Amal Clooney finally got the Vogue cover she deserves, because when it comes to a role model for modern feminists, Clooney ticks all the boxes. She's both a mother and a careerist, hardworking with a love for a daily glass of wine, and is the voice of reason on topics from #MeToo (“I think because of the brave women who have come forward to tell their stories, the future workplace will be safer for my daughter than it was for people of my generation.") to gun reform ("This doesn’t happen in other developed countries. The difference is guns, and how widely and easily available they are."), all while wooing one of the most famous movie actors of our time. But those aren't the things she finds difficult — instead, it's giving up the cup of morning coffee.
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"We’re like, Aren’t we supposed to be feeling amazing?" the London barrister told Vogue on the cleanse she and her husband went through...that they ended up giving up after eleven days. Everything else seems to be a breeze, but she doesn't do it alone. The Clooneys have a nanny, a chef, an assistant, and other household staff to their name, as well as rules for keeping family life in check.
"Between six and eight in the morning we get to have them in our bed — I don’t schedule any calls before eight," she told the outlet. "When I was nursing, it was much more complicated, because there are two. I had all manner of weird cushions and pillows and machines."
This makes it sound like Clooney had been preparing for motherhood her whole life, but that wasn't something she ever concerned herself with until she met her husband.
“It’s the one thing in life that I think is the biggest determinant of happiness, and it’s the thing you have the least control over,” she said. “Are you going to meet this person? I was 35 when I met him. It wasn’t obvious that it was going to happen for me. And I wasn’t willing or excited about the idea of getting married or having a family in the absence of that.”
The more material aspects of Clooney's life are obviously a privilege, but she manages to inspire outside of those things. While it may be unrealistic to strive for a house on an island, anyone can admire and emulate her rejection of how society so often forces women to choose between career and family. But if someone wanted to give me an island, I'd be okay with that too.