It's not uncommon to get your kids into sports from a young age - but recently Natalie Portman realized that there's an even bigger meaning to getting your kids involved in sports, and that's them having role models of all different kinds of people.
For Natalie, her son was inspired by US National Women's Soccer Team player, Megan Rapinoe after watching her play. Natalie says she and her 9-year-old son, Aleph Portman-Millepied, got into a conversation about social injustice and the things that Megan has stood up for.
"Megan Rapinoe was one of the first players to show solidarity with Colin Kaepernick and Black Lives Matter... "I was watching her games with my son and it really affected his understanding of the world and inspired him to see things in a certain way," she recalls in a recent PEOPLE article.
Natalie says she became interested in Megan and women's soccer after attending a USWNT game last year. From there, she expanded her interest in the soccer world and was inspired to be a part of the group bringing a women's professional team to Los Angeles.
"I see what an important role sports have in children, in terms of what they spend their time doing and their friendships... [We want to] expand those sports heroes — and those sports modeling behaviors — to have women in those positions, too... To celebrate women at the same level as the way we celebrate male athletes is culture-shifting."
As we learned last week, the professional women's team, which is tentatively called "Angel City" at the time will be coming to LA in 2022. The team is founded by a group of primarily women - including Natalie, venture capitalist Kara Nortman, OUYA founder Julie Uhrman, tennis star Serena Williams *and* her daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., and actresses Uzo Aduba, America Ferrera, Jennifer Garner, Eva Longoria and Lilly Singh.
In addition, more than a dozen former women's soccer players have also invested, including Mia Hamm, Abby Wambach and Lauren Cheney Holiday.
I cannot WAIT for this team to come to LA and be a part of the bigger conversation around women being represented in professional sports. This is major!
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Photo: Getty Images