Emma Grede Responds to Recent Backlash Over Her Comments About Being a 'Three-Hour Mom' on Weekends

The SKIMS co-founder is a mom to four children, whom she shares with husband Jens Grede

NEED TO KNOW

• Emma Grede addressed backlash over her comments about spending three hours a day with her kids during her appearance on Today with Jenna and Sheinelle
• The SKIMS co-founder said women face unfair standards as both parents and business leaders
• Grede emphasized the importance of honesty in balancing work, parenting and setting boundaries

Emma Grede is addressing her comments about spending three hours with her kids on weekends.

During her appearance on Today with Jenna and Sheinelle, the SKIMS co-founder, 43, candidly opened up about the backlash she's received after saying she's with her kids for three hours on weekends during an interview with the Wall Street Journal. When co-host Sheinelle Jones asked if she was "caught off guard" by the response, Grede, who's a mom of four, shared that she wasn't because it's something that "happens to women."

“Well, you know I just think that headline would never be written about a man," she began, before continuing. "But, no. Was I caught off guard? Absolutely not because I think that's what happens to women."

"We are held to such an impossible standard both as parents but also as business women, and what I'm trying to do is be really honest about what it takes and be really honest about the things that I don't do," she explained.

"Everybody says, ‘How do you do it all? How do you wake up at 5 and run the companies?' And, I'm like, let's give a list of all the things that I don't do because you know what's helpful? That's what's helpful to women."

The Good American co-founder went on to share the reality of being a working mom, explaining that is what she was trying to convey when she made her comment.

"The honest truth is, and what I was trying to convey, when you go to work every day, Monday through Friday, you are spent by the time it gets to the weekend, and anyone who has children, you know that you don't spend eight hours [with them] on a Saturday and Sunday," she said. "You have errands to run, [and] things to do."

Co-host Jenna Bush Hager added that it's also important for kids to "be alone," and Grede agreed, acknowledging that that's "part of being a parent."

"We are teaching our kids how to be independent and god forbid how to entertain themselves," she said. "So, I'm a friend of the iPad, a friend of a little movie every now and again. I am just being really, really upfront about it."

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Back in 2024, Grede spoke to PEOPLE about balancing being a businesswoman and a working mom. To reach her level of success, she said it was imperative to figure out her boundaries when it came to balancing her working life and raising her four children: Grey, Lola, and twins Lake and Rafferty.

"I have a 10-year-old, an 8-year-old and twin two-year-olds," she said at the time. "I'd like to be honest about that, because I think as a working mother, again, it's back down to this idea of like, well, where are my boundaries? What am I willing to give up on? And what's a non-negotiable?"

She continued, "I don't do pick up and drop off every single day. But if my kid's in a play, I'm going to see my kid in the play. It's not cookie-cutter, it's different for every person. I think what we have to do is normalize the idea that you're not going to have everything. Perfection is only something that exists on Instagram."

Elsewhere in the interview, she shut down the notion that women have to be super-moms.

"I don't know about you, but the way I was raised, no one was cutting my sandwiches into fun shapes!" Grede said with a laugh. "I think that we can take our cues from our own childhoods and remember that we were all alright. Our kids don't need us that much. They need us to love them and guide them but we shouldn't be carrying them through every moment and every hardship. That's not helpful."

"If we try to do that, it leaves women with very little time to do anything else," she added. "And I feel like I just watched so many of my friends turn themselves inside out once they became moms."