Bethenny takes custody of the co-parenting styles of Kourtney Kardashian, Travis Barker and his ex Shanna Moakler.
Plus, Bethenny reveals divorce intel.
So there's an article on Shanna Moakler and Travis Barker and Courtney Kardashian and a term called parental alien nation, where Shanna Moakler is effectively saying that she can't compete with Travis and Courtney and that she's implying that the extravagance and their fame and I guess the ga wagons and the Prada is creating parental alien nation and that Travis really set out to be the favorite parent and the star dad, and that it's alienating her and that she's just going to be there waiting being a good mother and that the kids are her priority, and that she can't compete. This is a very common aspect. First of all, what happens is is it happens more with men, where men who seem like they're letting the woman be in the driver's seat with the parenting and the activities and the kids and the doctors and all those things. All of a sudden a divorce starts to happen and the father becomes what they call superdad. The father is super involved and now he wants to do everything with the kids and often with the next spouse or girlfriend. They're even more involved, and the previous spouse is sitting here saying, what the hell this is like a sham, Like, all of a sudden, now he's superdad.
It could be for many reasons. It could be the kids are older.
And the man is identifying and connecting to them more. It could be that the man was suffocating in their own marriage, staying away from it because they weren't happy. It could be that it's competitive now and it's a battle, so it's a divorce battle, and they just sort of like, you know, you hate the other parent more than you love your kid, and it's a competition. It could be a million things. It's just it could be in security. All of a sudden, your word, your kids are gonna hate you. When you had the secure of the one house, everything was sort of, you know, solid and secure and peaceful, and now all of a sudden, you're the pariah and you're in another house. So you need to throw money at the problem, buy your kid's presence, spoil them, no rules, et cetera. So a couple of things. Number one, those things don't really work. Kids really overall can't be bought. If they can be bought, they'll take the trappings. Of course they're not stupid, but they'll ultimately know what it means. So kids really do realize it starts to happen around like eleven and twelve, when they become their own people that have their own voices and opinions, that they start to really realize what's going on between parents, and any mud slinging from one parent to the other ends up really coming back on the one slinging the mud. And you know, kids can't articulate that, they don't even realize it. But you know, it can be subtleties like one parents saying to the kid, I know you don't want to go to your mommy, or I know you don't want to go to your daddy, but you'll be back with me soon and I love you so much, and we do things differently here. And it can be passive aggressive, It can be aggressive. It could be talking totally negatively about the other parent. All of it doesn't work. Kids are very intuitive, Kids are very smart. Kids totally get it. And what happens is once their brains, their emotions, their minds, their emotional intelligence start to form, they then later put the puzzle pieces of what's happened for years before. So all of a sudden, everything starts to shuffle into place and they start to realize things that they kind of saw or experienced as a young child but couldn't process. And then they start to really realize which parent is trying to, you know, pit the kid against the other parent or put the kid in the middle.
It's just a bad, dangerous game. So the parental alienation thing is a serious thing, and.
It's overused as a term because judges will actually file and say that will rule in favor of it. But it's not that common, like parents use terms like that all the time, basically meaning like, oh, my ex is kind of trying to pin my kids against me. But parental alienation is a real thing, and it's a systematic thing, and it's a consistent thing, and it's something that means that the one parent is really doing a number and a job on getting the kids to really have no relationship with the other parent.
It's only bad for the kids.
You want to set up positive relationships with both sexes for your kids so they don't model their life and their choices based on negativity and the home. So it's just a terrible idea. It's a boomerang. I'm not saying any of this is actually happening. I definitely have an opinion on kids getting g wagons for Christmas and you know, things like that. I just don't believe in spoiling kids. It's very hard. It's hard for anyone. It's it's I guess hard for me. Although I crack the whip and I'm on it, I can't imagine it's got to be a million, a billion times harder for Kardashians who just get everything handed to them. But there's a discipline, and just because you're a billionaire doesn't mean your kids need to be draped in arimez and diamonds.
I don't believe in that.
So possibly the trappings and also living in LA and Beverly Hills and entertainment and fame and celebrity. So I'm definitely not saying that parental alienation was happening. I'm just talking about it as a concept, and it is relatable for Shanna to feel like she can't win, she can't compete, she can't afford.
But love is what kids want.
Discipline, structure, They want to know where they should be.
Coming and going.
They want rules, they want unconditional love. They want tough love. They don't need your parent to be your best friend. They don't need your parents to be your sugar daddy. They want traditional parenting, and that's a mistake the parents make in life and in divorce. There's no denying that the Kardashians are a force to be competing with. Kanye struggled with when was he going to see his kids? How could he get to be a part of what school they'd go to or what church they'd go to. Whether you like Kanye agree with him or not, it's definitely the Kardashians have an infrastructure.
They have a dynasty.
A power house structure, a layered structure of just so many people and so much money and so much fame and so much power and so much influence and the shows, etc.
That it's hard to compete with that.
So, you know, if you're the ex wife of someone and your kids are now being raised by Kardashians, how can you possibly compete with that? That's like competing with the royal family, you know. But as parents, it's important that you want the best for your kids. For me, I want my child to have meaningful time with me and with her father. I want her to be around people that treat her well. I want her to be around yes, experiences that yes, we do have privilege and she does get to do amazing, interesting things, but I also want her to see what it's like for people who can't afford to do lavish things. I want her to have a well rounded, reasonable life to say her up for success. I don't want to wrap her in Airmez bubble wrap and have her think that life is just going to be so perfect and easy because it's not textured, and you end up getting depressed and you end up being in some sort of void in some hole because you didn't do anything for yourself. There's something very strong to be said for building something on your own, making money on your own, doing it yourself, having passion accomplishing something.
And I think that parental alienation.
Is a term that is very serious but can also be overused because it's a very very serious term that judges take very seriously, and they don't rule in favor of it very often. It would have to be very hard to prove that one parent was systematically trying to alienate
The child from the other