You might know Melissa Joan Hart as that famous teenage witch from television, but to her three kids, she’s just Mom.
A mother to three boys, Hart spoke with Fox News Digital about how she toes the line between those two very demanding, different roles.
In an effort to prioritize her family, the actress, 48, explained that she’s had to turn down roles, but also, go extended periods of time without seeing her children. The family have also moved several times.
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“That’s been a question of course,” she told Fox News Digital of how her boys have adapted to moving across the country so regularly. “We did the best we could with the information we had at the time.”
“Sabrina the Teenage Witch” wrapped in 2003, and for the next few years, Hart made appearances in TV shows and TV movies. But the family would soon seek a permanent residence. At the time, Hart and her husband had only two sons.
“We always wanted them to have a home base, to have a place where they would, you know, plant their roots and grow. And that was what we did. We moved around in 2009 looking for a place. We looked in Nashville, we looked in Connecticut, we looked in New York. We ended up in Connecticut. But I immediately got pulled back out to L.A. to work on a TV show.”
“And with a TV show like “Melissa & Joey,” you don’t know if it’s gonna be a half a year, a whole year, five years. So you take it a year at a time and make your decisions as a family as you go,” she explained. “So for the first two years, I lived in California, and they were in Connecticut. They would come out and visit . . . we wouldn’t go more than two weeks without seeing each other, but that was really, really hard on me.”
Hart got pregnant with her youngest son, Tucker, in 2012, and by that point, she said the family wasn’t going to separate. They all moved back to Los Angeles.
“So it was all sort of, like, year by year, sort of: Where should we be? How are we gonna do this as a family? And making decisions about my career, balancing out with our family. And, you know, sometimes I turned down jobs just to stay at home and just so the kids could be at home, or sometimes I would leave for chunks of time, which was heartbreaking and really hard for me.”
Being separated from her younger children, especially in their formative years, was a challenge Hart had to learn to deal with.
“It was really difficult. But you know that mom guilt is real,” she said, regardless of how much time you’re spending with your kids. “That’s the thing about my job; I get to be a full-time parent when I’m not working. Right now, I’m in West Virginia. I’m away from them for three weeks, but they know it’s [these] three weeks, and then the next three weeks we’re all together.”
“We’re going away together for Thanksgiving,” she added. “We’ll be together for Christmas, and we’re going to ski together. And so we do it in chunks.”
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“But mom, guilt, I think, is real; parent guilt is real across the board, I think, no matter what you’re doing. But I do try to look at the blessing of the fact that I get to be home, driving them to school [or] be there for their birthdays,” she said. “I’m making sure I’m home for Halloween this year. I didn’t get to be at homecoming, so there’s sacrifices. But then I get to work completely, too. Right now I am totally immersed in this movie I’m doing, and you know I’m getting full time to focus on that. And then I’ll go home and have full-time mommy time. “
“It’s this weird balance that always, you know, you’re never sure if you’re getting it right, but I think that’s just parenthood.”
“I mean, until you look back and hindsight is 20-20, right? And then you’re like, ‘Oh okay that worked, that didn’t work.’ That kind of thing. So I try not to put too much pressure on myself and just do the best that we can. As a family, my husband and I make all of our decisions together, whether I take a job, don’t take a job. They come with me, they don’t come with me.”
Before she headed out to West Virginia to film, Hart used her time at home to give back alongside her son and his football team, teaming up with World Vision.
“The wonderful thing about working with World Vision is they’re always prepared,” she explained to Fox News Digital. “I think a lot of people think of World Vision as more of an international Christian humanitarian organization, which they are. But what’s wonderful, too, is that they work domestically as well. So here in the U.S., when we need them, they’re there.”
The United States was hit with two major hurricanes this past month, leaving many desperate for essential items.
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“Since I have a partnership with World Vision, I asked them if there was some way we could involve the football team, and they told me about their hygiene kit program. So we were able to pack 400 hygiene kits that day. We spent about an hour or two with the boys. Most of the football team was there that day. They walked through the line, they did the assembly of the kits and it was awesome. And at the time we weren’t sure where they were going. . . . They happened to be in the correct place and time for the Hurricane Milton relief.”
As much as Hart was involved, she said her son and his teammates are really the ones holding each other accountable when it comes to giving back to their community.
“To do something like this, to be able to, you know, provide the resources to put together these hygiene kits and just, you know, knowing that they’re going to go help people that are unhoused or that are, you know, in an emergency situation fleeing . . . It makes it that they’re more willing to help, I think, when it’s like something that they can understand, you know?” she explained. “When they’re seeing the face of homelessness or when they’re packing something and seeing that this is all someone’s going to have is this little thing and toothpaste and this comb and shampoo. . . . It really helps, I think, to motivate them when they understand who they’re helping.”
Hart said she’s instilled the goodness of giving back in her sons, partially through their faith, but added there’s an additional element.
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“It’s also just through humanity of seeing people that are less fortunate than us in so many ways, whether it’s their health, economic situations, you know, they happen to be in the path of a disaster,” she said. “And I definitely think it’s because of our faith as well, that we want to be generous with our time, with our resources, with our money. . . . It’s important to my husband and I, and then therefore, we make sure that, you know, it’s kind of modeled for the kids as well. So, they see how we want to be generous and we want to give.”
