Sandra Bullock Was ‘Trying Not to Cry’ by Dying Mom’s Bedside – She Raised Her Daughter Heeding Mom’s Advice

• Sandra Bullock lost her mother when she was very young and, as a result, was nervous about raising her daughter.
• Despite her fears, Bullock adopted a daughter and experienced struggles with her.
• Bullock stopped her career so she could be there for her children whenever they needed her.

Sandra Bullock and her mother, Helga, shared a lovely relationship. Helga was a German opera singer who shared some advice with her daughter before she passed away in 2000. The direction changed Bullock’s mind.

Helga and Bullock also had a conversation that made her rethink whether or not she would like to have a daughter. Now that she has a daughter, she is grateful for the advice her mother gave her years before she welcomed her daughter.

Bullock said the thought of having a daughter scared her because her mother had once told her to wait until she had a daughter. Bullock joked:

“And the thought that a daughter of mine would be anything like I was scared me senseless.”

Helga shared advice on her deathbed that changed how she conducted her life from that moment on. Bullock sat at her mother’s bedside and admitted: “Before my mom passed away, we had a moment at her bedside where I was shut down and trying not to cry,”

Helga advised that Bullock not behave as she did as a younger woman. Bullock felt her life with her mother had been explained at that moment as her mother had always been shut down and afraid to feel anything.

Since Helga gave her daughter that advice, she has been feeling everything unapologetically and now feels better about being a mother of a daughter. She joked:

“If Laila gave me what I gave, I’ll know it was all Helga B.’s doing, and she is laughing her ass off. I am fully prepared for that ride.”

Eighteen years after Bullock and Helga had the deathbed conversation, Bullock and her sister, Gesine Bullock-Prado, had to face grief again when their father, John Bullock, passed away.

Prado shared the sad news on Instagram, saying that her father was a baby brother, a WWII veteran, a grandpa, a trickster, and the father of four strong women. Bullock’s late boyfriend, Bryan Randall, also shared a touching tribute to Bullock’s father on Instagram, saying John’s family had surrounded him when he took his last breaths.

Three years before her father passed away, Bullock adopted her daughter, Laila. She was excited to welcome her daughter, yet she experienced some challenging times with Laila when the little girl first came home.

Laila had been in three separate foster care placements by the time she was two and a half years old. When Bullock adopted her in 2015, the actress soon saw how traumatized Laila was by her experiences.

Bullock, who had her children sleeping in the walk-in closet in her bedroom for fear of not being close to them, said she would enter the space where her children were sleeping and could not find Laila.

The actress said her daughter always hid on a bookshelf or amongst the clothes. Laila was also always prepared to leave Bullock’s home. Once, when she told Bullock that she was leaving, the actress reassured her, saying:

“And I’m like, ‘OK, I’m going to be right behind you. So just know that you can leave, but I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.'”

Bullock found it a little amusing when her daughter told her she was leaving as she was “all power” at that moment, but it also showed the actress that she had to establish a new life for her daughter from scratch as she was profoundly traumatized by her upbringing to that point.

Researchers have deduced that at least 20% of abused children experience post-traumatic stress disorder, and Bullock found that Laila was one of them. Bullock experienced her daughter’s triggers daily and even took some of the behavior personally, but she understood that it was all about survival for Laila.

Bullock would often find her daughter hiding food and knew it was her daughter’s survival instinct, causing her to do so. She shared that Laila’s spirit had brought her further in life but that she would always experience triggers.

While Bullock is grateful for her two children and that she became a parent later in life, the journey was not easy. Bullock had to be taught how to parent a child with trauma and complex experiences and was thoroughly evaluated before she was allowed to bring her children home.

Now that she has her children, she knows she was meant to be their mother. She once shared:

“The sweetest part of it is that I found out about both babies when I was in the exact same place — I was in the place where my mother was buried.”

It makes Bullock emotional to talk about how she thinks her mother brought her both her children, but she believes without a doubt that that is the case, and she is grateful for it.

Bullock has considered stepping away from Hollywood twice. The first time was when her career had just begun. After being given a breakout role in 1994’s “Speed,” Helga told her daughter that she didn’t need to get married; she needed to forge her own path in life.

Because of her mother’s advice, Bullock went through life believing that everyone was equal and that she could do anything a man could do. Still, she had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that she was sometimes mistreated because other people were sexist.

Bullock even considered doing something else for a living because it was so difficult for her to think about how she was being treated differently because she was a woman. However, she forged on with her career.

In 2022, Bullock once again talked about leaving Hollywood, saying this time she had decided that she would do so. She didn’t know how long she would be leaving Hollywood but said she wanted to be where she was happiest.

For Bullock, she is happiest when she’s at home with her children. Until his death, Bullock and her boyfriend, Bryan Randall, raised Laila and Louis together, ensuring they always understood and celebrated their African heritage.

An insider said her children’s heritage was celebrated through the shows they watched, the games they played, and the books they read. The insider also noted that Bullock is a hands-on mother who dotes on her children and does everything for them, from cooking and cleaning to bathing them when they were younger. Bullock has not returned to Hollywood since announcing she would take a break.