How to parent successfully? Well, if you’re looking to Hollywood for clues and cues, be discerning, because the field is wide and varied. Take Billy Ray Cyrus and Dina Lohan. Yes, they’re both parents of starlets, but their parenting styles couldn’t differ more.
One cites Bible verses and grounds his daughter when she misbehaves; the other drinks cocktails and goes club-hopping into the wee hours with her celebrity daughter.
Says celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton (aka Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr.): “Billy Ray Cyrus actually sets boundaries. … Dina Lohan is an enabler, a parasite. … The Lohans are role models for dysfunction.”
The effect on the kids? Well, make your own judgment — but one of the girls has been in and out of rehab and has an arrest record; the other recited Ephesians 6:10-11 on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Parenting just might be a factor.
Come the end of May, viewers will get an even closer look at the parenting of Dina Lohan as her new reality show, “Living Lohan,” starts airing on the E! network. It will follow Ms. Lohan and her younger daughter Ali, 14, in their Long Island home as mom tries to mother and launch the teen’s career.
Chicago-based parenting coach Sharon Pieters (childminded.com) says the latter might be easier for Ms. Lohan than the former.
“I think to Dina Lohan, Lindsay is primarily a friend, a playmate,” Ms. Pieters says. “She leans on her kids for emotional support, and in the end, Lindsay and her sister are probably saying, ’Who’s taking care of me if my mother’s not?’ ” she says, adding, “If she wants to give her children support, she should give them advice and bring them their favorite sandwiches — not go out for tequila shots at two in the morning.”
Instead of being indulged and treated like miniadults, children — celebrities and mortals alike — need clear boundaries. They need to make their own beds, be denied something once in a while and be reprimanded if they misbehave.
“At the end of the day, kids are all confused because there are no boundaries,” Ms. Pieters says. “Parenting is not that hard. We just need to get back to traditional common-sense parenting. Set boundaries, keep things simple — drink water from a faucet once a while. Don’t give children everything they want just because you can afford it.”
The Cyruses — with the phenomenal success of “Hannah Montana” on the Disney Channel — probably can afford most things in life. So why is it that we haven’t seen Miley Cyrus, 15, in the tabloids pantyless or drunk? (Although there was that recent incident when she and her dad forgot to put on their seat belts while driving — ouch!)
“I know people who know the Cyruses, and she has boundaries,” Mr. Hilton says. “It’s a good thing.”
Says Ms. Pieters: “I get the impression that she’s quite normal — that her parents are making a real effort to be role models.”
Miley has said in interviews that her dad is more than just a musical role model. In a recent issue of monthly magazine Cowboys & Indians, she says she and her father have great communication and she credits her tight-knit family for her life balance.
Says Syracuse University pop-culture professor Bob Thompson: “She doesn’t give us much material, does she?”
Not like our favorite out-of-control, fallen starlet Britney Spears, whose mother is currently writing a book on — you guessed it — parenting.
“That would be the ’What not to do’ parenting book,” says blogger Mr. Hilton.
So, what about the E! show, will it be a success?
“Well, it’s fake reality. We won’t really see them and how messed up they are,” Mr. Hilton says. “Will it be successful? Probably. It doesn’t take much to be a top-rated show on E! ’Sunset Tan’ is their number one show.”
To be successful, however, the show has to be charming or outrageous or a complete train wreck, Mr. Thompson says.
“Lindsay Lohan is an A-list celebrity, but this is not about her. It’s about her mother and younger sister,” he says. “Dina Lohan wants this to be the next ’Newlyweds,’ [Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey’s 2003-2005 series], or ’The Osbournes,’ which really helped careers. … Turns out that Jessica Simpson was fun to watch. She was charming, clueless.”
He says — considering the preshow buzz — he thinks “Living Lohan” might fall into the train-wreck category.
Whether the show is successful or not, Mr. Thompson scoffs at the idea of entertainment ever presenting a yardstick for how the rest of us should conduct ourselves.
“Since when was entertainment where we got our role models?” he says, adding that Shakespeare is entertaining, but murderous royals (“Hamlet”) and suicidal teens (“Romeo and Juliet”) are hardly characters we should mimic.
“I think they’re great, but sure, in the world, not good role models,” he says. “The reason we like reality shows [and outrageous celebrity stories in general] is because they make us laugh and feel superior.”
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