Julia Roberts has been one of Hollywood’s best-loved faces for more than three decades. She became a household name with Pretty Woman in 1990, and won the Oscar for Best Actress for Erin Brockovich. Her big smile and warm, down-to-earth charm have made audiences feel she is someone they know.But away from the cameras, her proudest role is that of a mother. She and her husband, cinematographer Danny Moder, have three children, including twins Hazel and Phinnaeus, known as Finn, and a younger son, Henry. Roberts has often said that family comes first, and she has kept her children’s lives mostly out of the spotlight.
5 Oct 2026 | 12:06
Parents, when your child refuses to greet relatives, do you make them say hello or respect their choice?
That made it all the more interesting when she opened up about everyday parenting and shared her interesting rules for her children on using phones during an interview.
Julia Roberts opens up on simple phone rules for her family
Julia Roberts explained how the family handled parenting in the age of technology, specifically about how she has set rules about her children for using phones.Previously, in an interview with TODAY, during a conversation with Mahershala Ali, her co-star in the Netflix film Leave the World Behind, she opened up about how the family keeps their phones away while spending time with each other.Roberts told, “So, for us, we just had sort of simple rules where we had a charging station, where everybody’s phone goes when you get home. There’s no phones at the table, certainly”.ID@undefined Caption not available.ID@undefined Caption not available.
The rule is not just limited to the kids at home
The rule wasn’t aimed at the kids alone and that she also makes sure her children understand the reasons for her rules and know that she is looking out for them, not just trying to be controlling.Roberts also said that her approach hasn’t changed much now that her older children have left home. She parents them the same way out of the house as in it. “I parent them the same way out of the house that I parented them in the house, which is, you know, ‘Are you getting enough sleep?’ And ‘You sound like you’re sick.’ And ‘Are you drinking tea?’ And ‘Text me when you get home, you get home (so) I can see that you’re home safe and sound,” she revealed.ID@undefined Caption not available.ID@undefined Caption not available.
She is grateful that her kids let her do it
She has appreciates for her older children, who let her stay the “same mom” to them without much eye-rolling, explaining which she said, “And I have an immense amount of appreciation for both of my older kids because they still allow me to be the same mom to them and it’s not eye-rolling and there’s a huge amount of understanding.”Ali, who has a six-year-old daughter, then asked whether it felt different when she left home for work compared with when her kids left for college.Roberts laughed and said her family is now spread across places and time zones, with Henry and Danny at home, while she and the twins are elsewhere. According to TODAY, she described a recent FaceTime call with the whole family. She said she might have had a towel on her wet head, and that everyone was happy to be together, still “deeply in love.”
