LilSugar

Interview With Bethenny Frankel: Housewife's Baby Talk

babysugar — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:16:11 -0800

Catfights, cocktails and creme de la creme guest lists are de rigueur on Bravo's hit Real Housewives of New York, where the cast spends much of their time decorating their homes, attending social events, and gossiping behind each other's backs. So how will the standout star, Bethenny Frankel, known for her witty zingers and Skinny Girl margaritas handle motherhood? With a mellow attitude and some perspective.

The mama-to-be who's due in June is keeping busy promoting the current season of Housewives, filming her own new series, Bethenny's Getting Married about her wedding to the babe's daddy, Jason Hobby, and penning her third book, A Place of Yes. The reality star chatted with me via phone yesterday as she was being prepped for a photo shoot.

BabySugar: Tell us about the pregnancy – were you surprised?
Bethenny: I was totally, completely surprised. It was generally something I was open to, but I wasn’t doing handstands and taking my temperature. I was just not being careful because I thought it would take a very long time because of my age. So yes, it was definitely like “Holy S**t”.

BabySugar: How’s the nursery coming along?
Bethenny: It isn’t. We haven’t done anything yet. We have to get to that in the next couple of weeks after we have the wedding. I like the catalog at Restoration Hardware, I like their style and the way they do it. Not so jungle-y. I think it will be much more conservative and nice. Not over the top with like clouds and hippopotamuses.

BabySugar: Should we expect to see a parenting book out of you like your costars Alex and Simon?
Bethenny: That will be years to come. It's so hard to be a parent to a thing that doesn’t do anything yet.

To see Bethenny's take on parenting and if the baby will call any Housewives "Auntie," just read more.

BabySugar: Will you heed their (Simon and Alex) parenting advice?
Bethenny: Oh me, no? I don’t believe in really taking advice for that stuff. I don’t really know anybody that is doing the job perfectly. I think you should use your instincts and no two situations are the same. My life is completely different than theirs and my job is different than theirs and I think you kind of have to go with what’s going on in your own house.

BabySugar: Will any of your costars serve as “aunties” to your baby?
Bethenny: [Pause.] Uh . . . no. Housewives has been a good experience and I’ve made some friends, people that I’m friendly with, but it's been a career move. My friend who said I have rotten eggs has been my friend for over 20 years and that’s the situation with most of my friends. You’ll see them all on my own show Bethenny’s Getting Married, which I am shooting right now.

BabySugar: Can we expect a postpartum PETA shoot like the one you did last year?
Bethenny: I don’t know if I need to be looking for reasons to be naked. It was a really nice offer, and I loved it, but I think that would be a little overkill.

BabySugar: Has pregnancy tamed you?
Bethenny: I think in some ways it's mellowed me a little bit. Like I was at an event with every single Housewife there last night, and I was sort of giggling at it and taking it a little more lightly. It's put things into perspective.

BabySugar: Will you be a free range mom or a helicopter one?
Bethenny: What? I don’t even know what a placenta is. (After an explanation) Free range! For sure!

Interview With Alex McCord: Real Housewife Talks Children

LilSugar — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:00:11 -0700

Made famous by her family's everyday antics on Bravo's show, The Real Housewives of New York City, Alex McCord has written a parenting book that will hit bookstore shelves at the end of this year or the beginning of next. Rather than an instructional read, the text will be a he said, she said penned by Alex and her hubby, Simon, about raising their young sons - Francois, 5, and Johan, 3, - in an urban environment. And, since they don't always agree, Alex said it makes for an interesting read.

I recently had a chance to chat via phone with the reality star who wouldn't say who was the most maternal housewife or which castmates's parenting style she identified with, but was happy to dish on what really happened during last season's finale and the fact that she and Simon initially didn't plan to enter parenthood.

lilsugar: At a time in your children's lives when most parents are looking to purchase a parenting book, what made you feel equipped to write one?
Alex McCord: I remembered the books that resonated the most with me when I was pregnant and they were not how to books written by doctors and psychologists, but collections of stories about people living their lives with children and what happened - the good, the bad, the ugly - and by reading that you could see what they learned from it. I had started writing down stories myself in 2004 when I was a mom of one. And now that we have the show, we have the platform to do something like this. There's a huge demand for slice of life entertainment and that's the same viewpoint that we are approaching this book from. It's crazy, off the wall stories about something that happened when we were out with the kids, something that happened when we were at home and my take on it and Simon's take on it.

To see what Alex had to say about childcare and the construction hazards filmed in their home, read more.

lilsugar: What is unique about the way you and Simon are raising the boys?
Alex McCord: We share everything 50 percent. We are both so invested in giving our children a good experience. We live in a very liberal city and environment which we love and have a really strong family unit. We both lost our fathers at a very young age. Simon was 5 and I was 11 and you don't know how long you are going to get to be together. The relationships with your family are the primary thing that shapes your outlook on life. It's absolutely vital to make sure that it is high quality - it's the most important job you can do. We have an appreciation for that while having full lives that involve traveling, both of us working full time, though at the moment I am looking for work full time. We do a lot of things with our children that other people thought were strange. We traveled extensively with them since Francois was 13 days old. We also came into this not wanting to have children. When we first got together, as individuals we decided we did not want to be parents and then once we were married and had been together a while, we changed our minds and threw ourselves into the experience of being parents. We couldn't be happier the way things turned out.

lilsugar: On the show you had a live-in French speaking au pair. Is she still with you?
Alex McCord: The au pair program is just for a year so we had au pairs for three years and when we finished with our last au pair, we made the decision to bring on a full time nanny instead. She does not live with us, but is with us quite a lot. We were ready to have someone not live with us.

lilsugar: Can you speak to Francois's behavior in last season's finale? Was it just a long dinner and a restless child or is that the freedom of expression you want your children to have?
Alex McCord: Hardly. It was a bunch of things. It was our naivete about the way reality shows are put together. We had never watched reality shows before doing this show. It was a family dinner with all of the children expected to attend. Dinner ran two hours late because of late arrivals of the cast members. There's a lot that you didn't see that night. It's the job of the producers to create entertaining television and more often than not with children, no one wants to see beautiful children behaving beautifully. You don't see me taking for a time-out, you do see someone asking Simon if we let our children act this way, and he says, "Oh, yeah sure we do", but the sarcasm doesn't read. We were sorry to see that it came out the way it did.

lilsugar: Did you have any regret of allowing him to be filmed. Are you more protective as a result and is that why we see less of your sons this season?
Alex McCord: We wanted them to be involved to the extent that they wanted to be if that makes any sense. It's really difficult to film a show with children. There is a lot of waiting around and we need you to do this or that and that's not natural for kids. If you want to capture those moments that are real, then you really need to manage it so that they are in for a few minutes. If you get something great. It's not good TV for kids to be held in a room for hours. We tried to balance.

lilsugar: What about the safety hazards that were filmed in your home in both seasons? Or are those areas that were filmed, but are off limits to the boys?
Alex McCord: Completely. All the construction happened behind a dead bolted door that was sealed with plastic all over the entire doorway. For example, this season when we took Jill on a tour when we got home from St. Bart's, that was the first time they ever saw it.

lilsugar: Why didn't anyone tell me blank about motherhood?
Alex McCord: Why didn't anyone tell me how much a very jaded individual would love motherhood.

lilsugar: You know you're a mother when?
Alex McCord: You know you're a mother when you can have conversations with both your children at the same time while preparing dinner and tracing out a project for work.

lilsugar: What's the best trick your mother or father taught you?
Alex McCord: Don't condescend to your children.

lilsugar: Helicopter mom or free range kids?
Alex McCord: Neither. You never want to be a parental extreme, it's really a balance. There are times when you need to be right there with them and that can be construed as helicoptering and there are times when you really need to step back and let them do their own thing and make their own mistakes.

Everyone's got an opinion on this parenting book so don't forget anonymous comments are open.

Would You Buy a Parenting Book From a Real Housewife?

LilSugar — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:00:12 -0800

When the Really Scary Housewives of New York City aired last Spring, most of you were appalled by the women's parenting skills. The series' final episode, in which one of social climber Alex McCord's sons threw a shrieking temper tantrum in the middle of a dinner party while his parents sat idly by, brought out the claws with several of you, suggesting that the family needed to spend more time at home teaching social skills and less time gallivanting about town. We've now heard that Alex, and her husband Simon, are co-writing a parenting book based on their experiences with their own tots.

Given what you have seen of the McCord family on TV, would you consider purchasing their tome?

Source

Can You Handle Any More Real Housewives?

LilSugar — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:00:06 -0700

If there's one thing I've learned from Bravo, it's that housewives can be really scary. Just when I thought women could not get any more immature than The Real Housewives of Orange County, The Really Scary Housewives of New York debuted bringing catty to a whole new level. And, now the network has hand picked another city to wreak havoc in - Atlanta. So we've gone from oranges to apples to peaches in hand, are you going to bite?
Source

Wee TV: The Really Scary Housewives of New York City

LilSugar — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:00:45 -0700

It's hard to tell what's appropriate when it comes to the Really Scary Housewives of New York City.

The grown women gossip behind each other's backs, throw fits, and seem all together unbalanced. But, when four-year-old Francois had a shrieking tantrum - it struck a nerve with all the housewives. To see what happened, read more.

The "genius" multilingual child of attached at the hip couple, Simon and Alex got bored of the dinner party antics in last night's season finale and decided to create some of his own by running around the table and stabbing Jason's $30 burger to bits.

What ensued was even more ridiculous. Bethenny and Ramona had a meeting of the minds on how children should act. I'm not sure if outspoken Bethenny (who threatened to stab Jill with a fork earlier in the episode) and her blond sidekick, Ramona (who is continually rude) should feel comfortable standing on a soapbox.

Meanwhile, Francois's parents so set on moving to the "upper echelons" of society through connections, stared blankly as their lil guy wreaked havoc and announced that the tot is allowed to play with food.

Wee TV: The Really Scary Housewives of New York City

LilSugar — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:00:39 -0700

Last week, Ramona's antics and Avery's reactions stole the show on The Real Housewives of New York City.

But this week, it was Jill Zarin and her 14-year-daughter, Allyson that were the focus. And, more than the Manhattan mommy shipping her girl off to a detox center to improve her arthritis (read: lose weight), it was the odd pressure she puts on the teen to have a relationship with her step-dad, Bobby that made me uncomfortable.

Do you think it's fair for Jill to force a relationship on Bobby and Ally?

Wee TV: The Really Scary Housewives of New York City

LilSugar — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:00:53 -0800

Who knew there were women that could put The Real Housewives of Orange County to shame? But, last night, my jaw dropped as I watched the train wreck that is The Real Housewives of New York City.

The new queen of mama drama in the Big Apple is Ramona Singer, a blond bombshell of sorts that makes it her mission to make her 12-year-old daughter, Avery uncomfortable. To hear about Ramona's antics, read more.

Between chatting up pole dancing techniques and the term MILF, wrestling and kissing a friend poolside and threatening to toss a dog in the water, the loud mouth momster was more than a viewer could handle let alone her self conscious preteen who sat looking on in disgust.

In an interview, the reserved Avery said her mother tends to take things a bit too far and acts in a manner that isn't "ladylike."

What do you think, is it Ramona's prerogative or should she consider her child's feelings?