Jenny Downham Quotes

I rarely get a moment to myself, but I love the way that my agenda is dictated by the children, not my work.

I thought I might not want to act any more after having a baby. It turns out I still enjoy it.

We have decided that now is the time for me to focus intently on my top priority, my family, as Elizabeth and I raise our two young children. To that end, I will not seek reelection to a third term.

I love being a mum but I do love to work too.

My first job now is as a mother, everything else is secondary. My kids understand that I am an actress, and they are always so surprised to hear my voice on a cartoon character, or see my face on a video box. If it ever gets to be too much though, the career and the kids, I will simply set the career aside.

I was always trying to find the balance between trying my best and being an incredible parent. I literally realized that it was chaos - but it was happy chaos.

I just spent a lot of time on 'ER' for that eight years. I also started working when I was 16, so by the time I left 'ER,' I was 40 years old, I had this incredible experience, my wife had this great company, we had four kids, it was like, 'Let's go to New York and live for a while and make that the priority.'

My sons are precious to me and I have tried incredibly hard to strike the right balance between work and home life while being acutely aware that I haven't always got it right.

My life often feels like a whirling dervish of kids, writing, speaking, and pastoral ministry.

When the children were little, I'd fly into L.A. for a specific work project, but then I'd leave again, and when I was home, I wouldn't even read a script.

I have two kids, career and I travel, and I don't think my life is any different than most couples. The most valuable commodity now for many people is time and how to parcel that out.

I don't see how a woman in documentary photography could have children. I think it's a very difficult thing to do to raise a family, and I have enormous respect for people who do it. I'd hate to do something like that and not be good at it.

I've always said that kids should enhance your life, not hinder your life, so I just try to make the most out of being with my kids. You have to have a life for yourself somewhere in the mix of being a wife and mum.

I'm doing less than I used to because I'm a family man now, and I have two kids.

I travel like a gypsy, and I didn't know how I could perform and be a mother.

I love making movies, but I was ready to rationalize being only a mother if my career never got back on track.

One of the reasons I didn't really want to do TV earlier in my career was because it is so life-consuming, and I wanted to spend time with my kids and be a mother.

I'm a father of four so whenever I'm not working my kids have their different sports, or plays, or school performances, so I don't do a whole lot of other stuff besides being a dad.

Worst part of being a writer: having to tell my toddler that I can't play with her because I'm working. Keep in mind that working consists of me at home with a laptop on my lap sitting on the couch. It doesn't look like working. I don't have a hammer or anything.

I went freelance in 1996 and my children are now teenagers and it seemed right.

One has to divide attention between having kids and a full workload.

I'm a single parent, and I just found that it was too difficult to manage raising my kids and doing the traveling involved in making movies. So I took a little bit of a break. And the little bit of a break turned into a longer break, and then I found that I really didn't miss it.

I have a great husband, great parents and in-laws, and I have help with a nanny. It's not easy, but there are others who do it every day and don't have a high-profile job as I do.

I actually have two children now, and sometimes I wonder if that's it. Because they do make writing and directing more complicated and more difficult, especially now that they're very young.

I'm having to learn to get the balance right, because if you want a full-time career, and you also want to be a mother who is there for your child, then you have to make sure that when you do spend time together, you're really there for them.