Girlmom Kylie Kelce has some thoughts about sleepovers. Kylie’s daughters are now ages six (Wyatt), five (Elliotte), three (Bennett) and 13-months (Finnley). On this week’s Not Gonna Lie, a listener asked Kylie for her thoughts on letting her girls attend sleepovers with friends. In typical Kylie fashion, she did not hesitate to respond with a simple, ”No.” She then explained that while she had no problem with them attending the evening and following morning activities, she preferred to have her girls sleep in their own beds.
During the “Ask Me Some Things” segment on the latest episode of Not Gonna Lie, the podcaster, 34, shared her feelings about sleepovers, revealing whether she’d let her and husband Jason Kelce’s four daughters — Finnley, 12 months, Bennett, 3, Elliotte, 5, and Wyatt, 6 — stay the night somewhere else.
“No,” she said immediately after reading a viewer’s question. “Oh, guys. We live in a different world than when we were growing up. And to be fair, I didn’t even really have sleepovers when I was growing up. I think I can, off the top of my head, remember maybe two or three sleepovers that I had.”
“No, my kids are not going for sleepovers,” she added.
She went on to explain that she’ll let her kids still participate in the event even though they’ll be going to sleep in their own beds.
“I will let them stay for all of the activities, and then I’ll pick you up to go to bed,” she explained. “If you want me to take you back in the morning because people are doing, like, breakfast and an activity in the morning, I’ll take you back.”
“You’re sleeping in your house,” she continued. “I have trust issues. Okay?”
I totally get why Kylie would have trust issues and not want to let the girls participate in a sleepover. Her daughters are still so young! I wouldn’t let a six year old have a sleepover at a friend’s house either. I wonder how she’ll feel when they’re older and have cell phones so she can text or FaceTime with them to check in. I’m an Elder Millennial born in the mid-1980s. One of our rites of passages was The Sleepover. My first sleepover was a birthday party in fifth grade. We stayed up way too late, watched TGIF, and played “Truth or Dare” and “Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board.” Good times. That said, even knowing how innocent my own experiences were, she’s right that we do live in a different world, and you can never be too careful. I have two boys and thankfully, neither of them have expressed any interest in having a sleepover with friends yet. I am not prepared for how to answer that question.
Kylie also answered a fan question during the episode about whether Jason’s recent attire at a wedding was tempting her to go for baby #5. Kylie hilariously told the listener to “take a chill pill” because her uterus may be listening. She’s too funny. I love how Kylie always manages to answer questions and give opinions with unabashed confidence and humor. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did have one more.
I agree with her. you arent just cosigning the mom you’ve met but everyone you know lives in the house plus a neighbor who shares a yard plus a co worker that comes by plus random relatives that may come by.
And the family is high profile enough that a worry about abduction is very real.
The potential for guns to be in the house is also a big issue.
Yep exactly. Unsecured firearms. Some people are very lax about securing their firearms with children in the house.
There was a video going around of a family and friends party where many of the guests were doctors. The host, a doctor, went around asking what was one thing they as a doctor would not let their kids do. Multiple guests said no sleepovers.
Yeah, I’m an 80s baby and grew up in the 90s. Sleepovers were definitely a rite of passage. I consistently had sleepovers and went to them up until I graduated from high school. LOL! I’m single with no kids but I totally understand b/c the kids today are growing up way different than I did. People are just too crazy, nowadays. smh.
Same but not at age 6. I don’t recall when they started. My 11th birthday was an epic sleepover, up all night watching John Hughes movies, Tron whatever else was necessary viewing back then. In middle school, our friend group regularly crashed at one another’s homes. We lived close enough that we could walk/bike/bus and not require rides. But six seems very young and that’s a lot of responsibility for the host parents (read: mom).
My two daughters were sleepover age in the early 2000s. They went to some, and I hosted some, but it’s a different era of awareness now. Going WAY back, I remember going to one in 1982ish as a teen, and a dad was creepy in a leering way. Nothing traumatic happened, but I look back and think, yeah, that was creepy. And for all you parents of 13 year olds and over: no sleepovers, ever! You would not believe what some host parents allow, and you’ll never know it. Give your kid a code phrase if they call home – something like, “I forgot to feed the cat – could you do it?” which means, PICK ME UP NOW.
I’m glad you said “different awarness” because “we live in a different world now” is the case… but not in the way people except, where crime is down across the board, etc. People that don’t trust sleepovers now are doing so based on their own (negative and dangerous) experiences in “the old world.”
I remember going to a sleep over party at a friends house, maybe at 10/11, and I remember her step dad scaring us for staying up late, I think he came out and yelled at us. She moved suddenly the next year, and as an adult I found out that her step dad was abusing her, her mom found out and immediately turned him in to the cops and moved away.
I allow very very very few sleep overs for my kids.
My kids both know that if they text me an “X” I’m going to light up their phone in (fake) spectacular pi$$ed-off mom glory and tell them I’m coming to pick them up RIGHT NOW. I saw an article when my oldest was little that advised you to set up a really simple system like that so the kid could get out of a bad situation. We haven’t had to use it yet but it’s there.
I see the “no sleepovers” rule a lot these days; my kids had them (the 13 y/o still does, although she used to self-select for sleeping at home until pretty recently because she just couldn’t fall asleep at a friend’s house, even her bestie next door) but only with families where I knew and trusted both parents. I will also ask about guns, medication, and pets when determining if my kid is safe at your house, and I will happily answer those questions from their friends’ parents as well. Everyone has to make the choice that’s right for them and their family, and there is a big difference between 6 and 10, so who knows how she’ll feel in the future.
My daughter has sleepovers, but they started at an older age than 6 (which is the age of Kylie’s eldest). Also somehow the sleepovers are usually at my house.
You must be the cool mom!
None of my kids really liked sleepovers. When they were little, it was only at my parents’ house which they loved. As older teenagers, they occasionally sleep at a friend’s place but prefer to be in their own beds. They do have friends that sleep at our place quite a bit.
My stepdaughter went to her first sleepover when she was 7, which I guess is pretty young, but it was just a bunch of girls who lived in our building, so we could’ve just gone downstairs to get her if she had decided that she didn’t want to stay the night. She didn’t go to one truly away from home until she was 10. My husband and I are generally pretty relaxed about things like that, because he had very strict parents and wants to do things differently with his own daughter, and my dad was almost insanely permissive. What we DO find somewhat controversial is coed sleepovers. A friend of my stepdaughter (now almost 13) had one for her birthday last month, and we definitely agonized a bit over that invitation. We ultimately let her attend, but we’ve gotten mixed responses from other parents when we talk about it.
I remember one sleepover my daughter went to when she was 13. It was in an apartment building. The mom left the girls alone to go drinking at a bar, and a weird neighbor across the hall started banging on the door. My daughter was terrified. I’m glad she called me to come pick her up. I had assumed the mom was a responsible adult, but I was wrong.
I understand where she’s coming from but it changes as they get older. Six is too young for a sleepover anyway. Now that my daughter is 13 and has a phone, I don’t worry about her doing sleepovers with her girlfriends. But there are plenty of moms who also do an almost-sleepver where they do all the sleepover stuff and then parents come to pick up their kids at 11 or midnight and take them home.
The husband of my daughter’s Brownie troop leader turned out, years later, to be a child rapist. I thank my lucky stars I never let her sleep over at that house. I just felt uneasy when I visited there, and that was during the day.
My girls could sleep over at friends’ houses once they reached their teens, but only if I knew both parents and we were aligned on guns, etc. Otherwise, nope.
No sleepover at nobody’s house and no one at my house either. Just being in the car with a friend as a TEEN and having their dad in the car drive us made me uncomfortable. I didnt ever want to sleep over anybody’s house and have the feeling of being with strangers around. It’s a no for me. My mom used to say, you have a house, you have a bed, so go home and sleep in your own bed.
I understand her fears, her take that it’s a different time we live in. But it makes me so sad. I went to sleepovers with friends from age 4-5 onward. They were close family friends.
I am sad that this is the world we live in. That we don’t feel like our daughters and sons are safe in another family’s home. That Kylie says it ‘isn’t the world we grew up in’ when there was still a lot of violence. It’s so worrying that we can’t trust our neighbours. It’s getting worse, and as a female who wandered around the suburbs with friends and no mobile phones it seemed okay. It’s such an indictment on the world that we worry our girls and boys aren’t safe within society. I didn’t grow up in a country with guns. But any time I visit the USA I am extremely afraid.
Society is so sick. And this manosphere stuff, men feeling disenfranchised. Women holding kids hostage in their own homes. It’s so vile.
I don’t have kids but I’d break down in hives if any of my nieces/nephews went to a sleep over before the age of 11.
I loved sleepovers but I remember calling my parents (on the landline!) to come pick me up because the girl’s older brother (he was +18) had his rugby team over and I felt, for some reason, unsafe. Her parents were out, too. My parents were there so fast it’s a miracle they didn’t crash.
I really like her and her family. I need to listen to her podcast more. I like how she takes care of her kids. As far as your links go, I watched Jack Nicholson in Wolf again yesterday. Yes, it’s dated, but I like it and watch it again ever so often. I miss him in movies, and I think he was nonparallel as an actor However, I also read that it was in his home that Roman Polanski raped the little thirteen-year-old girl. Jack Nicolson was in the house, as was his then girlfriend Angelica Houston. Why has that never received any attention? Ever. I always liked Angelica too until I read that.
It’s well known that Jack and Anjelica weren’t there. Far away.
The only sleepover at that age was at grandmas
I agree with her totally.
I understand her position on this. Her kids are also quite young still.
As a Gen X-er I went to lots of sleepovers and hosted them too. It was definitely a rite of passage for our generation. Sometimes it just evolved from an afternoon at someone’s house. The visitor would end up staying for dinner, and that turned into your mother giving hers a call and asking if she could stay the night. Happened all the time. I was one of four and there were weekend and summer nights when we would each have a friend staying over and the number of kids in the house doubled. Not much supervision happening either.
I wish we could still be so casual about it but times have changed. And we have more awareness.