How Alicia Silverstone Said No to Traditional Motherhood, and Came Up With Her Own Rules

Alicia Silverstone is an iconic figure of the 1990s. The actress rose to fame after she starred in the 1995 movie Clueless. But very few people know that the Hollywood actress is also a writer. Alicia gave birth to her son Bear Blu Jarecki in 2011 and decided to share her parenting experience in her book The Kind Mama.

At CHEERY, we decided to find out why the famous actress developed her own rules of motherhood for which she is sometimes criticized by conservative parents.

The actress never leaves her son crying.

What to do if a baby starts to cry? Some parents let their baby calm down by themselves, while others try to immediately comfort their children. Alicia Silverstone chose the second approach. The actress believes that such things allow you to build a truly trusting relationship with your child. This is why Alicia was always there for Bear and comforted him when he started to cry.

Alicia pre-chewed food for her son and fed him like he was a nestling.

When the time comes to start feeding the baby with solid food, parents either make food purees at home or buy ready-made ones. But the Clueless star found her own way.

When Bear was 10 months old, Alicia Silverstone showed how she teaches her son to eat solid food. The actress posted a video in which she demonstrated the whole process, “I fed Bear the mochi and a tiny bit of veggies from the soup from my mouth to his. It’s his favorite and mine.”

The actress doesn’t tell Bear what he should look like.

For a few years, mean commentators have written to Alicia that she should cut her son’s hair because he looks like a girl. In 2020, the actress decided to close this topic once and for all and explained why she would not tell Bear what he should look like.

On her Instagram, Alicia wrote that kids from the surf camp once made fun of Bear because of his hair. But despite this, her son decided not to cut it because he liked the way he looked.

The celebrity believes that parents should respect their children’s choices, “We would never impose any social ideas about what hair on a boy or girl should look like. We should all try to embrace our children and who they choose to be without any judgement!” And if a boy wants to have a pedicure similar to his mother’s, you should not say no to him.

She never yells at her child.

Alicia Silverstone builds a relationship with her son on mutual respect. Of course, they have bad days too, but if Bear begins to be naughty, Alicia tries to calmly talk to him, “There have been moments where there were things we had to redirect and correct, of course, but it just wasn’t the fight that you hear about. The most I have to say is, ‘No thank you, Bear.’ And he goes, ‘Okay.’ That’s my reprimanding.”

The actress believes that the main thing is to listen to your child and talk to them as equals, “If he starts to cry, I listen. If he’s upset about something, I stop and I talk to him about it.”

Alicia sleeps with her son in the same bed.

The celebrity mom believes that parents and children should be inseparable even during sleep. This is why she has been sleeping together with Bear since his birth. The actress recently revealed that even though her son is 11 years old now, they still share the same bed. Silverstone explains that she’s just “following nature.”

Alicia doesn’t want her son to be surrounded by gadgets.

In an interview, the actress revealed that she and her son prefer to spend time in nature together or do some other interesting things, “Bear and I have never experienced boredom. When he’s at my house, there’s no media. We’ll watch a movie maybe once a week as a special treat, but he’s not on iPads or any electronics; he’s just with me. We walk the dogs every day, we trampoline, we jump rope. We would go on nature hikes and cook.”

She tries to spend as much time with Bear as possible.

Alicia says that motherhood means a lot to her. She doesn’t want to miss any of her son’s important moments, so she tries to spend a lot of time with him. The actress believes that Bear should know that he is the most important person in her life. But at the same time, Silverstone claims that her life doesn’t revolve around her son, she has other things to do too and Bear knows this very well.

Many people think that such leniency can spoil a child. But the celebrity mother has a different opinion, “It’s not some kind of spoiled thing. It’s just that when you love someone, you want to take them in and soak them in. And many of us didn’t get that.”

What parenting methods do you use? Tell us in the comments below.