Be Yourself to Be a Good Mom

When it comes to the correct way to parent, I think we’ve all fallen into the trap of assuming our way is the right way. Or being like differences are okay up to a certain point, but if someone parents in a totally different way there must be something wrong going on there.

There obviously have to be some lines drawn if a parent is doing something that is harming a child, but that can be a very subjective area.

I hear a lot of mothers who choose to have more than three or four kids get flak for overpopulating the world or for taking on too much.

Celeb Baby Laundry caught up with Angelina Jolie to find out what were the most important things in Angelina Jolie’s life, not surprisingly, she said, “There are far too many things to count. But everything that matters in life has to do with being a parent.”

Jolie’s added advice for other mothers, “Be yourselves. Don’t listen to what people say.”

I think this may be the simplest and most powerful message we can learn as moms. We need to do what feels right for our family. Yes, read books and be open to hearing how others parent, but in the end, just do what feels right for you.

Nursing Celebrity Moms in Public!

Celebrity Baby Scoop has an incredible photo collection of celebrity moms who nurse in public.

“Considering their lack of anonymity with paparazzi lurking at every street corner, we salute celebrity moms who breastfeed their babies while out and about!”

I mean, come on! If we’re going to see women’s breasts displayed all over magazine stands, at least let some of those photos be of a nurturing style as opposed to squashed boobs in bikinis.

This is a step in the right direction to celebrating all women’s bodies in all shapes and forms.

What strikes me most about these captured moments is the sense of peace and joy radiating out from the moms. And I love the magazines that included breastfeeding photos on their covers.

What Would the Tabloids Say About You and Me?

Sheila Hageman captured before her morning coffee and makeup-free! (Oh, wait...isn't she nursing?! Is that caffeine in that cup?! What a Celebrity Momster! And oh my goodness, don't get me started on those puffy eyes!)

I suck at snark.

Celebirty Momster started as a chance for me to vent at all the outrageous Celebrity Momsters I saw in the tabloids, you know, the ones who push the $5,000 strollers, dress their babies in $2,000 onesies, and are highly concerned with how much they weigh after giving birth.

But something hasn’t been feeling right. I mean, I’m all about embracing our differences as mothers. Why should I have a problem if Jessica Simpson wants to wear heels while giving birth? Who am I to judge her just because she’s famous and the silly things she says end up plastered across newspapers?

What I’ve found much more interesting is what I’ve been learning from these moms who live life in the spotlight. And from asking myself—what would I do if all my weaknesses ended up headline news?

I’ve actually developed compassion for these Celebrity Momsters. I’ve found myself quite frequently asking, would I do the same things if I were in her shoes? (Granted, they would be awesome Jimmy Choos or Manolo Blahniks, but I digress…)

Celebrity Momster has a new mission—to chip away at our preconceived notions of what is the “right” way to be a mother and to examine what we can learn by the stories we see in the news about moms parenting in the spotlight.

I’m digging for the good, the bad, and the ugly (I’m looking at you, mom jeans).

Join me as I search for how we can all embrace our inner Celebrity Momsters without judgment as a path to self-acceptance and other-mom-acceptance.

But don’t worry—I’ll still be pointing out what I just can’t stomach—like feeding a child “go-go” juice before a beauty pageant. I’ll just be doing it with a bigger heart in hopes of understanding exactly what we can learn from our modern culture that would make a Celebrity Momster feel the need to do such a thing.

I’m all about celebrating the diverse mothering experience as amplified through Celebrity Momsters in the news.

Elisabeth Rohm Helps Me Think About Who I Want To Be

Elisabeth Röhm, actress on Law and Order, blogs about being a mom to 3½-year-old Easton August with Ron Anthony for People.

Her New Year’s resolution? To dump the “mom clothes.”

“So here it is. I shudder to say it out loud, PEOPLE.com, but I knew it was true when the last and final person (my trying-to-be-sensitive-but-not-quite-achieving-it other half) said it. Ron told me that I wear too many “mom clothes.””

I’m up in mental fuzz trying to figure out where I stand on the issue.

I mean, I know I wear mom clothes: comfy jeans, nursing shirts, and cuddly cardigans—the question is—is there anything wrong with that?

Rohm explains that she “started to go for practicality and comfort rather than style and expression. It happens. We all talk about it. We even laugh about it, as if we are proud to wear our badge of mom honor by displaying those too long sweaters that resemble tents, rather the fitted ones of the past. But I think I may have gone too far, perhaps over the edge into the tacky shoes department.”

It feels like to me that with my lifestyle there’s no point in going through the trouble of dressing up. I mean, I’m at home—chasing three little kids, writing, and teaching online. The only people who see me love me no matter what I wear.

I guess the big question is—is it important to me? Would I feel better about myself if I dolled up a little once in a while?

Rohm asks: ““Where have I stashed my former self?” I was thinking yesterday as I ate my bagel with too much cream cheese (yes, part of my mom getup is some extra poundage — I’m going to shed that too).”

Yes, that’s the part I need to figure out. Am I hiding away behind my slouchy clothes as a way to hide from my “former self”? And if so, why?

I don’t want to hide my self—whoever she might be.

Who am I?

A mom? A former stripper? Or Sheila?

Hmm…or all of these selves.

Maybe I need to give some of those other selves a little time.

Or not...

Sigh...

Rockin' the Tomboy Look Jolie-Pitt Style!

It’s so refreshing to see that no one questions Shiloh Jolie-Pitt's tomboy style. She just had her hair chopped in a boy-style to go along with her tomboy clothes.

 “Jolie, 36, told Vanity Fair that she sometimes dresses Shiloh "like a little dude. Shiloh, we feel, has Montenegro style. It's how people dress there. She likes tracksuits, she likes [regular] suits. She likes to dress like a boy."”

I’m curious to see what happens as Shiloh ages; do you think she’ll hold on to her tomboy style or be more attracted to the glamour she sees her mom prettied up in?

Really? A Beautiful Baby? You're Kidding!

Perezitos reports on Kelly Rowland’s baby bragging on Blue Ivy. And her biggest point to make? Of course, guess what? The baby is beautiful!

I’m sorry, have you ever heard an aunt or anyone for that matter gush about a baby and NOT say they’re beautiful?

Rowland says, "She is just…. more precious than a diamond. She is so stunning. So Beautiful. I'm so happy for my sister and her husband. She's beautiful."

Ah! Such brilliant metaphors!

And, of course, you know, since Beyonce’s been able to prove her parenting skills for a few weeks now: "Beyonce is an incredible mother. I'm so proud of her, so proud. She's in mommy-vile and her husband [Jay-Z] is in daddy-vile, and the baby is…. beautiful!"

And oh, umm, should somebody point out that the correct spelling should be “mommy-ville” not “mommy-vile,” which has an entirely different meaning.

Victoria Beckham is Thin Again! (Was She Ever Not Thin?!)

The UK’s Daily Mail helps perpetuate more Oh my God! She’s so thin after giving birth! How DOES she do it? craziness.

A Celebrity Momster always seems to be too thin or too fat after giving birth. We never hear magazines proclaiming, Wow! She looks just the way she should for her body type!

Victoria Beckham had baby Harper in July and has just posed for her first post maternal lingerie shoot.

Why would anyone be surprised by the way she looks? She’s naturally thin and she’s had six-months to lose the baby weight.

It’s not a miracle, folks. It’s called good diet and exercise.

News flash! Mothers do not naturally just become old, fat frumps after giving birth. They usually return to looking like they did before.

Just Sell the Photos Already, Beyonce!

I’m kind of in agreement with Jessica Alba on her advice to Beyonce and Jay-Z regarding selling their baby photos.

I’ve usually felt it’s just plain tacky for celebrities to sell their newborn photos even if the money goes to a charity, but Alba makes a good point as reported by The Huffington Post.

"For our family, we just wanted to control the experience. We put the money that the picture made into a bank account for Honor to do whatever she wants to do with," she explained. "It's her picture, it's her birth, and we didn't want it to be like a weird thing when we were walking out of the house with her for the first time."

If you think about it, the demand is going to be so great for this baby’s photo that it’s going to be like a madhouse the first time that baby walks out the door. Well, is carried out that door by a nanny…

So to protect the whole family from the flashbulb nightmare, better to just sell the first photos to take off the edge of what their baby looks like.

Actually, even if they sell the first photos, there’s still going to be a lot of clambering to get the first “unofficial” shots of Blue Ivy.

So, you know, you really can’t win.

Might as well take the money and put it to good use and move on.

J-Lo Tweets: He loves Me! He Really Loves Me!

This just in: Twitter has changed its policies and is allowing Casper Smart to tweet as many characters as he needs to express his deep and intimate—I mean infinite—love to Jennifer Lopez.

His love has no limits—not age, not characters—

So here it is:

I have this uncontrollable urge to announce to the world via Twitter my undying love for Miss J-Lo. And it’s so beautiful—beautiful, deep love—and that’s all that matters. My love goes on forever and ever like this tattoo on my arm. And I dance; I dance my heart out for my love and it is this deep, intense, soul-like connection where, you know, age doesn’t matter and it’s just all love and stuff.

And Jennifer Lopez is so blown away by her son’s—I mean lover’s—words that she must share them with the world!

So she retweets the message and rejoices.

And not to be outdone, Lopez’s ex, Marc Anthony, decides he must tweet his undying love for model Shannon De Lima:

Oh, young sweet beautiful model, I mean oh sweet love of my life, let me kiss you and hug you and show you to the world—I mean, love you to the world, I mean, just…I love you, I love you!

Isn’t young/old love beautiful?!

(Thanks NY Daily News for providing the real tweets!)

Perform For Me, Katherine Heigl's Daughter!

Café Mom’s The Stir reports on Katherine Heigl’s latest appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Heihl had her husband bring out her daughter Naleigh who she said was a big ham.

But not surprisingly, Naleigh did not want to perform on cue even as her mother had an entire studio audience applaud for her.

No, why would that be intimidating for a three-year-old?

I have to admit I have fallen prey to the same urge—to show off my children and all their magnificence and smarts.

And to my great dismay, whenever I have prompted them, they have gone totally blank-faced and stony still like they had no idea what I was asking them to do.

Say the ABC’s? What are those?!

It just goes to show—our children will do what they want, when they want.

That spontaneously adorable rendering of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star was one bright shining moment that parents better savor and enjoy.

Because they may never do it again! And certainly not on demand.

Please Stop Talking, Beyonce and Jay-Z!

Thanks, Too Fab, for pushing me over the edge!

I think if I read one more explanation of how excited, and happy, and glowing, and joyful Beyonce and Jay-Z are with their new baby, I am going to barf.

And even though Beyonce said “Nothing can describe the feeling” about having a baby, trust me, she’s still going to try to describe that feeling anyway.

Again. And again.

And Jay-Z will write songs and market them to you because he knows you’ve just got to have his little baby girl gurgling on your iTunes.

And oh yes, lest we forget, they are so happy and so grateful and so over-the-top and so…

Oh my goodness, please make it stop.

It’s a baby. We get it. Other people have them, too.

The Kardashians Read, Y'All!

Just in case you didn’t know, Kourtney Kardashian loves to read with her son. They read. It’s so important. Reading. It’s so big in their family. Reading. That’s what the Kardashians are all about. Oh, did I mention reading? How important it is?

I’m sorry, let me let Kourtney explain it as reported by Celebrity Baby Scoop: "I read books to Mason all day long. Usually when he wakes in the morning, he loves to read a book. In the middle of the day he reads books. We read books at night. So, reading is a huge thing in our family."

And in case you didn’t quite get how important reading is to your child, here are Kourtney’s astounding words of wisdom for YOU!

"It's a great time that we have together. Definitely read to your children and cherish the time that you have. We love to be together and reading is such a big part of that."

Reading!

Wow! What a fascinating concept!

Suck It, Toddlers and Tiaras' Mother!

I’m really not sure what to make of a mother, June Holler, who would give her 6-year-old daughter high doses of caffeine and sugar to get her pumped for a beauty pageant.

The mother even has cute names for the mixture of Red Bull and Mountain Dew she feeds to Alana Holler: "Pageant Crack" and "Go-Go Juice.”

Isn’t that just adorable?

According to Perezitos, the Toddlers and Tiaras star’s mother said, “I didn’t do anything to hurt her. There are far worse things that I can do to my kid.”

And I’ll grant the mother this—at least she’s honest. She doesn’t mind what people say about her parenting skills at all. She’s just working the publicity machine.

"It is the way it is and I don’t let what people say bother me. As long as they’re talking about us they’re making us famous!"

Rock It, Lilly Allen!

Celebrity Baby Scoop has an awesome dish on new mom Lilly Allen. She tweeted about her leaking breasts the other day: "And I left the house without breast pads and started leaking all over myself at the #Wolsley .oh and I wiped out in the street earlier #glam."

A Twitter follower responded with disgust at her post, but Allen was quick to shoot that comment down: "@CharleyGardiner what do you mean it's BEAUTIFUL !!!!! Boobs are not just #sexyfunbags , they be feeding implements too."

I think it’s great when Celebrity Momsters reveal the truth behind motherhood and erase some of the reported glamour of motherhood.

And I have to give a kudos to Allen’s baby’s name—Ethel Mary. My mother was Mary Ethel—nice to see the name living on!

Rock It, Katherine Heigl!

Thanks Perezitos for showing me how like Katherine Heigl I am!

Heigl struggled with the same conflict that many mothers have—to work or not to work?

She tried to leave Hollywood but found herself unhappy, so she did what felt right, tried to find a way to balance motherhood and career.

"I asked myself what was wrong with me. How can I want to leave my child to go back to work? The simple truth is that I love my daughter passionately and as most mothers do, but she cannot fulfill everything in me. I needed to put this gift I've been given to perform back to use.

"Now, when I take a job, I look my daughter in the eye… and try to explain to her that Mommy has to go to work. And when she looks back at me and says, 'But why?', I tell her the truth: that work makes me a better person, a better woman, a better mother. Then I pray to God that she will understand one day and that my example will encourage her to find and follow her bliss as well."

Bravo to Heigl for being willing to discuss what some mothers might think is selfish. If mothers aren’t staying connected in some way to who they really are, how can they be a full person for their children?

Gag Me With a Silver Spoon, Beyonce and Jay-Z!

It’s not going to take many more reports of outrageous expenditures on baby gifts for Beyonce’s baby to make me barf.

According to the New York Daily News, Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s baby has been supplied with enough high-end baby goodies to supply a small city.

But it’s not just gifts from well-meaning friends that are pushing the baby-loot haul to roughly $1.5 million.

“The newborn’s superstar father plunked down $20,000 on a Posh Tots Carriage Fantasy Crib made of solid cedar and birch.”

Umm, OK. Twenty grand on a crib. I get that when one has a lot of money one can splurge a bit, but this kind of money on baby crap really just makes me want to hurl.

The only thing that makes me rest better is knowing that little Blue Ivy Carter will be doing just that, spitting up, all over this luxurious load of baby paraphernalia.

What do you think? Is there ever a reason to spend $20k on a freaking baby crib?!

Rock It, Katie Holmes!

Check out the photos of Celebrity Momster Katie Homes on Celebuzz.

She posed for the jeweler H. Stern in not much more than jewelry.

All the celebrity sites are exclaiming how we’ve never seen Katie like this before! Oh my goodness, she’s a mom! We usually see her out toting little Suri!

It’s like when you become a mom you cease to exist in any other way. If you step out looking sexy—it’s headline news!

Oh my goodness—a sexy mom! How can it be?! Moms can’t be sexy! They need to be baking cookies and wearing full-body covering at all times!

Alert the press!

Suck It, Beyonce!

You’ve heard by now that Beyonce gave birth, unless you live under a rock, but then, you wouldn’t be reading this either.

Mommyish has the dish on one unfortunate family who gave birth in the same hospital.

“Beyonce and Jay-Z reportedly paid a whopping $1.3 million to take over an entire wing of the New York City hospital in order to ensure privacy. The wing is located on the sixth floor – the same level as the hospital’s NICU unit.”

Too bad for the father who kept getting turned away by security from visiting his newborn twins in the NICU.

What I don’t understand is why Beyonce and Jay-Z didn’t just do a homebirth and avoid the whole media circus. They could have paid a lot less money and still had massive amounts of the correct medical personnel.

But perhaps the reasoning has to do with the aforementioned media circus. How could they have had a high-profile, fan-building birth, with privacy AND massive amounts of non-privacy without renting out an entire hospital wing?!

And don’t even get me started on the baby’s name…Blue Ivy.

The poor girl’s been born with a stripper name!

I mean, what if she wants to grow up and be a lawyer—Attorney Blue Ivy Carter?!

Ack! Welcome to celebrity life, baby!

Rock It, Demi Moore!

I’ve never really felt any strong emotions for Demi Moore, but after reading about her Harper’s Bazaar interview on E-Online, I have great respect for her.

Most actresses of a certain age usually seem highly concerned with their looks and their image to a point that they are willing to do and say anything to convince their fan base that they are not only beautiful but fully self-confident and fabulous.

I feel like Demi Moore has opened the door to real honesty about the plight of being in the spotlight.

"What scares me is that I'm going to ultimately find out at the end of my life that I'm really not lovable, that I'm not worthy of being loved. That there's something fundamentally wrong with me."

This quote blew me away because I can relate to it so well, as I’m sure many women can.

This was how I lived a great part of my younger life. There was this great fear that I was somehow broken and unlovable.

Now if even a famous, wealthy, beautiful movie star can admit to feeling the same thing, perhaps we as a society can finally stop and say, hey, there’s something very wrong going on here that women today feel this—even someone who many would think should be immune to it.

So I say, Rock It, Demi Moore, for your honesty.

Do you think someone like Moore talking about her feelings of being unlovable can open a dialogue for society?

Um, Work it, Maggie Gyllenhall?

I simply could not resist showing you this photo of Maggie Gyllenhaal from The Laughing Stork.

I’m not sure if it’s pregnancy brain though.

I’m thinking this unfortunate outfit is either: A) Ms. Gyllenhall is much more uber-advanced than all of us other women and really does not care if her clothes match or not, or B) another example of a strategic photo op where she feels so left out of this week’s tabloids that she purposefully mismatched her entire outfit to spark a paparazzi frenzy.

Which do you vote for?

Brilliant Photo Op or Real Life?

This photograph on Perezitos of Kourtney Kardashian and her two-year-old son Mason having a temper tantrum gave me pause.

For a brief shining moment I felt kinship with Kourtney. I felt like I understood her. I felt her pain. I cringed along with her as her son broke down into uncontrollable, unexplainable hollers and yells.

Yes, I too have a toddler who for absolutely no reason at all will sometimes just decide it is time to scream with wild abandon. The lucky thing for me is that I have no paparazzi waiting outside the restaurant I am dining in to snap a photo of aforementioned meltdown.

This, is definitely not a photo op.

Or, wait a minute…unless it’s all part of her master plan! Show that she’s just like all those other moms! Her child has temper tantrums too! She’s just like me!

It’s brilliant!

Suck It, Sarah Burge!

This is my first time hearing about “The Human Barbie,” and hopefully will be my last.

Jot Zoom reports that Sarah Burge gave her daughter a liposuction gift certificate for Christmas. And, oh—her daughter? She’s seven.

And the lucky child also received a voucher for breast enhancement on her last birthday.

Burge had this to say to Closer Magazine:

“Some people think it’s controversial and I get angry when strangers say I’m a bad mother because I don’t think there’s any harm in giving her this gift. Poppy is a normal kid who is good at sports and loves playing outside. Girls don’t want Snow White and Cinderella any more. They want to be WAGs and famous like Cheryl Cole and Lady Gaga. I’m just supporting her and making her dreams come true. Looks are a big part of how our futures pan out - there shouldn’t be a stigma around wanting to look good.”

And just for the record, I didn’t know what a WAG was either, but Andrew on Yahoo Answers explains it well:

“It's an acronym for the Wives and Girlfriends of the England World Cup Squad, (so think Victoria Beckham, formerly Posh Spice of the Spice Girls, who is now married to the Soccer Superstar David Beckham.) In its literal terminology, WAGS refers to the wives of soccer husbands who basically spend boatloads of their husbands' money, and is typically associated with shopping. However, this could be more broadly associated with any woman who just has her husband buy expensive things for her, or spends his money.”

So, Burge believes being a good mother in 2012 means raising a daughter to believe that all that matters is looks and that her greatest goal should be to marry well, be a pop star and spend lots of money.

How could anyone possibly consider this bad mothering?

Rock It, Beyonce and Jay-Z!

It’s a relief to read that some celebrities haven’t pimped out their unborn babies yet!

Huffington Post reports that Beyonce and Jay-Z have not even responded to the multiple offers that have been made for the first photos of their baby.

The weird thing is that when celebrities do sell their baby photos, there are clauses about them not being able to appear in public with baby before or after the photos are released.

Can you imagine not being allowed to be seen in public with your baby because it would decrease your baby’s value?

At least when Brad and Angelina sold their photos for $12 million they donated the money to a charity.

But is it right to pimp out a baby even if the money is going to do good?

I suppose if my mom and dad had been celebrities I would be kind of proud if my photo had helped people or animals somewhere.

But what if I were a different kind of person? Might I not be happy about someone making such a public choice for me?

How do you feel about Celebrity Momsters selling their baby photos?

Suck It, Starvation Diets!

Jessica Alba is making the photo headlines today over her beach body in a hot pink bikini. She gave birth to Haven just four months ago yet was able to get back in shape already.

Us Magazine quotes Alba: “So how did Alba, who is also mom to 3-year-old Honor, get back in shape so quickly after her pregnancy? "I have 1,200 calorie meals delivered," she told Lucky magazine. "But I also work out, so basically I'm starving. It sucks. I drink a lot of water."”

Alba was to quick point out that everything she did was with a doctor’s approval, which I think is good that she added that. I mean, to me it doesn’t sound exactly healthy to feel like you are starving on a diet.

When I was younger and uber-concerned about my body image, I would diet and I always knew I was treading on thin ground when I felt as if I was starving.

Is it ever a good idea to feel food-deprived in the name of getting in shape? How can our body’s messages that we need to eat be wrong?

I think it’s great that a woman would want to get back in shape for health and yes, even for confidence reasons, but depriving oneself of needed calories just doesn’t seem like a winning formula.

What do you think? Have you ever felt starved on a diet or just deprived of the really yummy foods you wanted?

Suck It, Parents Wearing Matching Outfits With Their Babies!

This photo at Celebrity Baby Scoop represents everything about Celebrity Momsters that makes me crazy!

While vacationing in Aspen, Colorado, Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon BOTH seriously wore matching outfits with their 8-month-old twins Moroccan and Monroe.

Umm…it’s bad enough when we see a mother at the mall sporting the same outfit as her little girl, but…both parents…both babies…all in white…

Where are the stylists when you need them?!

Photo: GSI Media