The Oscar winner said she "just didn't know how" to parent when she was younger.
February 21, 2023, 12:20 PM
Jane Fonda has seemingly done it all in her life, from being an Oscar-winning actress to a workout guru to an activist.
Fonda, 85, is also the mother of three grown children -- Vanessa Vadim, Mary Luana Williams and Troy Garity -- whom she said recently are the source of one of her "very few" regrets in life.
"I was not the kind of mother that I wish that I had been to my children," Fonda told CNN's Chris Wallace in an interview that aired Feb. 19. "I have great, great children. Talented. Smart. I just didn't know how to do it."
Fonda said she has learned more about parenting through her activism over the years, and is trying to "show up" for her children now.
"I have an organization in Georgia that deals with adolescents and I've studied parenting. I know what it's supposed to be now," she said. "I didn't know then. So I'm trying to show up now."
Fonda founded the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention over two decades ago, when she lived in Atlanta during her marriage to CNN founder Ted Turner.
The organization now reaches over 60,000 young people each year with the goal of improving their "overall health and social well-being," according to its website.
Fonda spoke out about her regret on motherhood after telling Wallace she is not afraid to die, adding that she is only afraid of reaching the end of her life with regrets.
"What I'm really scared of is getting to the end of life with a lot of regrets when there's no time to do anything about it," she said. "It's one reason that I try, I'm trying to get it all done before I come to the end."
Fonda expressed a similar sentiment in a 2017 interview with fellow actress Brie Larson.
Fonda said at the time she regretted not being a better parent, so she started to learn, saying, "It's never too late."
"I am trying to make up for what I didn’t know before," Fold told Larson. "When I die, I want my family to be around me. I want them to love me and I have to earn that. I’m still working at it."
Fonda's oldest child Vanessa Vadim, who was born in 1968, is her only child with her first husband, the late French filmmaker Roger Vadim.
Fonda welcomed her second child Troy Garity in 1973 with her then-husband Tom Hayden, a famed anti-war activist who died in 2016.
Fonda adopted her third child Mary Williams in the 1980s after Williams attended Laurel Springs Children's Camp, a summer camp for kids that was founded by Fonda and Hayden.
