The actress recalls how her parents treated her when she was younger, but says she's still very grateful for them.
- Sep 16, 2016
AceShowbiz - Shailene Woodley doesn't think she grew up in a normal family, but don't worry because she's perfectly fine with it. Speaking to Net-A-Porter, the "Snowden" actress opened up about how having a counselor mother and a psychologist father wasn't always a good thing, and revealed why she's still very thankful for them.
"My family is super f**ked up in many ways," Woodley told the magazine. "But they are also my everything. They would do anything for me, and I would do anything for them. That's a lot more than most people can say about their families. I'm grateful for the s**t that happened."
Woodley then recalled how her parents stopped her and her younger brother Tanner's fights. She said every time she and her brother would argue, their parents would force them to hug each other for hours on their lawn for their neighbors to see.
"The whole time you're just seething, you're disliking this person with so much energy, but if you let go you have to stay there for an extra hour," she explained. "That was the kind of reverse, manipulative psychology my parents were into!"
Woodley said that her parents also refused to stand up for her when she was bullied in school. "And there were times in school, when someone said something really mean. It would hurt my feelings, and my parents weren't on my side. They would be like, 'I'm so sorry you're feeling this way, but what do you think that person was feeling?' " she shared.
"Oh, I hated it," she continued. "Now, of course, I understand; it enabled me to recognize that no one's evil, they're probably hurting and can't express themselves, get no love at home, so it's repeated. It gave me a broader outlook: just put yourself in another person's shoes."
Elsewhere in the interview, Woodley also talked about sex education for women. She told the magazine that the lack of information about masturbation is a real problem for young girls, who should've learned about it in their schools.
"As a young woman you don't learn how to pleasure yourself, you don't learn what an orgasm should be, you don't learn that you should have feelings of satisfaction," she said. "I've always had a dream of making a book called 'There's No Right Way to Masturbate'."
"If masturbation were taught in school, I wonder how [many] fewer people would get herpes aged 16, or pregnant at 14?" she pointed out.
