Nicole Trunfio: ‘Being a housewife is a lot of fun’

RETURNING to work after having her second baby, Nicole Trunfio is appreciative of the support given to working mums. But she believes the negativity around housewives should change.

Nicole Trunfio: “Anger just creates negativity. I don’t want to be angry!” (Pic: Daniel Nadel for Stellar)

ONE moment Nicole Trunfio is posing in front of the camera for her Stellar shoot, and the next she’s standing beside her daughter Gia’s pram, cooing as the wide-eyed six-month-old gazes back at her.

Little Gia will almost certainly never remember this time in Australia, but it’s an entirely different story for 32-year-old Trunfio, who admits she thought her modelling days were done after she became a mother for the second time.

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Back to work. (Pic: Daniel Nadel for Stellar)

“Being a woman with two kids [son Zion is three], you take on that role of family woman,” she tells Stellar. “And I thought people would just see me that way now. But because of the time we’re in, we’re really embracing and empowering women. And it’s great.”

The model came home earlier this month to kick off her run as the face of Melbourne’s Chadstone Shopping Centre, fronting the spring/summer campaign that launches on August 15.

Accepting the role was a no-brainer for Trunfio, who fits the profile of a typical Chadstone shopper — busy mum with kids — and was also provided plenty of flexibility around the trip back home from Texas, where she lives on a ranch with her kids and musician husband Gary Clark Jr.

Trunfio is the face of Melbourne’s Chadstone Shopping Centre. (Pic: Daniel Nadel for Stellar)

“Chadstone has been supportive,” she says, pointing out that Gia needed to be on set with her because she is breastfeeding. “They’ve really embraced me as a working mother.”

Trunfio has long been interested in women’s rights, and says becoming a mum only strengthened her views.

“I have a lot of really powerful women around me who are mothers, own their own businesses and are very successful in their fields,” she says. “It’s a great time to be a woman and to have a voice.”

“It’s a great time to be a woman and to have a voice.” (Pic: Daniel Nadel for Stellar)

Vocal as she is about supporting working mothers, she’s equally as vociferous about the rights of stay-at-home mums.

“Women shouldn’t be pressured into working — it depends on each individual. Being a mother is enough. It’s the most important job in the world, because you’re raising the next generation of humans. It’s become such a negative thing to be a housewife. But being a housewife is actually a lot of fun. Cooking and looking after kids and gardening... it’s beautiful.”

“Women shouldn’t be pressured into working — it depends on each individual.” (Pic: Daniel Nadel for Stellar)

Had she not built a career as a model, Trunfio says she probably would have ventured into law — and for this, she credits her outspoken Italian family.

“We would debate every political issue over the dinner table,” she says. It hasn’t been the same with Clark Jr’s family.

Nicole Trunfio features in this week’s issue of Stellar.

“Different cultures have different [customs] and I really enjoyed learning his. His family don’t just lay everything out on the table; they’re very respectful, very polite. Italians are like ‘Grrrrr!’” She laughs. “[His family] call me free-spirited. It’s because I’m Australian!”

Trunfio is determined to bring her children home more, so they’ll get to know their roots. And while America may be her current home, she has not shut the door on a more permanent return.

“I think we will definitely have a place here [as well as in the States]. My husband really loves Australia — it’s a great place to live and raise children and have a family.”

Living in America in the midst of turbulent social and political upheaval has not been easy, Trunfio admits, but it has helped her to rethink some attitudes.

In the past couple of years, she says, “I started getting really angry. And I was like, ‘This is what it’s meant to make us do.’ Anger just creates negativity. I don’t want to be angry! It’s better if we look for positives — and spread the light, not the darkness.”

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Originally published as Nicole Trunfio: ‘Being a housewife is a lot of fun’