Though his early career grew thanks to Nickelodeon, Nick Cannon is now known mostly for having too many children to count. Both he and his fans (plus critics) spend a lot of time talking about Nick's baby mamas, his relationships with each of his kids, and the amount of time he's able to spend with each child.
As of May 2023, Nick Cannon has twelve children with a handful of different women, including his first two kids with Mariah Carey. It's been suggested that Nick doesn't see his twins Moroccan and Monroe all that often, especially as he continued welcoming more babies over the years. Yet a recent statement from Cannon hints that he spends more time with his children than anyone assumed.
Nick Cannon Spends The Most Time With Daughter Onyx
Nick Cannon often shares details about his personal life on his TV shows, in interviews, and on podcasts. In one podcast, he talked about spending a lot of time with one particular child because of the arrangement he had with the baby's mom.
Nick claimed that he sees Onyx, his daughter with LaNisha Cole, three days per week; Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. He stated that the arrangement is thanks to LaNisha's flexibility, and means that he gets to have Onyx with him whether he's at work or not.
Interestingly, Onyx is one of Nick's middle children; Nick spoke about seeing her three days a week when she was eight months old. The other infants Cannon fathered ranged from two months to 10 ten months at that time, but he didn't elaborate on custody arrangements with their respective moms.
What is clear is that LaNisha makes Onyx's time with her dad a priority, even after the two had beef on social media, and Nick forgot to list Onyx when reciting a list of all his kids' names.
With his other kids, however, Nick doesn't necessarily get to see them as often, although he says he has a nursery at work so he can have his various infant and toddler kids come by. That doesn't give any indication, though, of how often the rest of the kids visit Nick at work or come to his house.
To date, it also seems as if Mariah Carey is the only Cannon baby mama with a court-ordered custody arrangement. Since he previously stated he will never participate in government-ordered child support (though he does pay about $3 million toward child support), it would make sense if Nick also eschewed conventional court custody agreements in favor of private mediation with his babies' moms.
Nick Cannon Says He Spends As Much Time As Possible With All His Kids
Over time, Nick Cannon has shared that he spends as much time as possible with all his kids, but he hasn't exactly revealed what that looks like. He does FaceTime his kids "before or after school," but didn't specify whether he also FaceTimed with the babies and toddlers who don't attend school.
He also hasn't specifically shared what his schedule looks like, though he has said he will do school pickup or dropoff depending on where he is on any given day.
In total, Nick has said quite a bit about his family life, without really revealing much. Despite his claims that he and LaNisha "have a super strong understanding and our co-parenting operation is so solid," LaNisha previously criticized Nick for not being there enough for her and their baby.
Part of the issue might be that Nick seems to rotate visitation with his many children, rather than having them all get together at once.
Nick Prefers To Spend Time With His Kids Separately
Although he has said he's not averse to getting his brood together, Nick Cannon has been clear that he prefers to have one-on-one (or two-on-one) time with his kids. He admitted that bringing all his children together only benefits him and that he likes to have separate time with each child, "bouncing around."
Nick elaborated, "I feel like qualitative experiences are when I can give everyone their own individual experience," clarifying that he attends his kids' sports games and does holiday time with each separate mom-and-kid setup.
In that sense, he 'steps into their world' rather than fitting the kids into his life, Cannon claimed. That somewhat contradicts his statements about brining his kids to work with him, but it makes sense that a dad of twelve would need to fit in time with each of his children whenever possible, including at work.
Still, many critics have lamented that with so many children, and only so many hours in a day, there's no way Nick Cannon could reasonably keep up with every individual's needs.
For now, Nick seems happy with the arrangement, though he pointed out that as his kids get older, it may be easier to have them come to him rather than him meeting them where they're at.
