where it begins and ends, unfortunately. It’s down to good parenting and letting kids love what they love.
My 4-year-old son loves Moana and Frozen. For him it’s about the songs. He wants to skip to the song parts and then have me backtrack so he can watch them again. He’ll occasionally watch them the whole way through but, yeah…he’s all about the music.
So cute. I don’t make too much of the best friends comment. She simply means she truly enjoys their company, which is nice!
This “trend” is way more about the parents than the little boys. Put bluntly: the kids are being coached/shamed/influenced into “liking girly things.” When left to their own devices, boys will almost always gravitate towards more masculine activities, girls towards more feminine. This has been scientifically proven time and again.
The “trend” is simply to allow children to like what they like without shaming them for liking non-gender-normative things. Boys can appreciate pretty things and be emotional, or play with more “boyish” things if they *actually* prefer. I can see my 10 yo son really enjoys things like long hair and beautiful dresses (and would play with them when he was younger) but is scared to express that because it’s not “masculine.” His favorite color for many years was pink, and maybe still would be if he hadn’t gotten the message it wasn’t “okay” for him. He also always liked trains and trucks. Forcing any child into any particular box is just dumb.
Hey, pre-med here who minored in women’s studies! Would you like to link me some of these scientific studies you’re referring to that prove your statement?
“When left to their own devices, boys will almost always gravitate towards more masculine activities, girls towards more feminine. This has been scientifically proven time and again.” No it hasn’t.
And even if 80% of boys like playing with trucks and 20% prefer dolls, we should give them space, freedom and tolerance.
When I was a kid in primary school, on Friday afternoons, the girls would be taught how to knit and crochet, boys DIY and woodwork. One day, I asked to go with the DIY group (I am the daughter of an architect, I like building things) … that was so bizarre and unique at the time it went all the way to the top of the school, created a mini-scandal in my village and made my catholic, bigoted great-aunties predict I would end up in the arms of the devil.
I don t wish that insane adult sh*tstorm on any kid who prefers one harmless hobby over the other.
Little Moana, you rule!
Loving Moana requires no coaching. That movie is amazing, and I’m glad little boys feel free to recognize its awesomeness.
I really like both Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis and I love them together. They both seem like open minded, fun people so I’m not surprised that they encourage their kids to be themselves.