Us Magazine has a new interview with former Olympic gymnast, Shawn Johnson East. In the interviews we’ve covered with her over the past few years she’s always seemed very down-to-earth, especially about the insane culture over being a mom in the public eye. She’s only 28, which surprises me because I thought she was a little older than that since she comes across so well. Shawn and her husband, Andrew East, also 28, have a daughter Drew Hazel East, six months. We’ve seen Shawn talk about the fact that she got shamed by a lactation consultant for formula-feeding her baby (she now represents Enfamil) and we’ve also seen her get mommy-shamed for posting a video of her playing with her daughter at the beach. To Us, she said she doesn’t usually respond to the mommy shamers as that brings more bad behavior. She has a similar philosophy to parenting.
Would you respond to mom shamers?
I’m 99.9% of the time good at not responding, but I’m once in a while ‘come on.’ I’ve always been taught whatever you respond to, that’s what you’ll get more of. If you respond to good you’ll get good, if you respond to bad you’ll get bad.Would you drink a bottle of wine after a long day?
We love wine, we love [to learn about] wine. We’ll have a glass of wine a night, which means maybe a bottle a night.Would you let a baby cry it out?
We did sleep training where you let them cry a few minutes before you go in. We tried, but that’s so hard.Would you have a mom meltdown in front of your kids
Yeah, sure. There’s something beautiful about explaining to your child human emotion and how you deal with it and what you go through, how you sort through it.Do or don’t co-sleep
No, but I have friends who have. You do you, mama.Would you give in to kids when they have a temper tantrum
Kids are smart and they know how to get what they want. If you reward them [when they show] good behavior they will learn that’s what they have to do to get what they want.
For that last question above, whether to respond to kids having a tantrum, she went on to give a similar response to the first question about mommy shamers – ignore the bad behavior and don’t reward it. I found her really decent and level-headed overall. She’s not saying not to co-sleep with your kid, just that she doesn’t do it. She’s not saying to sleep train by letting your kid cry it out, or to respond to them immediately, just that she tried letting her daughter cry and it was hard. I couldn’t let my baby cry and would try to help him as soon as I could. It was really tough for me to hear him cry, but I probably did reinforce some of the bad behavior like she’s saying too. She’s practical and isn’t telling anyone her way is the best way, just that it worked for her. I wish more celebrities and internet personalities were like this, but it would make my job harder.
Look at this baby!!
