Deciding whether or not it is appropriate for your kid to step into the spotlight on their own must be difficult for any star parent, and these 5 celebrities have all voiced their opinions on the matter. Some have already allowed their young children to start a career in the business, saying they keep them grounded with good parenting, while others don’t want their kids to follow in their footsteps because they believe what they do can be difficult.
Beyonce
Beyonce, who recently welcomed her first child, says she doesn’t want her kids to be famous: “I definitely would not want my kids to be entertainers. It’s really hard. It’s hard enough doing any kind of job and being a teenager. But being a teenager in the spotlight just heightens it.”
Lily Allen
Lily Allen grew up with a famous dad, so she has decided that she doesn’t want her kid to have a similar upbringing: “A part of the way I became who I became was because I was subjected to a certain lifestyle from a really early age. My parents hung out with famous people, but we didn’t necessarily reap the same financial benefits. So there was a part of me thinking, ‘I wanna be like those people.’ And once I’d achieved it, it didn’t make me happy. So I don’t want to put my kids in that position. I’d rather set up businesses, put a roof over our heads, then move to the country to shelter them for a bit.”
Kevin Bacon
Kevin Bacon and his partner have decided that they don’t want their kids to get into acting because there is so much rejection involved: “It’s kind of weird that we were (discouraging), in retrospect. I mean, I think for both of us we were afraid of subjecting our children to a lifetime of scrutiny and rejection. We were talking before about how to be an actor, you’ve got to really have a really tough skin. If you paint a painting and you put it up there, people will judge your painting and they’ll say, ‘I don’t like that.’ But when you’re an actor, it’s you (that is judged). It’s your face. It’s everything… It’s so personal that I don’t think we really wanted to put our kids through that.”
Jada Pinkett Smith
Jada Pinkett Smith’s young daughter and son have both launched their own careers, something which she supports: “Most of the time with child stars, the child has all the responsibilities and the mother and father don’t understand what’s actually happening to them, so the child can trust no one… But with us the paradigm stays the same because the child can still be the child with an extraordinary gift. It is something to manage. I will not overlook that. I have a 10 year old who can stand up in front of an audience of 17,000 and rock the house. I have to keep her grounded.”
Brooke Shields
Brooke Shields started her career early, and she doesn’t want the same for her own children: “I would never start them as young as I did. For a start, my life isn’t conducive to that. Selfishly, I wouldn’t give up on my career to work on theirs.If, when they have finished their education, they want to do it, I will do whatever I can to help them.”
