Marcia Gay Harden Says Her 3 Queer Kids Inspired Her LGBTQ+ Activism: ‘This Hatred Has to Stop’ (Exclusive)

If Marcia Gay Harden has learned anything as a parent, it’s to give her children room to make mistakes and learn hard lessons.

The Academy Award-winning actress, who currently stars as an uptight lawyer who hires her directionless son in the CBS comedy-drama So help me, Todd, discusses her parenting style in this week’s issue of PEOPLE.

Harden, who shares three children – Eulala, 25, and twins Julitta and Hudson, 19 – with ex-husband Thaddaeus Scheel, says she was a “hands-on” mum when her children were growing up.

“You’d have to ask them what I’m like as a parent. Everyone will say something different. Back in the day they would say ‘strictly’. Everyone would say ‘practically’ and they wouldn’t be wrong,” she says. “I want to be involved in their life. I’m not a helicopter mom. … Never one of those mothers who said, ‘Shouldn’t they get a participation award because they were at the soccer game?’ I don’t like that at all. Make money, but I want the best for them.”

The actress, 64, also says she has learned when to step back as a parent, despite her deep-seated desire to “protect” Eulala, Julitta and Hudson.

Marcia Gay Harden with Eulala and twins Julitta and Hudson.

Marcia Gay Harden/nstagram

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“I often want to catch my kids and protect my kids and not let them learn those hard lessons because they hurt and you don’t want them to get hurt,” Harden explains. “I just have to step back and say, ‘This is yours. This is yours now and it hurts, but I know you know what to do. You have it in you to know what you need to do and you can do it.’”

During Withdrawal is not dangerous telethon in May 2023, she shared that “all my kids are queer”: Eulala identifies as non-binary, Hudson identifies as gay, and Julitta is fluid. Her knowledge and experience in raising them is what drives her as an LGBTQ+ activist, which Harden “always will be,” she tells PEOPLE.

This is despite the hate mail she received after her appearance on the telethon, some of which accused her of “grooming” her children. “I got so much hate mail and so much about how I groom my kids and all this, that, and the other,” she recalls. “The answer of each of [my kids] he was, ‘Work, Mom. It works, mom. You’re doing something good if that’s happening.'”

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Regardless, Harden says that “having a baby is literally going to be the biggest master class anyone will ever have.”

“And probably in love, and the ability to love,” she continues. “I’ve learned to accept each of them for the beauty that they are and let go of expectations. I’ve learned that at the end of the day, it’s their life. It’s their life. I want them to be happy in it.”

Marcia Gay Harden at the ‘Drag Isn’t Dangerous’ Telethon in May 2023 in Los Angeles, California. Araya Doheny/Getty Marcia Gay Harden’s teenage son gets his red carpet ready in a new makeup tutorial

“I learned a lot about gender nonconformity, and I learned a lot about what I already understood in my life, even in high school, my first boyfriend was gay and he was too afraid to come out until later,” she says, adding, ” I had already learned a lot about the gay community, but at that time we talked more about the gay community than the queer community. And I think now kids are talking a lot about the queer community, and it’s much broader. It’s much more gender non-conforming. It is actually much more comprehensive. … I learn about it every day from all the kids.”

Now, as her children move into adulthood, Harden hopes the world will appreciate them and their talent.

“They are all artists at some level. I want people to see that talent, but they all also have incredible humanity,” she says. “I’m not a mother who thinks, ‘Oh, my kids are geniuses.’ They’re not geniuses, but they’re all very gifted at what they do, and I love when I feel like they’re seen… I really support what they want to do and who they are.”

For more on Marcia Gay Harden, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe here.

2nd season So help me, Todd airs Thursdays at 9pm ET on CBS.

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