Can We Stop Slamming Kim Kardashian’s Mom Skills?

Stop Slamming Kim Kardashian’s Mom Skills

I was doing some late-night online reading the other night and came across a post on Jezebel that said Kim Kardashian had hired a personal trainer for North West. I’ve heard some pretty out-there requests from both my pregnant and new mom clients, but having a personal trainer for a teensy tiny one like North West seemed a bit outrageous even to me.

Turns out, it’s Kim that has the personal trainer—nothing odd there, it’s basically her job to stay in shape—and then at the end of her workout session, Kim has her trainer do some baby stretches and mommy and me type moves. We’re talking the kind of moves they have your kiddos doing at the local Y toddler class. If anything, this is a sweet way that Kim has found to include her child in her daily activities, not some creepy practice pushing body image issues on her wee one.

I don’t keep up with the Kardashians (largely because I don’t have the time—I’ve got my own brood to keep tabs on!), but from what I’ve heard and seen, North West seems like a perfectly normal (if pampered!) little one. I get it that her mother isn’t universally beloved. People love to rant about how she’s famous for “basically nothing,” that she’s “talentless,” that she’s riding on Kanye’s coattails, whatever. But even if you believe those things, they have no bearing on her competency as a parent.

Sorry for the mini-rant, but I think our tendency to over-analyze and point fingers at celebrity parenting is part of a bigger, more troubling phenomenon of hating on other moms in general (including the real life ones we see every day at the playground!). We all have our own unique challenges as parents (yes, even Kim Kardashian, I’m sure) and talking badly about another mom—unless of course she’s actually hurting her child, in which case the authorities should be called in—isn’t helpful. Putting someone else down might make you feel better about your own parenting practices for a few minutes, but it doesn’t actually make anyone a better parent. If anything, it just makes us all feel even more pressure to be “perfect”—which leads to more stress, more self-doubt, and less than awesome parenting.

I’m hoping you’ll take a minute this week to really listen to how the moms in your network talk about each other and to encourage more support and admiration instead of snide remarks. Remember, cattiness is the enemy of confidence—something all of us moms could use more of.