Kidchella Or Kidcutoff? The Dilemma In Raising Celebrities' Kids

When it comes to raising children, rock stars have very extreme point of views. This week, two opposite items in the news have clearly demonstrated this. First, Sting declared that his children will not get a penny from his vast fortune, as he explained to the Daily Mail:

‘I told them there won’t be much money left because we are spending it! We have a lot of commitments. What comes in, we spend, and there isn’t much left.’

‘I certainly don’t want to leave them trust funds that are albatrosses round their necks.’

‘They have to work. All my kids know that and they rarely ask me for anything, which I really respect and appreciate.’

I am sure that most parents will find that a bit harsh and egocentric? Especially the part about spending all his money. He is worth £180 million for god’s sake! How could he possibly be spending so much money on himself? He doesn’t want to spoil his kids but he sounds like the spoiled kid in the story. Is he giving away all his money to charity like Warren Buffett? No, he says  he is spending it, great! Anyway, he appears like a pompous ass during the rest of the interview – yeah what’s new? – with declarations like this one: ‘With my children there is great wealth, success – a great shadow over them – so it’s no picnic at all being my child. I discuss that with them; it’s tough for them.’… ‘A great egocentric shadow looking over them?

At the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Kanye West, who threw up an outrageous birthday party for his one-year old kid: Kidchella. An improvised mini amusement park with a budget probably close to the real Coachella, including a Ferris wheel, Yeezus t-shirts (a ‘nice’ touch which tells a lot about what this birthday batch was about), a performance stage for members of the family doing Karaoke, booths for face-painting, and cotton candy machine, plus the usual ethnic insensitivity that goes with festivals, represented by teepees and Native American headdresses. Baby North also got diamond earrings for her birthday a few days ago and who knows what else. Of course, in this case the kid looks more like another gadget (they even gave her a compass name!) that her parents want to accessorize with the most expensive and fashionable stuff, and she is only one year old. In a few years, if she doesn’t turn into the most pathetic 14-year-old poseur in the history of celebrities, she will definitively deserve an award.

There must be a middle ground between disinheriting your children and spoiling them to the bone marrow, some celebrities have a hard time finding balance it seems.