As a divorced working mother of two, Mayim Bialik has a lot to juggle every day. But considering her day job is starring on a hit TV show, she knows she's luckier than most.
"Even though I'm divorced, I'm very grateful to my son's father for being an incredible present parent," the Big Bang Theory star, who's nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for performance by a female actor in a TV series, told E! News at the 20th SAG Awards Preview Day.
"He's home with them when I'm at work and he's their full-time dad when I'm not with them, so that's how I do it," Bialik said of ex-husband Michael Stone, whom she divorced last May. "We don't use a nanny and I clean my own toilets, famously, and I make my own food and have a very kind of simple life that way.
"There's no magic," added the UCLA grad, who also blogs about motherhood and parenting and has at times attracted criticism for her views on attachment parenting, breastfeeding and other child-care philosophies she imparts.
"They have their father taking care of them and that's how our life works," Bialik continued. "But I have tremendous respect for moms who are juggling daycare, two parents working and all that stuff. I don't know how I would do that.
"It's incredibly difficult, and I appreciate that I'm a public person and people say, ‘Oh, you balance it well,' but there are women who balance a lot more than I do with a lot more grace and a lot less resources. So I try not to say, ‘I've figured it all out!' because I have a lot of support and there are women who don't."
As for her sons, Miles, 8, and Frederick, 5, she said that they mainly just know her as Mommy, though Miles' "understanding of acting is evolving."
"I'm still just mom to them, and I think that's the most important thing, that they not see me like this," she said, referencing the red carpet around her, "that they see me and respect me and love me as their flawed, imperfect mother."
Their flawed, imperfect mother with a handful of SAG nominations under her belt, that is!
If she should emerge victorious on Saturday, "I'm assuming my ex will explain to our kids that I won something and they'll want to have a conversation with me about it. But," Bialik added, "I think that my life will return very quickly to the way it was and I'll get back into my pajamas and go to sleep."
Watch the clip to hear Mayim talk about who she's bringing as her date to the Screen Actors Guild Awards this Saturday!