Angelina Jolie has written an open letter to parents during lockdown, saying it is "impossible" to be perfect for your children.

As guest editor of Time's parenting newsletter, the 44-year-old actress, who has six children of her own, wrote about how her own journey to becoming a mother initially seemed unlikely.

In a letter that began with, "Dear Parents, I am thinking of you" she went on to write, "I was not a very stable youth. In fact, I never thought I could be anyone's mom."

She added, "It wasn’t hard to love. It wasn’t hard to dedicate myself to someone and something greater than my life. What was hard was knowing that from now on I needed to be the one to make sure everything was okay."

Jolie adopted her oldest son Maddox, now 18, when he was seven months old in 2002. He was later adopted by Brad Pitt after he and Jolie got together in 2005.

Pitt and Jolie, who separated in 2016, have two other adoptive children, Pax (16) and Zahara (15). They are also biological parents to Shiloh (13) and twins Knox Leon and Vivienne (11).

In her letter, Jolie wrote about accepting it is "impossible" to stay calm, positive and answer all of your children's needs in a pandemic.

"In the midst of this pandemic, I think of all the mothers and fathers with children at home. All hoping they can do everything right, answer all needs, and stay calm and positive" she wrote, "One thing that has helped me is to know that’s impossible"

"It is a lovely thing to discover that your children don’t want you perfect" she added, "They just want you honest. And doing your best. In fact, the more room they have to be great where you are weak, the stronger they may become. They love you."

Pitt and Jolie were together for over a decade and had a secret wedding at their estate in France in 2014. Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt in 2016.

Last year, Jolie said her decision to be based in California is due to a joint-custody arrangement with Pitt.

“I would love to live abroad and will do so as soon as my children are 18" she told Harper's Bazaar, "right now I’m having to base where their father chooses to live."