Julia Fox Recalls 'Deconstructing' Gender Norms With 4-Year-Old Son

Julia Fox is taking a very intentional approach to parenting her 4-year-old son, Valentino.

“I think you just need to raise your boys the same way you raise your girls,” Fox, 35, told Us Weekly exclusively of her parenting philosophy in her cover story, on newsstands now. “I feel like we put so much pressure on our girls, and we fill their heads with so much more cautionary tales. … You need to be teaching them too, that they can grow up and their fists can be weapons.”

The Him actress, who welcomed her son in 2021 with ex-husband Peter Artemiev, recalled a recent teaching moment with Valentino, in which they dissected gender norms while watching a movie together.

“With Valentino, I don’t let any little thing go unchecked,” she told Us. “I remember we were watching a movie, and then this guy comes out wearing a wedding dress. And he was like, ‘Mommy, why is he wearing a dress?’”

Fox and Valentino live with the Uncut Gems actress’ best friend Richie Shazam and his partner, Ben Draghi, in a New York City brownstone — and the actress used their “chosen family” as an example for her son.

“I was like, ‘You know, Uncle Ben wears dresses, so if I wore a suit, would that be weird?’” Fox recalled telling Valentino. “I saw the wheels turning, and it’s like, ‘Why is it only weird when boys wear girls clothes, but not weird when girls wear boys’ clothes?’”

Despite wondering “do I really have to do this?” in moments like these, as a vocal feminist and critic of the patriarchy, Fox knows she has to be proactive in raising a young man.

“God forbid he goes out into the world and becomes the exact epitome of everything I hate because I was just like, ‘It’ll be fine,’” she told Us. “That’s really what it is all about: communicating and having those uncomfortable conversations, trying to get them to understand in a way that a 4-year-old can.”

She continued: “But as soon as they start making those remarks, we have to start deconstructing that, because that’s a little seed that has been planted. … I just don’t want him to be that person.”

As recalled in her memoir, Down the Drain, Fox herself had a tumultuous childhood and a difficult relationship with her parents. Becoming a mom herself has given her a new perspective on her own upbringing.

“A lot of the way that I parent is in direct opposition with the way that I was parented,” she told Us. “I have so much more sympathy for my parents now that I’m a mom. I think you really don’t get it until you’re a parent.”