“You do the best you can. Some days you feel really good about yourself and sometimes you don’t.”
“We’re all trying to do the best we can.”
Are you still with me, or did I put you to sleep? If you are bored, don’t blame me, blame Katie Holmes.
As Lainey mentioned earlier this week, Katie is out pedaling her own (very boring) story with a PEOPLE exclusive (click here for a refresher). This is exclusive? I feel like I could have pulled any interview of hers from the last 7 years and the quotes would be the same. We get it Katie, you’re a mom to Suri. You have a child. You are raising a supremely special human being and you’re trying your best. We get it, we get it, we get it, we get it. That’s all she ever talks about! I mean at this point, it’s her only selling point. But why can’t she try to sell with something better than, “My child means everything to me”? If she is going to dish, then dish about the stuff we really want to hear about (secret Scientology dungeons). And she doesn’t want to talk about the details of her personal life, take a different tactic when it comes to promoting her work.
Have we had our fill of Katie at this point? I mean any gossip-y praise she earned during her midnight run from Scientology has surely run right out by now, right? If we are going to talk about a mom, how about… Gisele!
Because when Gisele gives an interview, her quotes on motherhood are always good for a fight. Some find her candid, others find her pretentious and out of touch. No one ever says she is boring.
In a recent interview with the Sunday Times, Gisele said (via CNN):
"You know how they say on the plane you have to put the oxygen mask on first and then put it on your child? So I think it is the same, as a mum, to take care of myself. You can feel a bit guilty. But if I put my oxygen mask on first, if I'm feeling fulfilled and present and good about myself, then I'm going to be a much more patient, loving, understanding mother and wife. You have to fill your glass so that everyone can drink from it. That's how I feel."
Does what she says make sense? Yes. Any woman can lose herself to motherhood (or her career, or a relationship). But how can we be good parents (or just generally decent people) if we are putting every ounce of energy into our kids? We can’t be a good friend, or a good sister/daughter/coworker/spouse, if we are only focused on one thing, all the time. We all know the person who is obsessed with her kids or her career or her boyfriend – it’s actually a form of supreme selfishness in a way, because they become completely deaf to the world around them.
And it’s easy to dismiss Gisele as straight-up self-absorbed and hone in on the “if I had a billion dollars I’d have time for myself too!” argument because she has access to nannies and chefs and personal trainers (so does Katie Holmes) and women don’t want to take advice from Gisele. Out of all the celebrity moms I’ve written about, no one gets people riled up quite like her. On the other hand, some women seem to really like and admire Katie Holmes.
But in these interviews, the two of them actually aren’t that far apart in what they are saying about the importance motherhood plays in their lives and how they feel guilty about working. It’s just that Gisele doesn’t put me to sleep when she says it
