Why Jordana Brewster Says Surrogacy Has Made Motherhood 'More Challenging' as Her Boys Get Older

Jordana Brewster couldn’t be more thankful for her boys — and the way they came into her life.

The Fast and the Furious actress, 39, is the 2020 spring/summer cover star for NewBeauty magazine, and opens up in the accompanying interview about everything from her career to her upcoming 40th birthday and welcoming sons Rowan, now 3½, and Julian, now 6½, via surrogate.

“If the only way you can have a baby, go for it,” Brewster advises other parents-to-be in a similar situation as she was. “When I found out I had to have my children that way, I kind of powered through.”

It doesn’t mean parenting has been a cake walk every day since, though. As the star explains, “As my kids get a little older, strangely enough, it’s actually become more challenging — in terms of explaining to them and framing it in a way they can totally understand.”

“I’m so lucky that it was an option and it was available to me because otherwise I wouldn’t have my two beautiful boys,” Brewster adds. “I love them more than anything.”

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Another hurdle has been the balance of her career and motherhood, which a comment from her nanny recently really made her think about.

“Two days ago, she said something like, ‘Oh, that’s a long time to be away from the kids. You’ve had to do a movie for six weeks,’ ” Brewster tells NewBeauty. “That stuck with me for 48 hours.”

“I had to ask her, ‘What did you mean by that? I need to work. My husband needs to work. And you don’t say that to my husband.’ We kind of had to process it and have a mini-therapy session,” she recalls.

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“I internalized it, and I felt really bad,” continues the former As the World Turns actress. “This whole work-family thing is a process.”

As she approaches a milestone birthday, Brewster has no qualms about getting older. In fact, she looks to actresses like Gwyneth Paltrow and Sandra Bullock for inspiration — women “who are older than me who are absolutely killing it” in Hollywood.

“In the past, it might have felt like, ‘Oh no, my career is going to suffer,’ but I don’t feel that way now,” she says in the issue, which celebrates skincare. “It’s better than the alternative. I would rather celebrate the fact that I’m going to be 40, instead of worrying about it. I’m actually really excited.”