Why This Actress Wanted to Raise Her Kids in a Traditional Family

Published: March 26, 2025

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JANUARY 25: Drew Barrymore attends the TCM Classic Film Festival: New York Pop-Up  x  92NY at 92nd Street Y on January 25, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for TCM)

By Movieguide® Contributor

Actress Drew Barrymore always hoped she could raise her kids in a traditional family after growing up with little help from her own parents.

“I remember all the kids at school would go to the office to call their parents when they we sick and I could never get a hold of anybody,” Barrymore recalled when explaining how she was jealous of other kids when she was young. “And I was so jealous of those kids who would call and be like, ‘Mom, dad, come pick me up.’ I would just sit there and be like, ‘What’s that like.’”

Having experienced the impacts of growing up with disinterested parents, Barrymore vowed she would never do that to her own children. Though her hopes to raise her two daughters in a traditional household were spoiled when she and her husband Will Kopelman got divorced in 2016, she fully commits herself to her daughters so they know they have loving parents.

“If you don’t grow up in a perfect way with a perfect family, you fear the blueprint and you go, I want to do things differently,” she said. “I felt unconfident, like this was the stakes of my life and it took a few years, honestly, to have that confidence.”

While single moms, like Barrymore, who are committed to their children are incredible, growing up without a father often leaves children with lasting negative effects. And fatherlessness is a silent pandemic ravaging the youth of our country.

Many of today’s pressing issues stem from an absent father. As of 2023, roughly 25 million American children are growing up without dads. Meanwhile, 85% of all incarcerated youth grew up without a father, 71% of high school dropouts had no father at home and 60% of youth suicides occur in fatherless homes.

Alternatively, “Higher levels of parental warmth, time together, and relationship or communication satisfaction were significantly associated with lower levels of nicotine dependence and substance abuse symptoms, as well as lower odds of unintended pregnancy,” according to the National Fatherhood Initiative.

It is clear that the Lord created us to be raised by a mother and a father, and children need strong male and female role models in order to properly develop. In some cases, though, it is impossible to avoid a one-parent home. In this case, the church needs to step up and provide these children with strong role models, rather than allows them to suffer the negative consequences of growing up without a mother or a father.