Charlize Theron Says Her Two Kids Act as Though They're 'Masters' of 'Knowledge'
"[They] use it consistently in a matter [of] like, ‘You’re stupid, mom,’ ” Charlize Theron joked
Charlize Theron is raising two little brainiacs.
The Long Shot actress is mom to Jackson, 7, and August, 3, and says her kids are taking the incomplete amount of knowledge they have as children and running with it — at her expense.
“They feel like the limited amount of knowledge that they have at this age, they act as if they’re masters of that knowledge, and use it consistently in a matter [of] like, ‘You’re stupid, mom,’” she said during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
Theron, 43, elaborated, explaining daughter August’s hilarious attempts at correcting her.
“[August] always says … I’ll say like, ‘Isn’t the sunrise so beautiful?’ And she’ll [be] like, ‘Actually, mom, actually, it’s very rude to say that the sun is beautiful,’” she said. “I’m driving in the car like [makes frustrated face].”
One-upping mom isn’t all August has learned — Theron said her daughter recently surprised her by whipping out some serious martial arts moves.
“I think a stranger comes into my house at 3 a.m. because none of us use any of the words [my kids use],” she said. “The little one learned technical martial arts, like full technical wrestling grips. I don’t know where she learned it … I came in the other day and she literally had my assistant in like, a back lock and a full grip and she wouldn’t let go.”
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Jackson, too, is confident in outsmarting mom, with Theron sharing a similar anecdote.
“My 7-year-old said to me the other day, she said, ‘You know, Medusa’s in our pool.’ I said I had no idea Medusa lived in our pool. I said, ‘Where is she from, by the way?’” she recalled. “And she just looked at me and she went, ‘New Jersey.’”
The Oscar winner adopted Jackson in 2012 and August in 2015, and recently opened up about the importance of keeping them in touch with their own heritage while raising them.
“I am raising two beautiful proud black African girls and I want them to find themselves and not necessarily push my ancestry on them,” said Theron, who was born and raised in South Africa during Apartheid, which ended when she was a teenager.
She previously explained the emotional weight that came with viewing Black Panther for the first time and said she was excited to one day have her kids view the film.
“I said to myself, ‘I cannot wait until my girls are big enough to be able to share this with them,’ ” she said in December during Variety’s Actors on Actors. “Because it’s so much more than whether you’re from Africa or whether you’re African-American.”
“It’s such a bigger thing than that. That movie broke so many glass ceilings across the board. Not just the fact that there are women in power and they’re black, beautiful, strong, African-American women, African women,” she added.
“My children are going to benefit from that [and] I got something cathartic out of that. As an African woman, as a woman just in general. It’s so empowering to watch that movie.”