Ryan Gosling has two daughters with Eva Mendes, Esmeralda Amada, eight, and Amada Lee, seven. Ryan and Eva have always been pretty private about their relationship and family life. Although you can find the occasional paparazzi shot online, they don’t post pictures of their girls to social media and they’ve never really done the pap stroll to put them on display. However, they do give the occasional interview to share some insight on their home life.
Eva and Ryan have said in past interviews that they don’t have a nanny and are very hands-on parents, so it’s not a surprise that they have a tight family unit. According to a new exclusive with People, Ryan is a fun, goofy dad. They’re everything. He’s just Goofy Dad? Yep, I’ll stop myself here.
Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes are soaking up quality time with their girls.
The pair “very much enjoy family time” with daughters Esmeralda Amada, 8, and Amada Lee, 7, a source tells PEOPLE, adding that they’re “hands-on parents and have little help.”
“When they are not working, they are all about their girls,” the source continues. “Ryan is such a fun dad. He is goofy and his girls love it.”
“He takes them out by himself for various activities. As a family, they enjoy visiting the desert and the beach. They are a very active family. Eva and Ryan seem happy. They tend to be flirty and hold hands. It’s cute.”
Last week, Mendes, 49, revealed on Instagram that her household has specific rules when it comes to social media. On a video of herself shaking her head and fingers in disapproval, she captioned the post “When my kids ask me if they’re old enough to go on the internet, social media or anything requiring wifi ??.”
After sharing the post, Mendes took time to respond to social media users who weighed in on her parenting style. “I’m just sharing what I feel now, but I know it’s gonna get harder as they get older,” the mother of two wrote regarding the topic.
“We are in the internet century so eventually everyone will need or want to access the internet sorry,” a commenter claimed, prompting Mendes to add, “Yes true, but in my house, children do not have access to the internet. It’s too dangerous. Just like drinking or voting or getting a driver’s license (etc..) isn’t allowed for children, the internet falls under that category for me. Especially social media.”
While preparing to play Ken in the Barbie movie, Gosling, 42, revealed that his kids weren’t quite sure why he wanted the part. Speaking to PEOPLE exclusively before the premiere, the actor said that “My kids were my introduction to [Barbie].”
“I think they’re confused as to why I would want to play Ken. They have no use for Ken.”
He went on to share that his daughters also helped him prepare for a scene that required an extra amount of work.“My kids were around for the months at home, as I was prepping for it,” he told PEOPLE. “So they, inadvertently, were prepping for it too.”
“And they came to set that day and were a huge sense of support and doing it with me off-camera,” Gosling concluded.
First off, kudos to Eva and Ryan for not letting their kids use social media. Like Eva noted, it’s hard to do, especially as kids get older and see their friends at school doing it. There are kids in my son’s fourth grade class that have cell phones, so he asks us on the regular when he can get one. Social media is a hard “nope” for us, but I’m always curious what other parents are doing about the phone issue.
Anyway, I can TOTALLY believe that Ryan Gosling is a fun dad. He gives off goofy dad vibes. In my head canon, he makes lots of dad jokes and does silly impressions to make his girls laugh. He probably summoned those vibes to play Ken. I mean, he DID say that his kids helped him prep for the role. Nobody sells “dojo mojo casa house” so perfectly without having previously wielded their way around a dad joke or two!
Photos credit: Avalon.red, Getty and via Instagram
Same on social media- but it’s hard! We managed to circumvent the phone issue by getting my 12yo a smart watch with cellular so they can keep up with friends, call us if necessary etc, but no scrolling/time suck apps. It’s worked ok so far but we’ll see.
We did this as well, but I hear about a phone at least 3x a week. I’ve joined forces with 2 other moms to hold out until 14 but it’s so ubiquitous in middle school.
There are many studies about the detrimental effects of phone usage on body image, sleep, depression, anxiety, etc etc. For boys, 14 is considered the best/least impactful age to receive a phone so that’s what I’m targeting.
I won’t allow social media for my 12 year old but was forced to get him a phone during my divorce and I really regret it. I’ve tried installing content controls and deleting apps like YouTube but it’s a constant struggle / he’ll find a way around it or watch on a browser. It’s causes more headaches than it’s worth.
I really didn’t get this couple when they first started dating but they have really built a private family life for themselves so kudos to them. Restricting internet must also help to keep their life private and normal.
I would be beyond terrified to have kids and have to navigate the internet. Bless you all.
I was recently at a location where Barbie was filmed and a guy that did security there said Ryan and Eva were an absolute unit, super funny together and very in love. He raved about them! Was lovely to hear.
True story I have a friend that works with high profile passengers for AirFrance and has seen a lot of celebrities. I asked who was the most surprising star to see up close and she said Eva Mendes because pictures don’t do her justice. She said she was absolutely stunning and quite low key irl.
We got our oldest daughter a phone when she was 13 because she has a lot of anxiety and needed to be able to call us. Our youngest daughter got her phone for Christmas four months before she turned 14. They are 17 and 15 now and although our 17 year has her own social media we monitor it and our 15 year old had to give us all the passwords and her email is linked to mine so we have complete access. When we found out she had a secondary Instagram account we took her phone, she has since learned her lesson that all social media activity will be heavily monitored
I think 13 is a reasonable age, especially in your situation. Their girls are quite a bit younger than that.
Kind of unrelated but I was watching Hitch over the weekend. Besides having the kind of beauty that could stop traffic, Eva Mendes has such charisma and charm. I know she’s loving being a mommy and props to her for that but, selfishly, I’d love to see her back on film! Maybe a juicy supporting role in a prestige TV drama?
I dislike social media for kids and I really dislike how many organizations for kids only communicate through those platforms or other apps forcing kids to have a phone and join or miss out.
Maybe having grown up with it, the next generation will figure out a way to do better by their kids.
I appreciate how much this post and others are sparking us to talk about social media use and kids. It’s not as though there aren’t reams of literature on the challenges of raising children in full-on ‘social’ age. But I find that with mums in my network, it can feel overwhelming and like you are always making the wrong move – as a result, you are anxious about talking about it, for fear of judgement. So any time the topic comes up in this way, I find it can be helpful – taking the pressure off a particular parent from raising it as a personal anecdote.
My babe is 12 and took the Red Cross baby sitting course and her first level CPR/First Aid this year, so she started babysitting, and is so good at it! It has been building her confidence, and her bank account…but she does have to have a mobile. I genuinely don’t know anyone who has a landline anymore, so it’s essential for safety for her and the kids she watches. She started taking the bus or riding her bike to middle school with her friends this year as well. So the mobile? Yes. But it’s a non starter for social media for me. This age is so ridiculously tough – the middle school age is what I swear we all still have school-themed nightmares about, lol. And I may think my kid is super smart – but she’s a child. And they have absolutely terrible critical decision making skills and poor boundaries. And that takes a lot of my care and attention right now.
But I know quite a few families whose under-16/18s are on social media regularly. They are great parents – and we fundamentally disagree – but they are still great parents with great kids. So my focus has been talking her through the fact that some of her friends are on social media and some aren’t and minimizing it as a focus. In the meantime, building up her connectivity over time so that she is as educated as possible about technology and social media as she ages.
And then, like all parents, I just hope that however I approached it, she’s healthy and safe.
I love that Gosling and Mendes don’t put their kids on her social media account. I don’t *hate* it when celebs do that, but I feel a pang for the kids — these are minors who can’t weigh in on whether or not they want to be in the public eye yet. I read that when Gosling is shooting on location, the family travels with him — they stay together. That seems sane and probably helps keep *him* sane. I wish Mendes would work more but I have a feeling she’s given up on acting so she can be with the kids and support Gosling’s career. I know she has her own career — her company sells fancy sponges — but she can do that wherever they’re based, rather than try to make it work with two actors needing to travel all over the world for shoots. I bet that’s why she’s no longer in the Fast & Furious franchise. They shoot everywhere. But I do miss seeing her on screen.
A really interesting option I’ve heard from friends of friends is giving kids a cellular enabled smart watch. That way they have access to necessary communication, but it largely keeps them off the stuff parents want to keep their kids away from.