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Sienna Miller Is Done With The Double Standards Around Motherhood In Your 40s

Sienna Miller is not here for your outdated opinions on motherhood - and honestly, who can blame her?
Sienna Miller and Oli Green. Image: Getty

At 42, the actor and style icon is navigating the early stages of parenting for the second time. She gave birth to a baby girl in late 2023 with her partner, actor Oli Green. Their daughter joins 12-year-old Marlowe, Sienna’s first child with ex Tom Sturridge. The two girls were born more than a decade apart – and the decision to expand her family in her 40s has ignited a cultural conversation Sienna is more than ready to confront.

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A New Chapter, Not a Deadline

“I think there’s a whole load of noise and people have a lot to say,” she said in a recent ELLE UK interview. “It’s incredibly gendered and unbelievably misogynistic and anti-feminist.”

She’s not wrong. Women who choose to have children later in life are often met with scrutiny, concern, or patronising commentary – even when they’re as financially secure, emotionally grounded, and physically capable as Sienna Miller. Meanwhile, men fathering children well into their 70s and 80s are treated like curious novelties or triumphant outliers.

Sienna Miller
Sienna Miller. Image: Getty

“No one has anything to say about – and I love these people, and they’re friends, which I like to name-drop – Al Pacino and Robert De Niro having kids in their 80s,” she pointed out. “Forget about your age! It’s irrelevant. It’s absolutely irrelevant.”

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The Gendered Double Standard In Parenting

This isn’t just about Sienna. It’s about the broader societal tendency to judge women for making empowered choices about their bodies, their relationships, and their timelines. When a woman in her 40s has a baby, she’s often asked if she’s “too old.” But when a man in his 80s does the same, he’s still considered virile, powerful – even admirable. It’s a double standard that reeks of outdated gender roles and biological fear-mongering.

Sienna has always danced to the beat of her own drum. A darling of early 2000s British fashion, she’s spent her career oscillating between Hollywood glitz and independent cool, balancing public scrutiny with a fiercely private core. But in recent years, she’s stepped into a new kind of power – one defined not by red carpets or tabloids, but by clarity. And perhaps nothing reflects that more than her relationship with Oli Green, who is 14 years her junior.

“There is a difference in the way that generation of men respect women,” she told Harper’s Bazaar UK in 2023, calling Oli “very wise and well-adjusted.” “They have grown up with a slightly more level playing field.”

Sienna Miller and Oli Green
Sienna Miller and Oli Green. Image: Getty
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It’s telling that while headlines obsessed over their age gap, Sienna was more interested in how emotional intelligence and shared values mattered more than the numbers on their passports. Like her views on motherhood, it comes back to freedom – the freedom to shape your life outside of society’s tight, antiquated moulds.

She’s been open about freezing her eggs at 40, a decision she described as hopeful, not desperate. “If it happens, it happens,” she said at the time – and, beautifully, it did.

The message is clear: women are not on anyone’s timeline but their own. Whether it’s falling in love, having a baby, or starting over, there’s no deadline on joy – and certainly no expiration date on motherhood.

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