Problems with Paltrow

Mom bloggers around the world owe Gwyneth Paltrow a debt of gratitude for consistently providing us with things to write about. I think I can safely speak for all eleventy kajillion of us when I sincerely say, "Thank you."

As a working mom herself, Paltrow seems to want to stand in solidarity with what is presumably her fan base, but instead she only proves how out of touch she is with the average working American parent. I don’t doubt that she, too, is working hard, but that means something different in Hollywood (or London, where Paltrow lives with her family) than it does in Cockeysville. In Hollywood, being a parent often means being able to hire professionals to help make raising kids a little easier while also holding a demanding job.

For instance, even though our ZIP code has its share of tony real estate, my hunch is that nobody living here has ever posted a want ad like the one Paltrow and her husband, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, posted earlier this month.

The famous couple placed an ad for a multilingual private tutor for their son and daughter -- Moses, five, and Apple, seven -- to teach them ancient Greek, Latin, French and Spanish. They are offering a nearly $100,000 salary, a free apartment in London and travel with the family, all for two to four hours of work each day.

Paltrow has also just published a cookbook, My Father's Daughter: Delicious, Easy Recipes Celebrating Family & Togetherness. In the intro – admittedly all I’ve read because it was posted for free at Amazon.com and I didn’t actually buy the book – Paltrow talks about how she is obsessed about including her children in her cooking, and you know, I’m actually on board with that. I think the more I can get my toddler into picking out ingredients at the farmers’ market or grocery store, or in the kitchen and watching me cook or helping clear the dinner table, the more vested she’ll be in what is served so she’ll eat more healthfully.

But then I’ll see something in Paltrow’s Goop newsletter where she takes it way too far by positing that a glass of kale juice is a satisfying post-workout pick-me-up, or how she and her famous friends suggest working closely with a fish monger who will deliver and boom, she’s lost me. Why would I buy a cookbook by someone who advocates drinking kale juice? I can’t imagine I’d put much stock in whatever else she’s serving up.

Obviously we are traveling in different circles. So I suppose it’s unfair to target Gwyneth when there are plenty of celebrity moms out there with ideas on display. But maybe the turn-off is the way she puts herself out there for us in a manner that makes her seem completely oblivious to the concerns of the everyday mom. We just can’t relate, we have to move on.