Tracee Ellis Ross has said she wishes she had known there were other choices than being married with children when she was younger.
Tracee Ellis Ross: I wish I had known marriage and children wasn’t only choice
The Black-ish star, who is the daughter of Diana Ross, said it has made her passionate about the way unmarried women without children are represented in popular culture.
She told digital magazine Porter: "It's one of the reasons I feel so strongly about telling the stories that I tell. I wish I had known there were other choices, not just about how I could be living, but how I could feel about the way my life was.
"I was raised by society to dream of my wedding, but I wish I had been dreaming of my life.
"There are so many ways to curate happiness, find love and create a family and we don't talk about them. It creates so much shame and judgment."
The actress, 47, added there are also misinterpretations of what it means to be happily single, saying: "People misinterpret being happily single as not wanting to be in a relationship.
"Of course I want to be in a relationship but what am I going to do? Spend all the time that I'm not [in one] moping around? No. I'm going to live my life to the fullest and I'm going to be happy right here, where I am."
She also spoke about confronting her biggest fear of singing on screen in her new film The High Note, in which she plays a superstar diva.
She said: "It's been my biggest dream and my most daunting fear to sing. But when you have a mother who is epic in that way, somehow secretly inside, you think, 'that's not the thing to do, pick something else'.
"Nobody knew if I could sing or not.…This was life changing for me. To face one of your biggest fears and to face it in such a public way."