Debra Messing's Advice for Finding a Work-Life Balance

For Debra Messing, the key to contentment is a satisfactory balance between her professional and personal life. The actress spoke to PopSugar in 2014 about how she manages to juggle acting and life as a single working mother with her own honest tips. "Setting boundaries for yourself and knowing your limitations are important," Messing said. "It took me a long time, but now I have a pretty good idea of how many hours I can work on a TV show and still feel like I'm able to be present when I get home. 

"Also, make sure you have people around you that can give you support and help, whether it's best friends, family members, or a babysitter. It's incredibly hard even when you don't have a job. So, when you have a full-time job on top of that, you just have to be über organized and that was a hard lesson for me to learn."

In 2018, the Will & Grace alum and mom-of-one spoke candidly in an interview with Parents.com about the benefits of having "just one" child. Messing shares son Roman, 14 at the time, with ex-husband Daniel Zelman, whom she separated from in 2011.

Her reprise of the role of Grace Adler for the Will & Grace television revival, which involved her splitting her time between New York City and Los Angeles to film, gave her the opportunity to share her perspective on knowing one's own capacity for child-rearing and having the confidence to stick to it, regardless of the pressure and guilt that may accompany that endeavor. 

"I think that there are certain women who are built to be able to have five, six children and are able to multi-task and handle the sort of innate chaos of having lots and lots of kids," she explained. "I know myself, and I'm not built that way."

Despite the guilt she felt for the siblings her son will never have, she admitted it is a decision she cannot regret. "That is something I have often regretted," she revealed. "But I feel like this is the family I have, and I embrace it and love it and know that there are pros and cons no matter what configuration your family has." 

It enabled Messing to feel fulfilled on a personal level and still fulfill her role as a mom. "What I love about having one is... dealing with pickups at school and after-school activities while you're also a working woman, it is easier with one child versus many children." She said about her work, "I think the greatest challenge of being a mother, period, is just balancing work and family. There's always this wanting to be with my son all the time, and sort of overcoming the guilt of that I think, is a big hurdle."

Messing, too, recognized work is an important part of life and accepted it as such. "Now, I realise and recognise that work does feed me in a very important way that nothing else does, and I do believe I am a better mother when I am working." In addition, she suggested people be gentler with themselves. "It's a matter of recognizing that some hours you're going to feel like you're winning the mother prize, and some hours, you're going to feel like you're not," she said. 

"But that overall, you know, it's a one-day-at-a-time thing, and as long as you're doing your best to try and accomplish balance, then that's all you can really ask of yourself."