Due to the coronavirus quarantines, parents have to balance their work and parental duties from home, and tennis icon Serena Williams is no exception.
In a recent interview with PEOPLE, Serena Williams opened up about how she handles parenting her 2-year-old daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. (whom she shares with her husband, Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian Sr.) and working from home. As a busy tennis star, Williams enjoys the quality time she spends with her daughter and even lets her sit in on her virtual meetings.
“S.O.S! I kinda love being a full-time mom and not having the responsibilities to travel and play but now that I’m training again, it’s become a lot. I love to spend so much time with her, but it’s interesting,” says Williams. “She’s in every single call that I have, every single meeting. I feel like she’s getting a little bit of it so she’s going to be a really good businesswoman when this is all over.”
Serena Williams also offered advice for parents who work from home alongside their kids, encouraging parents to adhere to schedules and to keep their children involved. “The advice I can only give is to really be scheduled on your day. I have really tight schedules and I make sure to try to do as much as I can on time. Also, like, include your kids!” said Williams, calling them “the voice of the future,” no matter their age. “I like to think of it as we’re living a future history lesson and that’s very rare. My advice to parents is [to] always bring your kids in. You never know what they’re going to pick up on.”
Though she isn’t playing tennis at the moment, Serena Williams still finds ways to inspire people. Williams, along with comedian Kevin Hart and NBA star Steph Curry, were speakers at Chase Bank’s recent “Show Me Your Walk” event. It streamed on May 2 on YouTube and Twitter and was a virtual graduation ceremony (not unlike the one NBA great LeBron James is holding on May 16) to honor the high school class of 2020, as many high school seniors will miss out on graduation due to the coronavirus pandemic.
For her speech, Serena Williams spoke about how the seniors should not be afraid to take risks and told a story about the criticism she used to face and how it motivated her to work hard and succeed. “Instead of giving in to the criticism, there was this driving force at the back of my head telling me that I could do it,” shared Williams. “So with sheer willpower, I set out to prove them wrong and I just put the ball on the racket and 3 years later, I won the US Open.”
