Reese Witherspoon Parents Youngest Son, 12, Differently, Says Older Kids ‘Wore Me Out’

As a mom to two young adults and a preteen, Reese Witherspoon is a bit burnt out — and she’s not afraid to admit it!

In the Sept. 20 episode of The Interview, the actress and producer, 49, said that after parenting for more than 25 years, she is a little worn out. Witherspoon shares her two eldest kids — daughter Ava Phillippe, 26, and son Deacon Phillippe, 21 — with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe, and her youngest, 12-year-old Tennessee James, with ex Jim Toth.

After the topic of motherhood arose during the podcast episode, titled “How Reese Witherspoon Figured Out Who She Really Is,” host Lulu Garcia-Navarro asked if she is “different as a parent this time around.”

Witherspoon’s answer? Absolutely.

“Oh, for sure. I’m exhausted,” the mom of three said. “I’m completely wrung-out and tired.”

Sometimes this exhaustion manifests, the actress then explained, in her redirecting Tennessee to his older siblings. “Whenever I lose my cool,” she said, “I turn to my youngest and I go, ‘You got to call your brother and sister. They wore me out. I’m so tired. Like, eat the cookie. Go to bed late. Just do it, you know, but like, think about how it’s going to make you feel.’ ”

“And then like beyond that, I’m so tired,” she added. “I’ve been parenting for 25 years.”

Later in the podcast episode, Witherspoon also talked about the guidance she gives her daughter, especially as she enters Hollywood herself. (Ava made her acting debut in Doctor Odyssey earlier this year.)

“Well, it’s interesting,” the Big Little Lies star began, “because last year, she turned 25 and when I was 25, she was a year and a half old and I had just done Legally Blonde. And I was about to start Sweet Home Alabama. We just are living very different … different life existences, realities.”

Witherspoon went on to say that she’s “so proud” of her daughter “for not being anything but herself, not trying to emulate me or be me. You know what I’m saying? Not trying to approximate my career or … Ava’s just cool.”

“She’s just always been cool,” she said of the 26-year-old. “You know how some people are just born cool? She was just born cool. But part of the challenge of being a mother of a 26-year-old woman is learning to back away, learning she doesn’t need me in the same ways, and that’s okay. And soothing my heart when I feel, like, rejected a little bit.”

“But it’s not a rejection. It’s actually her … people in my life remind me the alternative would be worse — if she was just so needy, needy, needy,” the star added. “She’s not needy like that. I’m just really proud of who she’s become as an individual.”

The proud mom also got teary-eyed telling Garcia-Navarro about her two eldest kids growing up and moving out. Now, she says, they have “become these incredible friends” to her.

“Ava will call me and just be a great friend, Deacon calls me all the time,” the star said. “We hang out in New York, and he’ll tell me about cool restaurants, and I’ll be like, ‘Great. Can you get a reservation?’ ‘Cause he can get better reservations than I can now.”

“But it’s awesome to have your kids become adults,” Witherspoon added.

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Balancing motherhood with the demands of her multifaceted career has not been easy. But Witherspoon has previously said that the sacrifices she made were “truly worth it.”

“There’s a lot of compromise … You feel like that’s what makes me wake up on a Sunday, it’s not movies or my job, it’s my kids,” the actress said on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2020. “Being a mom is really great, it’s a big part of my life. I would say it’s the biggest part of my life.”

As for her youngest, Witherspoon keeps Tennessee largely out of the public eye — though she has occasionally shared photos of him on social media over the years, including many birthday tributes. He’s also appeared in one of her projects already.

In a February 2025 interview with Buzzfeed UK, the star revealed that Tennessee made a cameo in her movie You’re Cordially Invited. “One of my kids is in the movie,” she told the outlet. “He’s a little dude. He’s in a tiny scene. That’s an Easter egg!”