Kourtney Kardashian is on the cover of Vogue Arabia’s July/August issue, sporting a sleek bob with a center part and looking all kinds of incredible. Now, you know that when a celebrity lands a magazine cover photo, there’s going to be an accompanying interview somewhere inside the magazine, right? Well, the eldest Kardashian sister was indeed interviewed by the magazine and we are loving some of the parenting lessons she shared. So much so that it made us go looking for more parenting lessons from Kourtney.
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We’ve gathered some of our favorite parenting lessons, tips, and advice from Kourtney Kardashian because although she may be far richer and far more famous than we are, a parent is a parent is a parent. Kourtney has always been a hands-on mom. She has three children with her ex Scott Disick and they are quite the example of what cohesive, cooperative, and successful co-parenting can look like.
Like mother, like daughter…sometimes.
“My mom is such a great example,” Kourtney told Vogue Arabia. “She gets up super early in the day, she works hard, and then when she is having fun, she has the most fun out of any of us because she is so in the moment.” Kourtney’s mother Kris Jenner inspires Kourtney to stay present and not tune out.
When Kourtney first became a mom, she started making her own baby food.
“My mom bought me this amazing baby-food maker, the Beaba,” she said in an interview shortly after having her first child, Mason. “I steam and puree fruits and vegetables, and they last for like four days. Mason pretty much loves everything. I gave him red beets, and it got all over his face, which made the funniest picture. He also loves sweet potatoes, carrots, and yams. Sometimes I mix pureed peaches, pears, bananas, or apples with plain yogurt or an all-natural organic jelly.”
She puts her phone away when she’s with her kids.
"I always try my absolute best when I'm with my kids not to be on my phone, to be present in what we're doing, and have those moments where you're looking in each other's eyes and connecting," Kourtney told Vogue Arabia. Sounds simple, but what parent isn’t guilty of sneaking in some phone time when they are with the kids? It happens all the time and it’s very distracting.
She knows how important it is to do nothing with her kids.
"I usually take one day on the weekend where we have no plans, we hang out at the house in pajamas or sweats," she shared in March 2020. "We sleep in. I like to not be on a schedule on that day." Those luxuriously do-nothing days are so much fun for families. You can lay around, cuddle, and just enjoy each other without worrying about anything else.
She takes care of her mental health.
Kourtney has been open about her struggles with anxiety. “For the past three years I’ve been going to therapy. Once a week I go to a double session. I look forward to it every week,” she told Health in March 2020. For anyone rolling their eyes because we don’t all have the means to book a weekly double session of therapy a week, it’s true that we can’t all take care of mental health this way because of the cost. The thing is we should all be able to and maybe that’s something we need to collectively work on changing because mental health needs to be a priority for all of us.
Her phone goes in the bathroom at night.
Most people sleep with their phones by their side, but not Kourtney. "I put my phone in the bathroom at nighttime," she told Health. "My kids don't have phones, but I make sure that all the devices in the house—iPads and computers—have the Night Shift [it reduces blue light] on 24 hours a day."
She believes ‘raising children is a job.’
"I won’t be live tweeting #KUWTK tonight, as I’m spending time with my kids while they are on spring break," she tweeted in April. "I realize that a lot of the conversation right now surrounds my work ethic, and I feel like I need to just make one thing clear: raising children is a job as well."
We get it. No, it’s not the kind of job where we punch a time card and get paid, it’s harder than that because you are on 24/7. Sure, Kourtney has the means to get help when she needs it, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t work at being present. And clearly, for her, it means that there are times when she absolutely has to prioritize her children over everything else.
She is not afraid to go her own way.
“In fact, it’s the hardest and most rewarding job that I have ever had,” Kourtney followed up on Twitter. “I’ve decided to put my focus on my kids and my lifestyle brand, Poosh, which is all about finding YOUR healthy balance for living your best life.” Recently, she made the decision to step away from being a constant part of her family’s reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashians. She’s just over it and wants to focus more on her kids and her own business. It’s great that even though she must have gotten a lot of pressure from her extended family to keep on keeping up, that she opted out.
She is taking responsibility for educating her kids on racism.
“As a mother, there is a natural instinct to protect my children from anything that might make them feel sad or unsafe,” wrote Kourtney on both her website and Instagram. “The pain and suffering inflicted by racism is not a thing of the past and I bare the responsibility to speak with my kids honestly and often about it, even when the truth is uncomfortable. I have to make sure they understand what it means to have white privilege and to take the time to learn and discuss Black History, beyond just one short month out of the year.”
She is OK admitting to her kids that she doesn’t know it all.
"I encourage other mothers to join me in using this as a learning lesson for our children, to allow our children to feel comfortable enough to come talk to us about anything," she continued in her posts on her website and Instagram. "Allow conversation without judgement, and learn from our children too. We don’t know it all. My children sometimes ask questions that I may not know the answers to, so we explore them together."
She believes in modeling not molding.
Her advice on modeling and not molding is spot on! Check it out: "The best way to teach respect, love, and kindness is by modeling it. The best way to teach the importance of using your voice and standing up for what is right and what you believe in is by modeling it. I have always felt the importance of allowing my kids to be who they are, to give them the tools they need, structure and security as a parent, but to not mold them into any ideal."
She created a tech-free haven for her kids.
She and Scott built a ridiculously nice playhouse for their kids that was featured in Architectural Digest. "There's no iPads, phones, computers, video games, TVs — nothing is allowed inside," Kourtney told the publication. "That's why we have a lot of books, and it's great for playing games and really just being imaginative."
She is dedicated to co-parenting with her ex.
Kourtney and Scott may no longer be linked romantically, but when it comes to parenting their children, they are doing it together. "I’d rather people look at us like we’re crazy and we get to spend time together and raise a family together than doing it the other direction,” Scott says in a video he filmed with Kourtney on how they manage to co-parent so well.
She doesn’t believe in comparing her children to each other.
You know that whole, “Why can’t you be more like your brother/sister” thing that so many parents do? Well, Scott and Kourtney do not do that. In a co-parenting video that she filmed with Scott, she talks about how she and Scott never compare their children to each other because each of their children is so different. But that’s not necessarily how Kourtney was raised. “Growing up with five siblings my mom did compare us,” she told Scott. Scott responded, “She still does.”
Kourtney and Scott are determined to create memories together as a family.
What Kourtney and Scott have managed to do as parents since breaking up as a couple is pretty extraordinary. They still take family vacations together, they live 2 miles apart from each other, they manage to create consistency for their children. When asked what the top three pieces of advice he would recommend to new co-parents, Scott hesitates before saying: “Wow, that’s hard. Communication, mutual respect, and, you know, some kind of sympathy toward each other because you’re both going through a lot.”
