Back in 2009, Madonna’s former chef and house manager spoke on the record to the National Enquirer, claiming that Madonna spent “maybe half an hour with the kids” a day. Eric Ienco shared details of Madonna’s daily schedule, which began with “two hours of yoga” followed by “two [additional] hours of Pilates and exercise.” After that Madonna would check her e-mail and conduct business, during which time the kids were not allowed to disturb her at all. In response to that story I wrote that it seemed pretty reasonable for Madonna to carve out eight hours a day for herself working from home, and that she just exercised half the time as part of her “work.”
It’s also well established that Madonna has nannies for her now four children, probably several on duty at a time. In 2007 Madonna’s former nanny was shopping a tell-all, which never went anywhere as far as I can tell. Then in 2009 another nanny either left or was fired and posted some unflattering entries on Facebook thought to refer to Madonna. And here are photos from 2011 of two different nannies with Madonna’s youngest children.
That’s all preface to this story of Madonna complaining about how hard it is to be a single mother, as if she has any inkling of what that translates to for average moms.
Her headaches over Lourdes, 15, Rocco, 12, David, six, and Mercy, five, are just the same as any divorcee holding down a job, according to the multi-millionairess.
And Madonna, 53, blasted critics of her parenting skills — fuming: “Everybody has something to say about the way I live my life.
“At the end of the day I’m doing my best. If people don’t like it, then that’s really their problem.”
Madonna said four years after her divorce from 43-year-old Brit film director Ritchie: “Sometimes I cope with it very well, sometimes it’s a struggle.”
The star has used her experiences as a lone parent as an inspiration for some of the tracks on her forthcoming album, MDNA.
Discussing song I Don’t Give A, she explained: “It’s about the life of a single mother.
“It’s a challenge juggling everything — multi-tasking is my middle name. I try to express that.”…
But the song is also a clear broadside at Ritchie — Rocco’s dad. The lyrics include “I tried to be a good girl, I tried to be your wife”, and describe how she was “trying to be all you expected of me”.
And if that wasn’t explicit enough, she also raps about the “life of an ex-wife”, having “no time”, “doing ten things at once”, “custody” and “pre-nups”…
Speaking to The Sun from her New York apartment — while taking a break from son David’s French homework — she said: “I hope I’m a role model. I hope I give other girls a voice, women a voice, other women someone to look up to and admire. I keep rolling with the punches and trying to have integrity.
“And I hope I inspire women and give them strength to deal with life no matter what comes their way.”
[From The Sun]
Oh Madonna. She might be inspiring to other women if her boyfriend wasn’t less than half her age, if she wasn’t injecting and nipping and tucking until she turned out looking like a puppet, and if she didn’t dance around in her underwear in her last music video while faux breastfeeding a baby doll.
I get that Madonna isn’t entirely isolated from heartbreak and struggle because she has over half a billion dollars. Money doesn’t solve everything. It’s just that she certainly is insulated from the concerns that the rest of us have just trying to get by. It sounds so disingenuous when she claims that she struggles as a single mom and wants to serve as some kind of role model. That’s Madonna, oblivious as always.
These photos of Madonna with David and Mercy are from August, 2010 when she was directing WE. Credit: PCNPhotos. David is shown with a nanny in 2011. Madonna also shown with David in 2009 (camel coat) and at the WE premiere on 1-23-12. Credit: WENN.com
cute pictures, luv Madonna!
Ha. Just makes me laugh, she’s so oblivious I can’t even hate on her. Cute pics with the kids tho, even if she kinda looks like a Mommie Dearest kisser. 😉
It makes sense that she and Goop were best friends once. I’m disappointed in Madonna, though. She wasn’t born rich but she has no problem forgetting that she has it much much easier than most single women with children who struggle to make ends meet and get crapped on by society for having kids.
When she’s a single mother supporting her child(ren) by waiting tables 30-40 hours a week while also going to school, then she can cry me a friggin river.
+
Cosign.
Anyone who can give an interview that contains this: “while taking a break from son David’s French homework” and has a pic of your kid with his nanny can blow it out their…
Yes, she still has emotional struggles even as a rich, single parent. But the worry of money as a lower or even middle class, single parent is a constant, HUGE emotional struggle that she will never understand.
I do believe that Madonna’s children are well-cared for even if not always by her. I also believes that she wants the best for them and loves them. But her comments are narcissistic drivel. But at least she is being consistent – i.e. its always about her, darling. I wonder how Guy Ritchie put up with it for so long.
Put up with her? Ritchie is a douche himself. He left his girlfriend of many years for Madonna, and apparently he told his girlfriend, “Look, you know I really love you, but she’s Madonna.” There’s a song by Robbie Williams called She’s Madonna and it was inspired by Ritchie’s way of dumping his girlfriend for Madonna.
Not a rude question, dear Asli. I don’t mind answering. I WISH I was due any day now. Unfortunately (haha), I’ve got 9 1/2 weeks to go. Due May 17. I found out I was pregnant at 2 weeks (hadn’t even missed my cycle yet, I just KNEW), so this has been the longest pregnancy everrrrr. 🙂 Thanks for asking!
HA! Thanks, sister!
Yes, Samigirl.
I have no sympathy for Madge. She has nannies to raise the kids.
Amen to that!
cry me a river indeed. such bs. if you have a nanny (or several) and a pile of money, you aren’t struggling with crap.
Well, if she does leave her kids with nannies most of the time, it’ll come right back at her and bite her in the @ss. The kids will grow up resenting her for it, and that’s sad.
Hmmm… Her children seem to like her
I bet her kids like her as a friend, but do they love her as a mom? Do they run to Madonna when they hurt themselves or to the closest nanny, even when Madge is right there? That’s what I am curious about.
Hard to feel any sympathy
Tired of these women with nannies whining about how hard their life is. Get over it, we’re not buying it.
I’m playing the smallest violin in the world right now to match the level of sympathy I have for her and her “troubles”. WHICH nanny (as I’m sure there are several) shall I have pick the children up from private school via chauffeur? So many dilemmas…GTFOH. Sit down.
LOL! You’ve provided the mood music. I shall supply the food: I’ll send Madonna some cheese to go along with her “whine”.
That rich narcissist has so many options. If she’s trying to appear relatable to working-class and middle-class mothers, it’s a fail.
Ah, the 1% complaining about how difficult their lives are — their delusions are pretty funny.
Just makes me want to say STFU.
I FRIGGIN’ LOVE that Madonna adopted two Black children…so that they will not feel alienated…
LOVE THAT TO DEF!!!
Regarding her struggles as a single Mother…
Giving her MAJA “side-eye” for that one!!!
Ehh I’m no longer a Madonna fan but I think it’s unfair to say single motherhood isn’t difficult for her because she has a huge bank account. Isn’t half of motherhood worrying that your doing everything right? And I have to say Lourdes looks pretty grounded if it was only the nannies around on rotation every few months that wouldn’t be the case.
I don’t actually consider her a single mother.
Why not she’s not married and her youngest is legally hers alone. She may have more money but yes she is a single mom.
yes but she has a hired support system. it is in no way the same as being a truly “single” mom.
@ janie
A lot of my employees are single moms and the all seem to have a support system. Parents, family, friends babysitters and school. If they were truly on their own, they wouldn’t be ably to go working.
Just saying.
yes she has hired help but if anything goes wrong with those kids there will be a mob of cackling women saying I told ya she was a bad mother at the top of their lungs.
Madonna seems to be doing a good job with those kids. They aren’t arrogant and famewhorish like those Smith kids are for instance.
She’s so full of sh*t it isn’t even funny. I hope her album flops.
Celebitchy, thank you for not mentioning a million times that two of her children are adopted like many articles do. As a person who was adopted as a baby, I can’t imagine my parents ever introducing me to a stranger as their “adopted child”.
Great comment. A person is adopted only once. It is incorrect to say David “is” adopted. He “was” adopted. Done! Move on! It is an unnecessary distinction. Biological or adopted—makes no difference!
Nobody wants a single mother of four to talk about it if they’re rich. I
Hear you. But I cut her just a little slack. I think she is saying making all the decisions and all the disciplining as a single parent in the home plus being not just a mother but father and the earning person in the household.
I hear stay-at-home moms in my neighborhood dissing the working moms when they talk about how hard parenting is. The whispers about she has a nanny or they are at the sitters all day and we are home or that woman has a maid, I do it all. Blah, blah. Women as mothers are all so judgmental.
I do believe Madonna is a good parent whose children seem to be healthy and happy and not lazy. She said years ago her children have to keep their rooms clean, take their plates to the kitchen, have manners. Compared to many wealthy families that churn out lazy spoiled brats, i think Madonna might beat the odds.
ITA
Unlike some moms – I’m guessing – she has the choice to stay home and not work with all of that cash, which was coming in even before she even had her first child, why are you still working at nearly a billion dollars? You do it to yourself. If you’re worried you’ll lose your fanbase, your friggin’ Madonna! They’ll wait! Wait until you stop making crappy cds! I swear to the heavens if one of her kids comes out with a Mommy Dearest book I’m gonna lose my flippin’ mind!
That’s something no one would ever say to a man. Yes her music is crap but she wants to work that doesn’t make her less of a good mother this isn’t 1955 .
I don’t think women in the 50’s had the choice or finacial independence as we’ve establish today.
Yes you are right madpoe in the 50’s a woman had to choose between motherhood and a career. Now a woman has the flexibility to choose what she wants to do. Unfortunately there is still a prevalent view in society that a woman who chooses to work and can afford nannies is somehow less of a mother and is assuredly a ‘Mommie Dearest’ type who abuses her children. I have yet to see any high powered exec or actor etc get called a Daddy Dearest. Heck even Michael Douglas who admitted that he neglected his older son and only saw him every few months while he was off shooting movies and having affairs managed to make himself the sympathetic figure and his ex-wife the villain when his son had all of those legal troubles.
It’s sexism pure and simple.
Madonna is a role model in the way she means it. A strong woman who never took no for an answer and has failed many times but always dusted herself off and plowed forward. She is in her fifties and still driven and curious. As a woman, I admire Madonna on that level and always will.
I think the real issue here is this: Madonna is rapping again? Holy shit! I thought we’ve been through this before. Hearing her rap about soy lattes just once was enough for me.
LOL!!
Boo hoo hoo for a mega-millionaire with multiple nannies. And 4 children she CHOSE to have. Plenty of us would love to have just one, challenges and all.
I’m in a grumpy mood this morning so here goes. If Madonna gave HALF as much attention to her children as she does recording, going out on tour, running her money machine to make herself even MORE rich and famous, creating perfume that probably smells like a combination of overpowering men’s cologne and desperation, etc. etc., then she’d be a great mother. As it is, she’s had a revolving door of nannies to do the grunt work because we all know how hard she is on the “help”. She gets zero sympathy from me.
I’ve erased and rewritten 3 different comments to this story. I think I’ll just leave it at this:
I don’t feel sorry for Madonna.
These pics of her and her two younger kids are really cute. Just because you don’t have the hardest possible situation as a single mom doesn’t mean it’s not difficult.
All the people who say that her children will resent her because they grew up with nannies, seem to forget that Madonna herself lost her own mother at the age of five. I think that she a pretty good idea how it is to grow up motherless and doesn’t want that for her own children. She has also said in interviews that she never wanted to have a family on her own, but a husband and then a family. That she has been divorced twice feels like a huge failure to her.
Yes, she has a lot of money but she doesn’t come from a wealthy background. She has worked hard and long for that in an industrie that isn’t very womanfriendly and were longevity is RARE. I don’t think she takes her succes for granted. She works her ass off, because she wants to and needs to. I respect that more than the people who have a couple of mill in the bank and than go through life doing nothing. That doesn’t sound like a very fullfilling life, if you ask me.
Can’t wait for her new album and tour. The snippets on youtube sound very promising.
I am going to give Madonna a break here. She is the epitome of the woman who has it all…Who does it all & who wants it all. She has accomplished much & still keeps moving forward. She lost her Mother at an early age so I think her children really ARE important to her.
Also, she has a teenager and a son who is a tween. Anyone I know says sometimes they long for the days when their kids were little and adored and loved them unconditionally compared to the more trying times of teens challenging you a lot, the heavy schoolwork. My co-worker put it this way: my kids. Are good kids, but they are beginning to suck the life out of me because they are more self-absorbed, talking back, compared to her youngest who just loves curling up in her arms.
Oh, Madonna dear. You just simply make me laugh, as you have absolutely NO CLUE what REAL WORLD single Moms go through! No clue at all! And try being the totally single Mom of a handicapped child, THEN we can talk! What a joke!!
You and I are in the same boat.
While I’m not devaluing Madge’s accomplishments, she doesn’t have a clue what it’s like to do it on your own, watch every single cent just to get through a week, worry about all kinds of insurance, college & saving funds, the joys (failures) of the public school system…
it’s hard enough. Then add autism into the mix. Yeah, she can relate.
I’m sorry, but along with GP, she should just STFU.
There should be a reality show for celebrities to experience what real life is like. I would like to watch Madge get up at the crack of dawn to get her kids up, get herself ready for work, feed them breakfast, make their lunches, take them to school, go to work, work 8 hours, pick up kids from after school care, cook dinner, give them baths, etc. – all without the help of money, maids, and nannies. She has no concept of the “challenge” of being a single parent.
This is a great idea!! First up Madonna, Jolie & Heidi Klum. Let’s see who does the best.
I love this idea!
Oh be-atch please. You know you have a round the clock staff of nannies, butlers, maids, butt-kissers, etc., Hey, if she can afford it, more power to her. But pretending that she’s just one of us feed-and-dress-the-kids-then-drop-them-off-at-school-and-rush-to-be-on-time-to-my-$25,000-a-year-job-or-I’m-gonna be-docked single moms is both insulting and ludicrous.
Madonna checked her integrity at the door years ago.
She never was, is not, and never will be a role model of mine. Shudder to even consider it.
How right you are!
Everyone has struggles, no matter who they are or how much money they have. But if she’s going to try to paint herself as just like other single mothers, it’s going to backfire. Most single mothers work so hard and juggle so much because they HAVE to. Madonna has options they don’t. If her life is too busy and she doesn’t have the time with the kids that she wants to, she has the option to scale back or not work at all for a while, and not worry about putting food on the table. She can have as much full time help as she wants, and doesn’t have to do the million household chores that other single mothers do. There’s no comparison.
And for the record, I’d say the same thing to a single, very wealthy father complaining about juggling too much – scale back your own work if you want more time with your kids.
Being rich and having nannies doesn’t take away your responsibilities as a parent. At one point she used to shock and sometimes disgust people with her tantics and people always questioned why she brought a child into this world when she first got pregnant but I see how her daughter acts and like it or not she appears to be well grounded which means she’s doing something good.
At least her children are not like the Kardashians or the Lohans. I believe she wants to shelter her children from the media as much as she can.
How many nannies does she have? If she just has one nanny, four kids, and no other staff, then yes, she is doing a LOT (though I’d like to think that Guy Ritchie gets to have the boys sometimes). But it kind of sounds like she has multiple nannies AND various housekeepers and such. And she is complaining? She has a teen and a tween — do they really need a nanny around? All four kids are school-aged. That takes care of six hours out of the day. Add to that, someone else is preparing meals and cleaning up the house. So…why would she need more than one nanny?
dear non-god! when will these very well-off celebrities stop trying to convince us they go through the same struggles??? i am not a mom, but i still get very annoyed when celebrities and the rich try to downplay their much better off circumstances… wtf? my friends and family members that are mothers do not have a) millions of dollars at their disposal, b) an army of servants, er i mean, “nannies and bodyguards”, c) luxury lifestyle to go anywhere with no consequences (like being fired from work)… this just irks me to no end!
1. I didn’t realize Rihanna was also a nanny for Madonna.
2. There are rarely photos of Roco Ritchie which makes me think he must spend a lot of time with his dad. I bet they are father and son as well as bros.
3. Madonna rapping=gag me with a spoon. I wish she would stick to what she does best=pop music in the vein of “Like a Prayer,” “Open Your Heart,” “Express Yourself,” “Causing a Commotion,””Rain,”and “I’ll Remember.”
4. God, I love the Madonna of my adolescence.
Here are pap pics of Rocco and DAVID HIS SON!!!! with their dad.
http://laineygossip.com/Articles/Celebrity/20331/Details/17712/Guy-Ritchie-with-Rocco-and-David-Banda-at-Wagamama-for-dinner-02sept10
I did not read through the other comments. As a single mom, with two young kids at home, all I can say to Madonna is Boo-fuckety-hoo. When she has to decide between paying a utility bill or buying groceries and still not having the funds to buy her kids a birthday present (while working full time!), then I might think Madonna knows how it truly feels to be a single mom, struggling and juggling everything on her own. Until then Madonna can just stuff it up her ass.
ITA!
Oh get a real problem Madonna.
The only reason she’s even trying to appear as if she’s down with the common people is because she has an album and tour to promote, otherwise she’d be all elbows in your face saying get outta my way beyotches!
ITA! Oh get a real problem Madonna. The only reason she’s even trying to appear as if she’s down with the common people is because she has an album and tour to promote, otherwise she’d be all elbows in your face saying get outta my way beyotches
ITA! Oh get a real problem Madonna. The only reason she’s even trying to appear as if she’s down with the common people is because she has an album and tour to promote, otherwise she’d be all elbows in your face saying get outta my way beyotches!
Amen, eener. Madonna nauseates me. It’s so insulting she would try to put herself in the same category as a real single mom. I do not claim to understand her life or hollywood lifestyle because I have never lived it. So she should extend the same courtesy to real single moms who are more than familiar with economic hardship, a guilt complex, no social life, lack of a support system, etc etc etc. Do you know what it’s like to take a light bulb from room to room because you have no money to buy a freaking light bulb, Madonna? Do you know what it’s like to make peanut butter and jelly stretch until the next paycheck? Have you ever bought Christmas presents at the dollar store, Madonna??? NO? Go try to sell sympathy in somewhere else, because US REAL SINGLE MOTHERS ain’t buying.
bitch, please!
I wonder if she ever lip-synchs the kids to sleep.
Lol! 😀
What galls me isnt that she has nannies ..her choice…whatever…
But that she likens herself to single Moms..most that would give their eye-teeth to stay home with their children given a choice.
I’m not single, but I have to work..and the daily struggle of missing out anything that requires my attention or just the pleasure of knowing im available for whatever …is painful.
So please honor women that make these difficult choices and keep quiet about your good fortune.
Kel great idea; and eener you hit the proverbial nail on the head; this trick will do anything to promote her tour/cd no matter how insulting and laughable she comes off; poopele with her money she could hire an actual singer like cee lo to sing lullabies to her kids; her non autotuned warbling is sure to give the little ones nightmares.
She may be a single mom by definition (a mother with no partner), but, according to the lived experiences of single mothers in the real world, she really has no right to it. It’s like someone claiming they are from Chicago or Detroit when they are actually from the suburbs. So, FYI, Madonna: when you are constantly worried about money, guilty for the lack of time you spend with your children, and scared of what the future holds in this economy, then you may call yourself a single mom. Until then, we share no commonalities. Do not degrade my position by trying to claim the single mom title. I’ve earned it…you, have not.
I loved your blog article. Great.