Kim Kardashian has been making noises about feeling like a "single mom" for a while now, and she raised the subject yet again recently during an appearance on Zoe Winkler's What The Winkler? podcast.
Fans immediately jumped in with words of support for Kim, and — just kidding, the reality TV mogul's remarks went over just as poorly as you expected.
Before we get into Kim's regularly repeated laments about raising four children "alone," there's a bit of semi-recent history and context to the story.
A year into the pandemic, in May 2021, a coordinated campaign of signs claiming "nobody wants to work anymore" began appearing, and they instantly became a meme due to ongoing labor market disruptions; it was widely mocked on social media.
Kim apparently hadn't received the memo about the meme-ification of claims "nobody wants to work anymore," and perhaps out of frustration over the perception she's privileged, she decided to criticize "women in business" in a Variety profile by repeating the debunked yarn:
"I have the best advice for women in business. Get your f****** ass up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days."
It's almost shocking that someone as media savvy as Kim didn't anticipate just how badly her comments would be received – during a time of historically unprecedented economic distress, no less – and by the time the scene made it onto The Kardashians, it had been artfully edited and toned down significantly.
But as the old saying goes, "the internet never forgets," and Kim's latest round of complaints about Kanye West's alleged lack of involvement with their children reminded social media users of the "nobody wants to work" controversy.
On Saturday (November 10), Kim shared a vague Instagram Story about the "sad" aspects of motherhood without mentioning Kanye, but it wasn't the first hint she dropped about her current struggles.
On October 21, People ran an article citing an anonymous source who claimed to have knowledge about Kim and Kayne's co-parenting situation, and it sounded remarkably similar to Kim's subsequent podcast complaints:
"The source notes that Kardashian is 'pretty much a single mom,' as West, 47, is often 'not around.'
"'Kanye is sadly not around very much. She's pretty much a single mom,' the insider tells PEOPLE. 'Although she has help, it's still a lot of work for her to balance and coordinate everything.'"
The source asserted that "Kim's life is around her kids' schedules," adding that when Kim's kids "are in school, she works," and that she doesn't even have time to date.
In other words, the source described "being a parent."
Kim is, in fact, a "single mom," by merit of the fact she and Kanye are divorced and maintain separate residences, which makes this repeated assertion a little strange — what do the Kardashians think it means to be a "single parent"?
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Coverage of Kim's latest complaints about raising her children alone often indicate Kanye hadn't tapped in for "57 days," which is an oddly specific number of days.
During the November 12 podcast with Zoe, Kim laid her current strife bare, and said she feared being judged for struggling to handle parenting solo.
She also mentioned nannies plural, suggesting that the "help" she describes is unusually robust:
" ... sometimes in the middle of the night when they're all sleeping in your bed kicking you and crying and waking up — it’s not something that I talk about a lot, because I feel like there is always a lot of judgment or people always will jump to the, 'oh, but you have the resources to have nannies and to have help.'
"And I just think that no matter what kind of help I have, I'm basically raising four kids by myself."
By herself, except for the nannies — how many nannies does Kim Kardashian have?
She didn't elaborate, but continued, again describing a stunningly mundane thing nearly all parents of school-age children do regularly:
"I mean even carpool this morning, I had five kids that I had to take, and everyone wants to leave at like different times or wants different stuff, and I feel like I'm at, like, a pit stop of a race car driver."
In fairness to Kim, school drop-offs are indeed a highly unpleasant chore — but on the other hand, it sounded very much like Kim handled the carpool for the very first time that day, was shocked at how much work it was, and can't imagine doing it every school day.
Also, Kim's carpool lament sounded oddly reminiscent of the first verse lyrics to Kanye's song "Gold Digger."
One Twitter/X user characterized Kim's remarks as "a slap in the face for REAL single moms," presumably referring to "single moms without millions of dollars and nannies, plural."
On Reddit's r/KUWTKsnark, the resident Kardashian snarkers were merciless, and the two top comments read:
"Single parent? If she died I don’t think those kids would [realize it] for a few weeks."
"57 days ... ma'am you haven't even spent a single week with your children for +10 years. They're both bad parents[.]"
Another user simply replied: "It's been less than two months, Kimberly."
And again, to be fair to Kim, some of the difficult and tiring parts of parenting cannot be jettisoned by money — needing a break just to think is a universal experience shared by parents everywhere, particularly those doing it alone.
Ultimately, Kim's biggest gripe seemed to be the fact she feels unable to admit that she feels overwhelmed even with a massive fortune and access to unlimited nannies, lest she be judged.
But by the same token, Kim's complaints kind of underscore how being a parent can be inherently exhausting, even for someone with more resources than God — and if you're a mom or dad with one nanny or fewer, especially if you're doing it alone, your feelings of overwhelm are shared by the wealthiest among us.
- Birthname
- Kimberly Noel Kardashian
- Birthdate
- October 21, 1980
- Birthplace
- Los Angeles, California, USA
- Height
- 5'2
- @KimKardashian
- @kimkardashian
- Notable Projects
- Keeping Up With The Kardashians, American Horror Story
- Profession
- Reality TV Star
- Net worth
- $1,700,000,000
- Source of Wealth
- The Kardashians (on Hulu), Founder of SKIMS, SKKN, and SKKY partners equity firm
- Nationality
- American
