National Daughters Day was Monday, September 25, 2023. To celebrate the day, tributes poured out on social media from many celebrity mothers world-wide. Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis was one of them. In a touching tribute, the Fences actress called her 13-year-old daughter Genesis Tennon, “my heart.”
“My daughter is my heart. ❤️ #HappyNationalDaughterDay,” the 58-year-old simply captioned a carousel of images on Instagram.
Davis shares her teenage daughter with husband Julius Tennon. The pair met on the set of the CBS series, City of Angels in 1999 and were wed in June of 2003. The couple adopted their daughter Genesis in 2011.
In a 2017 interview with People Magazine, Davis discussed the topic of motherhood. In the interview she told the popular entertainment magazine that she adopted Genesis because she “… wanted my life to mean and be something deeper.”
“I wanted my life to mean and be something deeper,” Davis said. “That’s when the urge came, and the urge was just very, very, very, strong. So I have a kid now, and she is just the light of our lives.”
Davis went on to say in the interview that being a parent gave her “a whole new purpose.” However, she also stated that she’s not the PTA mom making brownie deliveries.
“I don’t make the brownies,” the 58-year-old said her prior 2017 interview. “I’m not the brownie-making mother.”
In a follow-up interview with People in 2020, Davis told the magazine the things that she does provide her daughter: plenty of of love, support and encouragement for her daughter to be “her true self”.
“I encourage her to use any source of expression, whether it’s TikTok, painting, taking pictures,” she said at the time. “I said, ‘Anything about yourself, even the things that you don’t think people will love about you, all of it makes up your beauty.’ I don’t want her to grow up with any shame.”
She continued saying that she has made sure that her daughter knows that Davis herself is only human and doesn’t have all of “the answers”.
“[Sometimes] mommy is not going to have the answers. And sometimes you’re not either. I’m not the mom who’s just going to tell her a bunch of lies about life, because I want her to be the best woman in the room.”
Genesis is also a budding actress, wanting to follow in her parents’ footsteps. The teen has already had her big screen debut in The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019), voicing hatchling Vivi. With a mother like Viola Davis, we have no doubt that Genesis’ future is unquestionably bright.
Photo Credit(s)/Featured Image: Viola Davis Instagram
