She might be famous for playing a character who wouldn't be caught dead in last season's clothes, but Sarah Jessica Parker is no designer diva when it comes to dressing her five-year-old son, James Wilke.

"He only wears hand-me-downs because I've got all these older nephews," Parker, 43, says in the newest issue of Parade magazine. "That's the God's honest truth! Plus, my mother saved all my brothers' clothes. I am not kidding. I don't think I've ever bought him any clothes. Maybe a new winter's coat...."

Parker grew up in a large family (eight kids!) that struggled to make ends meet and her history obviously is playing a large role in the way she is raising her son.

"I think that if I had been raised a child of privilege, I wouldn't be the working person I am today," she says. "I think it's incumbent on my husband [Matthew Broderick] and me to really stress and to show James Wilkie by example what it means to owe your community something and that he is not entitled to the benefits of our hard work. That doesn't mean that I'm withholding or keeping from him the joys of childhood - I'm not Joan Crawford," she stresses. "But I also don't want him to think the world he lives in is the real world. It's not."

My girlfriends and I have always said even if we won the lotto, we'd still go to garage sales because it's so fun to find such great deals on kid's clothes. After seeing photos of celebrity offspring toting overpriced handbags and wearing Burberry dresses, it's refreshing to hear that even big star like SJP gets used clothes for her kid too.

Sarah Jessica Parker(click thumbnails to view gallery)