Kim Raver Thankful for Her Support System

Being a working mother requires a difficult balancing act, but thanks to her own mom, Kim Raver knows how to handle it! As a single mom that worked full time, Tina Raver taught Kim that “it’s the quality of time you spend with your kids that matters.” Although she logs long hours on set, Kim knows when she comes home, sons Luke West, 6 ½, and Leo Kipling, 19 months, are all that matter. Additionally, a strong support system — in the form of husband Manu Boyer and her extended family — make a difference as well. “My husband, Manu, is amazing with the kids. Just from the day they were born, he jumped right in and he was changing diapers. And if we’re both working, I have my sister, my mom, my stepdad — I’m so lucky to have all of them living in New York.” Lucky enough to receive “great support at work,” the actress worked through both her pregnancies. Appearing on the television drama Third Watch when she became pregnant with Luke, the show was “incredibly physical” and required her to lift gurneys, among other things. Thankfully, “I had an amazing producer, who knows the value of family and found ways to make it work,” she recalls. “Luckily, I was wearing a big paramedic coat, so I was pregnant until the last minute of shooting and then we were on hiatus.” While expecting Leo, Kim was part of NBC’s Lipstick Jungle and found them to be just as supportive as her previous show. “Being in sample size clothing with a big belly was an interesting, tricky thing,” remembers Kim. “But I’ve never seen a group of people rally behind me and support me as much as our executive producer and everyone on that set. Not only during my pregnancy, but afterwards when I was nursing for 10 months.” Even though everyone was supportive of Kim, she admits that working motherhood is “a real juggling act.” “I had a nursery on the set, so I had my children with me during the day,” she admits. “But it’s tricky managing 10 pages of dialogue, costume changes and then feeling stress because you want to be the parent and also do your job really well. So you learn to multitask and get things done in a shorter period of time.” To that end, Kim figured out a schedule that worked for her. “I would memorize my lines on the way to work and get my emails done while I was in hair and makeup so I could go spend time with the kids,” she explains. “It’s a tough schedule; if I had to be up at 4 a.m., I’d go to sleep at 7 p.m. And I learned to sacrifice some things like watching TV. I wasn’t doing much for myself.” Making sure she is the one caring for her sons — “I love the little things like feeding them, bathing them and reading them stories” – is important to Kim, 40 — even when they’re making messes! On a recent flight with her boys and their babysitter, Leo became ill. “He was throwing up all over me and, even though I had help, I was the one who was caring for my child,” Kim notes. “I’m not the type of mom who’s going to hand over my kid and have someone else clean him up. It’s really important to me that I’m there to take care of them and make sure the bumps and bruises are okay or make sure their sunscreen is slathered on during the summer.”