Anyone who has ever spent any time online or in a playgroup knows that there are a lot of ways to parent. There are crunchy granola mamas, attachment parents, moms who love to be over the top and extra about crafts and making memories, and moms who are just trying to make it to the end of the day. And just like us regular moms, there are lots of different ways that celebrities parent — and not all of them are healthy, to be honest.
Time for a quick caveat: We don't claim to know what really happens in the day-to-day parenting life of celebrities, so we're just making some educated guesses based on spending way too much time on social media and swimming in the waters of celebrity gossip culture. Celebrity parents are always interesting to follow because, unlike most of us, they have a lot of financial resources so they get to make parenting choices with an unlimited budget.
Although some celebrity parents seem keen on giving their kids a fairly down-to-earth childhood experience (the Jennifer Garner and Sarah Michelle Gellar approach), there are also plenty of celebs who seem to have chosen to follow a more unconventional parenting approach. From extreme extended breastfeeding to a seriously hands-off approach to discipline, read on for some interesting celebrity parenting styles.
Alicia Silverstone
The reigning queen of the crunchy granola celebrity mom approach is Alicia Silverstone. She famously shared videos of herself feeding her son Bear like a bird (dropping food from her mouth into his), practiced elimination communication (avoiding diapers at all costs), and is raising her son on a totally plant-based diet.
Mayim Bialik
The Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik is not only a fan of the attachment parenting approach, but she also literally wrote a whole book about it. The actress, who will always be Blossom in our hearts, is a big advocate for long-term breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and avoiding using a stroller in favor of a sling, all with the hopes of being super responsive to a baby's needs.
Lisa Whelchel
Although there are lots of ways to creatively discipline children, we are never advocates for physical punishment. That puts us on the opposite side of '80s icon Lisa Whelchel (Blair on The Facts of Life), who released a book in 2004 called Creative Correction: Extraordinary Ideas for Everyday Discipline, which advocated for things such as pinching a child's tongue with a clothespin (what the heck?) and using hot sauces on the tongue as a punishment. Um, yeah, hard pass on this parenting approach!
Pamela Anderson
Former Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson raised some eyebrows when she shared that she wanted to practice an "intuitive parenting" approach that included giving her two sons the freedom to "honor their instincts," which included allowing them to "drink and experiment with drugs in moderation." It is worth noting that one of her now-grown sons has publicly shared he is now sober after struggling with addiction issues in his teen years, proving that moderation can be very tricky where drugs are concerned.
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie is a parent who is taking a decidedly international approach to raising her six children. She shared that her hope is to encourage her children to "explore the world" and that "difference and diversity" are what she values most. She has literally raised her children all over the world, with homes on at least three continents, and she has a child in college in South Korea.
Kylie Jenner
Kylie Jenner's parenting style is one of financial indulgence. Not only is she famous for dropping big bucks on over-the-top birthday parties for her daughter, but 3-year-old Stormi also famously has diamond jewelry, a closet full of designer clothes, and her own miniature designer handbags that cost thousands of dollars.
Alanis Morissette
While many parents spent much of 2020 trying to figure out how to handle distance learning or how to safely send a kid to school during the current health crisis, singer Alanis Morissette took a totally different approach. The Canadian singer is on the record for being an unschooling parent, meaning her children don't enroll in school and they take a child-led, unstructured approach to learning, free from grades, assigned curriculum, or teachers.
Gisele Bündchen
Supermodel Gisele Bündchen sometimes gets a little side-eye from critics for her unconventional parenting beliefs, including her public statements that there "should be a worldwide law that mothers should breastfeed their babies for six months" and her practice of elimination communication instead of traditional diapering.
Jada Pinkett Smith
Over the years, we've come to learn that Jada and Will Smith have a fairly unconventional marriage and have made some unconventional choices when it comes to rules and punishment for their two children. In 2013, Jada told E! Online that she and Will "don't do punishment" and that the kids can "do anything" they want as long as they "can explain why that's the right thing to do for your life."
Coco Austin
Coco Austin's approach to parenting her daughter, Chanel, 6, has certainly featured some unconventional moments. Coco has been shaded for letting her daughter get fake nails and wear makeup and for describing her then-5-year-old as a "boob freak" who got one of Coco's boobs while husband Ice-T had custody of the other. That oversharing approach led some folks to wonder if she was setting her daughter up for teasing.
Penélope Cruz
Several celebrities are rumored to practice a parenting style called Resources for Infant Educarers, or RIE, which focuses on treating infants with respect and as essentially tiny adults. This means avoiding baby talk, high chairs, time outs, and baby-specific toys. Penélope Cruz is said to have followed this method.
Kourtney Kardashian
Kourtney Kardashian seems to follow some more alternative parenting approaches, including limiting certain foods in her kids' diet (no gluten or food dye here!) and promoting a co-sleeping and family bed approach to sleeping. She wrote in a blog post that she liked the co-sleeping approach because it gave her more time with her kids, especially on busy days.
T.I.
It's normal for parents to want theirren child to make safe choices when it comes to becoming sexually active. It is very unconventional (and gross and demeaning) to force a child to go to the gynecologist to "prove" that she's still a virgin. In 2019, rapper T.I. claimed that he did just that for his 18-year-old daughter, even though he was hypocritically OK with his then-15-year-old son already being sexually active.
Mila Kunis & Ashton Kutcher
Although some celebrities like the Kardashians seem to be all about spoiling their kids, Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher have chosen to take some unconventional approaches to making sure their kids aren't spoiled monsters. That included not giving them any Christmas gifts from mom and dad when they were little and encouraging other family members to make charitable donations in their honor instead of giving them gifts.
Kim Kardashian & Kanye West
Most parents understand that kids are going to want to wear whatever random clothes and colors they like at that moment. Kim Kardashian and Kanye West aren't most parents, though. Their kids are only allowed to wear clothing from a more neutral color palette (so much brown, gray, and olive green on those gorgeous kiddos), and Kanye allegedly banned pink clothes for North when she was a baby and toddler because he hates that color.
