Heidi Klum can’t take her kids to the playground.
Well, she can, but where Heidi goes, the paparazzi follow. And while the super-famous, super-model might take it in stride, the other moms on the playground?….Not so much.
Personally, I don’t like it when celebrities complain about being in the public eye.
But in her interview with Katie, Heidi Klum was talking about something else. She wasn’t complaining about the paparazzi at all – she was talking about the other moms.
This made me think. Are regular moms unfair to famous moms? Katie Couric started the show with Heidi by saying, “Don’t hate her because she’s beautiful.” But the truth is, a lot of us DO hate (well, maybe not hate – but look warily at) women who are super beautiful, super famous, and super fabulous.
Heidi Klum is all three.
But it turns out, she’s also funny, and nice, and a smart businesswoman…and a mom. And in the mom realm, no one cares how famous you are- least of all your kids. To them, you’re not a celebrity, you’re just mom.
So shouldn’t we other moms give those famous ones a break and treat them just like everyone else? It isn’t easy. We get giddy around famous people. We think they must be different. We’re star struck and tongue-tied. But on the playground, they’re moms and dads. And while they might be less apt to strike up a conversation and then invite you over for a play date, they’re at the playground not to be famous – but to play with their kids.
When my twins were small, they were in music class with the twins of a very famous actress. We’ll call her “VFA.” After class, a lot of us moms would go out to lunch with the kids. We never even considered asking the VFA. She was famous! Why would she want to hang out with us? In fact, we pretty much ignored her and her kids, lest she think we were sucking up or only talking to her because she was a VFA.
As it turns out, the VFA did want to hang out with us. So much so, that after being excluded a number of times, she shyly asked if she could come along. Go figure. We were so careful about not intruding on her famousness, that we’d been rude.
I guess that no matter how famous you are, if you have two small children, you’re tired. You need other moms to bounce things off of. You need your kids to make friends. Sometimes, you need not to be the VFA or the Super Model. You need the other Moms to forgive you for bringing cameramen into the sandbox and let you just be like everyone else.
Only more beautiful.
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