Dascha Polanco poses for rare photo with her children – talks past struggles with motherhood

Being a mom is  Dascha Polanco ’s first job. However, it hasn’t always been easy. The Orange is the New Black star got deeply personal about her journey through motherhood, and raising her daughter Dasany, 18 and 11-year-old son, Aryam. “Of course there were certain things I could’ve done differently,” she told Parents Latina. “I would’ve put my daughter in sports or sent her way to camp. But I was on food stamps and those things weren’t financially available to me at the time.”

© Timothy Smith

Prior to getting her big break on the screen, the In the Heights star balanced life as a young mother on top of going to school and working full-time. After years of doing it on her own, after the passing of her own mother – the 37-year-old realized that it’s time to let go of all of her past mistakes and grow as a mother.

“I constantly have to remind myself to let that go. It’s getting easier every day. I set boundaries. I allow myself to be vulnerable. I’m able to apologize. I’m able to say ‘We don’t do that in this house’ or ‘I’m your mother, not your friend,’” she said.

© @sheisdash

Dascha has also taken her own lessons and channeled them into helping her daughter’s friends. The actress shared that she has become the resident mother to her daughter’s friends and she has one very important message for them. She shared, “All of her friends have come to my house, and I make them cry! They have issues with their own mothers, and I tell them, ‘You need to appreciate your mom, because she is the only one who will always be there for you.’”

In the end, it’s all about being the best mother she can be to her son and daughter. “I’m going to continue to work as a mother and grow as a mother,” she said. “I’m going to kill it as a mother, and I’m going to be a sexy-ass mami too. I’m going to be true to me.”

And to be that guiding light for her kids, the Dominican star has said it starts with being the best version of herself. In 2019,  she told HOLA! USA : “We must know that we have to just take that moment and really prioritize and know that you are the foundation before anything.”