Being a celebrity parent has its perks. You can afford quality childcare and all the best schools, and your name alone can open up incredible career opportunities for your children. But though families by the last name of Smith, Beckham or Kardashian make it look easy, raising kids in the spotlight presents a unique set of challenges that non-famous parents don’t have to think about.
“Our society has become so critical of other people,” Dr. Elizabeth Lombardo, a psychologist who works with many high-profile and celebrity clients (Shaquille O’Neal calls her “my head coach for happiness”), tells E! News. And there really is a “higher standard” for celebrity parents, “but the interesting thing is everyone has their own standards…and what people forget is that their rule is not the golden rule.”
Lombardo adds, “Remember when Suri [Cruise] was 4 or 5, and she was still having a pacifier? People went crazy. You go into your local Target and some 5-year-old’s sucking on a pacifier, no one says a darn thing.”
Celebrities are “constantly being judged and criticized and scrutinized” for their parenting, and while it “used to be bad…it’s getting worse and worse.”
It’s true. David and Victoria Beckham were admonished in the tabloids when daughter Harper was photographed using a pacifier at the age of 4. Kim Kardashian, Deena Cortese and even Prince William and Kate Middleton have been criticized over how they were using their children’s car seats (even though experts agreed the kids were perfectly safe).
When Kristin Cavallari shared a cute beach photo of her sons back in 2016, she was accused of not feeding her kids enough—”Yep, I starve my children. Just blocked the most people I’ve ever blocked in my entire life,” she shrugged off the trolls on Instagram. On the flip side, Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott had to deal with trolls body-shaming and bullying their kids over the clothes they wore to a movie premiere.
“I am absolutely horrified and disgusted by the comments being left about my children,” McDermott wrote in slamming the troll who seriously should have known better. “Body shaming and bullying my children??!! What is wrong with you people??!!”
Though most parents would be in agreement that their number-one priority is to protect their kids, sometimes it’s the parents who bring unwanted attention to their kids—though at least Lori Loughlin‘s daughter, Olivia Jade, is 19 and was already an online personality when her parents were indicted as part of a massive fraud case for allegedly paying bribes to get Olivia and her sister into college.
Lombardo says all of this “can have a huge impact on a child’s self-worth and self-confidence and how they interact with other people.” That’s why she encourages her famous clients and non-celebrity parents alike to teach their kids that “bullies bully because they’re unhappy themselves.”
“If the children can understand why people are being mean to them, [and that] it’s not because they’re bad, it’s because those other people that are pushing them down to feel better about themselves—if they can get that before they get bullied…then that’s already in their foundation,” she says. “It’s not a reaction [they’re] learning, it’s, ‘I already know this.’ Is it still gonna hurt? Yeah, of course. But having that understanding is really important because it really helps you build that resilience.”
And whether you’re a kid in Hollywood or a parent, having that thick skin is essential. “I call it unconditional self-worth, where how you view yourself is independent of others,” says Lombardo. “That’s difficult to do, and celebrity parents often have a greater opportunity to learn that skill and practice it.”
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