The actress and talk show host, 49, penned an essay shared Friday on Instagram about raising her two daughters, writing that she has "never wanted to be more protective of kids in general."
In the "very vulnerable" post, Barrymore looked back on her own "unorthodox" experience of being "so out there in the world and going to adult environments" when she was growing up. The "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" star also reflected on her decision to pose for Playboy magazine in 1995.
"When I did a chaste artistic moment in Playboy in my early 20s, I thought it would be a magazine that was unlikely to resurface because it was paper. I never knew there would be an internet. I didn't know so many things," she wrote.
Drew Barrymore attends the Webby Awards on May 16, 2022. Arturo Holmes, Getty Images
Barrymore recalled being exposed to "plenty of hedonistic scenarios" at parties that caused her "tremendous shame" during her youth
"We, as kids, are not meant to see these images," she wrote.
Barrymore shares two daughters, ages 10 and 12, with her ex-husband Will Kopelman. In her post, she connected her experience of not having enough "guardrails" as a kid to her feeling that there are not enough guardrails to protect children today in the age of smartphones and social media.
Noting that she had "too much access and excess" at a young age, she said this has made her uniquely suited to understand "what young girls need."
"Kids are not supposed to be exposed to this much," Barrymore said. "Kids are supposed to be protected. Kids are supposed to hear NO. But we are living in an à la carte system as caretakers, in a modern, fast-moving world where tiny little computers are in every adult's hands, modeling that it is OK to be attached to a device that is a portal to literally everything. How did we get here?"
Barrymore went on to reveal that she felt pressured to get her daughter a phone for her 11th birthday, but she only allowed her to use it for a limited amount of time with no access to social media.
After three months, Barrymore was "shocked" to find her daughter's "life depended" on the device, and she concluded that she is "not ready" to allow her kids to have a phone.
"I am going to become the parent I needed," she vowed. "The adult I needed."
Barrymore rose to fame after starring in "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" as a child. She was emancipated at the age of 14, she said. She touched on her mother in the essay, writing that her mom was "lambasted for allowing me to get so out of control" but that she has "so much empathy for her now, because I am a mother," and "none of us is perfect."
The "Never Been Kissed" star previously mentioned her Playboy cover on her talk show earlier this year, revealing that her daughter Olive sometimes brings it up to win arguments.
"My daughter wants to wear a crop top. I'll say no and she'll go, 'You were on the cover of Playboy,'" Barrymore said during a conversation with Christina Aguilera.
Still, while Barrymore seems to have some regrets about this photoshoot, she wrote in her Instagram post, "Since there isn't a time machine to go back and redo anything, I will keep loving my journey."
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