Rita Wilson is opening up about being a working mom. During a recent interview with People, Wilson discussed what it was like balancing her career with her husband, Tom Hanks’, while also trying to raise her children. Wilson shares two sons, Chet and Truman, with Hanks and is also a stepmom to his two older children, Colin and Elizabeth, whom he shares with ex-wife Samantha Lewes.

“I slowed down my work because I really wanted to be the mom that was there when they got home, drove the carpool and did all those things,” Wilson said. “Tom was also working a lot, so we would travel with him. If both of us were working and not at home, my kids would have been affected. I wouldn’t call slowing down my career a sacrifice; I would call it a choice.”

Both her and Hanks’ careers were just beginning to take off when they married in 1988, the same year his breakthrough role in the movie “Big” hit the big screen. At the time, Wilson had just started to make her way into the film industry in movies like “Sleepless in Seatle” and “That Thing You Do!”

She decided to put her career on the back burner after her son Chet was born in 1990, taking on fewer roles as Hanks’ career continued to flourish to ensure there was always someone home with the kids. While it’s easy to assume his success would bother her, she says that was never the case.

“Tom and I have always been supportive of each other and what we do,” she explained. “I remember doing press junkets back in the day, and interviewers would say to me, ‘Gosh, it must be so difficult to be with someone so famous.’ I would think, ‘Why are they saying that?’ Then I realized that the question was more about them and how they would feel in that situation than me.”

Hanks has been a hugely successful actor since the two got married, but Wilson explains she lives “in the freudenfreude,” saying it means “somebody else’s success does not diminish my own.” She can be happy for her husband’s success and acknowledge her own.

Although her children are all grown up now, Wilson confirms a mother’s job is never over, saying when “Marc Forster, the director of ‘A Man Called Otto” asked to meet with her son Truman, her mom instincts kicked in, and she had to ignore them and let her son figure things out.

“I really stayed out of that process because I didn’t want to influence it at all,” she explained. “It’s a director’s decision, and I certainly didn’t want to create any discomfort for my own son, like, ‘Mom, why are you pressuring me to do this?’ So staying out of it was a choice, but I’m proud of him for doing it.”

While she initially thought he wouldn’t want to act in the film, as he was going to school to be a cinematographer, Truman stars in the movie as the younger version of his dad’s character.

Wilson eventually made her return to acting, starring in “Now and Then,” “Runaway Bride,” “Old Dogs,” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2,” she has since shifted her focus towards producing and singing. She produced “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and “Mamma Mia” and released her first album, “AM/FM,” in 2012 after Bruce Springsteen inspired her to start songwriting.