Sarah Jessica Parker Channels Her Movie Characters

Channeling Gwyneth Paltrow and other "hands-on" celebs with children, Sarah Jessica Parker tells Vogue magazine she is just like any normal busy career mom. We don't have any live-in help. We're pretty hands-on parents. That's something that's important to both of us, and we don't shirk it.

Her streaked hair brushed back in a sexy librarian bun. A black leather rope belt tied in a loose school-girl bow accentuates her Scarlett O'Hara waist.But it's her flawless face (sans signature mole, which she had removed a few years ago) and perfect white peppermint gum teeth that really pop. The 46-year-old's image was undoubtedly Photoshopped, an irony considering the issue's focus is on aging.

The magazine has featured her face and fashion friendly figure to sell copies six times before, including another age issue cover in 2003. Some critics have noted the magazine relies too much on Parker, Paltrow and other celebrity staples and should branch out more with millennial actresses like Emma Stone and Dakota Fanning. A cynical commenter to a New York magazine article called Vogue's cliche cover choices, "Uninspiring . . . repetitive Hollywood stars blabbing about their 'busy lives while handling family. For Parker, appearing on the Vogue cover was a great publicity coup for her upcoming movie, "I Don't Know How She Does It" slated for a September 16 release. The wife of Ferris Bueller a.k.a. Matthew Broderick plays a frazzled career mom who must divide her time between a high-pressure job, neglected husband and two cherubic children.

Carrie Bradshaw, some skeptical moms question how hands-on she can be when she employs two nannies (one for twin toddlers Loretta and Tabitha and the other for 8-year-old James Wilkie). Though these jabs may sound judgmental, Parker ironically enters the mommy war battle zone herself when she asks, "What's the point in having a family if you're not going to really participate. It's all relative, of course. Photos of Parker in Vogue wearing smart fashions while playing with her children do not exactly remind most moms -- who are more likely to be wearing jeans and a tank top than a Chanel tweed jacket.