Madonna: ‘I’m struggling to understand how to be a mother’

[Sarzy]

Madonna admits that being a mom is not easy.

“Growing up with a mother like me is a challenge,” the pop icon, 64, said in her cover story for three different European editions of Vanity Fair.

“It has been the most difficult, the hardest battle.”

Madonna has six children: daughter Lourdes, 26, whom she shares with ex-boyfriend, Carlos Leon; son Rocco, 22, with ex-husband Guy Ritchie; and David, 17, Chifundo ‘Mercy,’ 16, and twins, Estere and Stella, 10, whom she adopted from Malawi.



“Today, I am still struggling to understand how to be a mother and do my job,” the “Vogue” singer revealed.

“Because, whoever you are, having children and raising them is a work of art. And no one gives you a manual. You have to learn from mistakes. It is a profession that requires a lot of time. And it is exhausting because there is never rest.”



The Grammy winner says that she derives much pleasure in seeing how “each of them has discovered their own creativity and that it comes from an authentic place.

“I have never encouraged my daughter Lola to make music or my son Rocco to paint. But I’ve always exposed them to art, to music, and I’m happy that they’ve found ways to express themselves. I have respect and admiration for them and for what they do.”



Madonna, whose own mother died at the age of 30 from cancer when she was just five, says that “much of my happiness” comes from her children.

“And also to a great extent the inspiration that some artists give me,” she added.

Earlier this week, the “Evita” star announced that she would be embarking on a “Celebration” tour, honoring her four-decade career. The 35-city trek kicks off July 15 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver with “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 8 champ, Bob the Drag Queen, as her opening act.

pagesix.com/2023/01/18/madonna-im-struggling-to-understand-how-to-be-a-mother/

[no]

six kids later and she still has no idea what she's doing. sounds about right.

[loftybike]

In this case, I think she's just honest and it's the same for every mother I know.

[burnt_toast]

Jan 20, 2023 18:25:20 GMT loftybike said:

In this case, I think she's just honest and it's the same for every mother I know.

Agreed, I weirdly found this to be the most authentic thing I've heard out of her mouth in the last decade or so.  Parenting is hard.

[charmedhour]

Jan 20, 2023 18:56:43 GMT burnt_toast said:

Jan 20, 2023 18:25:20 GMT loftybike said:

In this case, I think she's just honest and it's the same for every mother I know.

Agreed, I weirdly found this to be the most authentic thing I've heard out of her mouth in the last decade or so.  Parenting is hard.

And if you factor in her own mother died when she was only 5, she never "learned" how mom/not mom, either.  While her father did remarry 3 years after her passing, it's said Madonna and her stepmother were not close.

[czb]

i agree with some of what she said: how hard it is and how there is no manual. but is it an art? that seemed odd to me.

[burnt_toast]

I think it can be, like cooking or cleaning or data analysis .. depends on the parent I think. I'm willing to give her that one, I think it's a phrase that appears to be overused but can also be poignant and accurate.

[tulip]

Yeah... parenting is hard, even if you're Madonna. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be her kid, although I do think that the Instagram nonsense would be embarrassing as hell.

[angeli]

Oh, poor Madonna. She has the money to hire maids, nannies, cooks, drivers and bodyguards. I'm sure her kids go to the best schools in NYC. She doesn't seem to work that often other than posting photos of herself online. I doubt that she takes her kids to school, to dance lessons or whatever else she has them doing. So she has plenty of time to actually BE a mother to those kids. She can read up on parenting, go to therapy to work through her own issues and spend time with her kids rather than give them 15 minutes a day as she apparently did with her older kids. Yes, parenting IS hard. It's hard to meet your kids emotional needs and teach them what they need to know to become successful adults. But it's a lot harder to do it as a widowed, divorced or single mother working two jobs to support her kids, cleaning her own house, cooking dinner for a batch of kids, supervising homework and trying to raise her kids right without the supervision of a team of nannies.

[burnt_toast]

I don't mean to be that person but ... it ain't a competition man. If I had all those resources sure as fuck my kids would benefit, and I still think parenting would be hard. I know the world loves to hate on her and she looks like a desperate clown with her huge ass and absurdity ... but anyone saying parenting is hard is only saying what every parent already knows.

[czb]

^^^ YES.

doing the shuttling and physical parts of parenting is the easier part for me. sure, it is hard to balance with work and all those other responsibilities and sometimes i feel like a project manager with all the crazy activity schedules, but the hard part is teaching by example. ethics, how we treat others, what to say and not say, how to behave, etc. all that without being a dictator. and letting them have the freedom to screw up and be there without saying I Told You So.

[constancespry]

That mag cover is ridiculous. I bet she’ll have life-size copies displayed all over her house. 🙄

[MsDark]

I'm concerned about her having her young boyfriends (who are closer by far in age to her kids) around all these girls.

I think she learned some "not to do" things with Rocco. Her whole difficulty with getting old and acting ridiculous about it can't not affect her parenting.

But at least she's getting closer to no longer bullshitting herself.