Mary-Louise Parker's 2 Children: All About William Atticus and Caroline 'Ash' Aberash

Mary-Louise Parker is a mom to a son and daughter

Mary-Louise Parker calls being a mom to her children — son William Atticus Parker and daughter Caroline “Ash” Aberash Parker — the “best thing” that’s ever happened to her.

“I’ll be the first to admit that it can be very hard to raise two kids, but I absolutely love it,” Mary-Louise told PEOPLE in 2009. “I can’t imagine what my life would be without my children.”

The Weeds alum shares William with her former boyfriend Billy Crudup, whom she split from prior to their son’s birth in 2004. Several years later, Mary-Louise welcomed her daughter Caroline through adoption, fulfilling a childhood dream.

“It was something I did for the world and for my son and then for me,” the Tony winner told PEOPLE about expanding her family. “And when I say the world, I also mean my daughter. Once I knew her, she became part of that.”

Motherhood has made the award-winning actress more patient. “They really put you in touch on how little you know and how little you are capable of and much you are capable of,” she explained. “They are very humbling, children. I am more patient now. I’ve become much more patient.”

Although “it’s hard raising two kids as a single person,” Mary-Louise has said that sometimes she just looks at her children and thinks, “You are the two coolest people I have ever met.”

Here's everything to know about Mary-Louise Parker’s children: William and Ash.

William Atticus Parker, 20

Mary-Louise and Crudup welcomed their first and only child together, William Atticus Parker, on Jan. 7, 2004.

They named their son after his father, while William's middle name is said to be a nod to Atticus Finch from the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. "I just want him to be happy and kind, that's why I gave him that middle name," Parker told the Daily Mail in 2007.

In the beginning, Mary-Louise told the outlet that she “kind of killed” herself looking after her son because she did not want to leave him.

She explained to the Daily Mail, “I wanted to be the one there with him whenever I wasn't working. "So I never went out, never went to the gym — I didn't want him to be picked up in the middle of the night by someone who was paid to pick him up.”

Before William became a big brother, Mary-Louise told PEOPLE she spoke with her son about adoption to help him understand the process. When the time came to meet his sister, Caroline, he was ecstatic.

“You’ve never seen anyone more excited — never ever," Mary-Louise said in 2009, adding that he's protective of his sibling.

The actress also shared a sweet moment with her son that occured prior to her attending the benefit for the Worldwide Orphans Foundation that year, explaining that William went to her trailer and said, “'Where are you going, my beauty?' I hear that, and I don’t really need anything thing else,” Mary-Louise said.

Related: All About Billy Crudup and Mary-Louise Parker's Son William Atticus Parker

William has appeared in several TV movies and shows over the years alongside his mom, including Christmas in Conway (2013) and in the series Mr. Mercedes and Colin in Black & White.

Not only that, but he has also starred in two feature films: Forty Winks (2022) and Atrabilious (2023) which he directed himself. Speaking to the Utah International Film Festival in 2022, William talked about working on Forty Winks — which starred his godmother Susan Sarandon, as well as Justin Marcel McManus, Carmen Ejogo and John Turturro — as a 17-year-old.

"It was entirely self funded and I had no producers to help out during the production. Therefore I had to take a lot on at seventeen, which was just a leap of faith for myself if anything," he said.

During the same interview, he also discussed Atrabilious, describing it as "a cautionary tale about grief. The film is part magical realism, part dark comedy, and part psychological thriller." The movie is currently in post-production, according to Deadline, and has a cast that includes  Whoopi Goldberg, Alec Baldwin and Jeffrey Wright.

More recently, William appeared in 2024's Netflix movie, Woody Woodpecker Goes to Camp and attended his father Billy's and his wife Naomi Watts' vow renewal ceremony in Mexico City in June 2024. In photos from the ceremony shared by actor Justin Theroux, William could be seen walking down the aisle with his father.

Meanwhile, his mom is set to star in his upcoming movie, The Auction, as reported by Deadline in July 2024. William described the film to the outlet as “a workplace drama with elements of fantasy and horror." Per Deadline, William's new movie is loosely based on Agatha Christie’s mystery novel "And Then There Were None."

On his Instagram in July, the actor and director — who has his own production company River Styx Productions — posted a screenshot of the article and wrote, "so excited for this one. welcome to your new office space. 🛗," alongside it.

Caroline “Ash” Aberash Parker, 17

Mary-Louise welcomed her daughter, Caroline "Ash" Aberash Parker, in 2007 via adoption, the Emmy winner’s reps confirmed exclusively to PEOPLE at the time.

The following year, the actress opened up about her decision. "I can’t adopt 500 children, but I did adopt this one beautiful little girl and it was an amazing thing,” Mary-Louise said at the New Yorker Festival in 2008.

Over the years, she's shared updates about her second child.

“She says, ‘I love you, Mommy’ and asks, ‘Do you love me so much?,' " she told PEOPLE in October 2009. “[Ash] has a little bit of a speech delay; Amharic was her first language she heard," she added, sharing more of her daughter's Ethiopian roots.

"But she’s really indomitable. She’s really strong and she’s like a little warrior. She’s really amazing,” Mary-Louise continued.

The actress had previously described her daughter as “really tough” and “really girlie" in July 2009, just ahead of Ash's third birthday.

She shared at the time that Ash, “can hurt herself and then get up and dust herself off. But at the same time, she’s really girlie. For her, it’s all about purses and panties and sunglasses. She has a massive ‘fro that she loves to put flowers in.”

When Mary-Louise was working on her 2015 memoir Dear Mr. You, Ash adorably tried to help her.

In an interview with Salon, the Golden Globe-winning actress revealed that she showed her daughter the word count as she wrote. After Mary-Louise told Ash that she would need a lot of words to complete her book, the actress continued typing away and her child left the room to figure out a solution.

"An hour later, she came in. She had pieces of white paper and said, ‘I brought some words for you, mommy.’ It was the sweetest," Mary-Louise recalled.

A few years later, Ash and her older brother were by their mom’s side at the opening night of her Broadway show, The Sound Inside in 2019, and when the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the U.S. the following year, Mary-Louise tried to be creative for her kids.

She told PEOPLE, "We put on plays, my kids and I, and we did [it] with their friends in other places and tried to write things and just connect in whatever way."

Mary-Louise also gave a little insight into ways she and Ash are similar in an interview with The Bare Magazine in 2020. Revealing that she always encourages friends to remove their makeup no matter the late hour, she added that, "Now my daughter is the same way, and she’s like me in that she loves makeup but doesn’t wear a lot of it," Mary-Louise told the outlet.

She then shared a skincare tip that led to a loving shout-out to her daughter, saying, "Sunscreen I wear when it rains. I wear it every day. My mom never went in the sun. She and my sister are completely natural and to me, the most beautiful women on earth, along with my daughter of course!"

Elsewhere she spoke about how Ash and her older brother had lent her a hand when she created a homemade video for skincare brand OGEE during the pandemic.

"I thought of everything as an opportunity for creativity, where I could involve my kids. My son is a magician so he did all the fun stuff in the video and my daughter helped me choose what to wear," Mary-Louise told The Bare Magazine.

According to Deadline, Ash is set to write and compose an original song for her older brother's upcoming movie, The Auction, which will also star the siblings' mom.

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