Charlize Theron on Her Child: “Yes, I Thought She Was A Boy, Too”

Jorge Arenas |

Apr 24, 2019

Oscar winner Charlize Theron claims she thought her child was a boy until they told her, “I am not a boy!”

Theron spoke to The Daily Mail about her oldest child Jackson, who the actress adopted as a baby. Jackson is now seven years old. Theron can be seen with Jackson in a number of photos wearing dresses, skirts, and sporting long, braided hair.

Theron stated, “Yes, I thought she was a boy, too.” She added, “Until she looked at me when she was three years old and said: ‘I am not a boy!”

Theron continued, “So there you go! I have two beautiful daughters who, just like any parent, I want to protect and I want to see thrive.”

“They were born who they are and exactly where in the world both of them get to find themselves as they grow up, and who they want to be, is not for me to decide,” Theron said.

She continued:

“My job as a parent is to celebrate them and to love them and to make sure that they have everything they need in order to be what they want to be.

And I will do everything in my power for my kids to have that right and to be protected within that.”

As for why she parents the way she does, Theron credited her mother and her own childhood experience in South Africa.

“You can blame my mom for the fact I don’t know any better! You know, I grew up in a country where people lived with half-truths and lies and whispers and nobody said anything outright, and I was raised very specifically not to be like that.

I was taught by my mom that you have to speak up; you have to be able to know that, when this life is over, you’ll have lived the truth you’re comfortable with, and that nothing negative can come from that.”

Charlize grew up on a farm outside of Johannesburg, South Africa. When she was 15, her father, Charles, came home and threatened to kill both her and her mother Gerda with a gun. Gerda would end up shooting Charles in what was ruled as an act of self-defense.

Theron continued to praise her mother, “I think that having a very close relationship to at least one parent is a real blessing.” She added, “Growing up as a young girl, I had this great representation in front of me of what you could be as a woman.” She praised her mother’s hard work without complaints, “In everything she did in life, my mom did what she had to do and there were no two ways about it. When she got up at six in the morning to milk the cows, she didn’t cry about it: she just did it.”

She would go on to point out how her mother took over her father’s construction business. She noted that seeing her mother in heels and power suit was the “greatest gift” her mother gave her.

“The greatest gift my mom ever gave me was the sight of her putting on her heels and her power suit and going into a board meeting with eight guys and just running the show.”

She indicated just how much it affected her, “I’d just look at her with my mouth open. I was thinking: ‘All right. I want to be like that, too!”

The Oscar winning actress recently made headlines when she lamented her romantic life while promoting her newest film Long Shot at CinemaCon. Theron lamented, “Somebody just needs to grow a pair and step up.”

What do you make of Theron’s parenting decisions?