Mariah Carey Says It’s Impossible To Be a ‘Cool Mom,’ but She’s Giving Her Kids the Childhood She Never Had

Always imitated but never duplicated, Mariah Carey, the 52-year-old “Songbird Supreme” is still on a career high, taking her role as the “Queen of Christmas” every December very seriously. For us, navidad isn’t navidad without hearing the sparkly bell chimes and ah-mazing vocals of “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” or without seeing Carey’s annual hilarious holiday video every November 1, or as we like to call it, the start of “Mariah Season.”

But hearing about how she makes Christmas special for her 10-year-old’s Moroccan and Monroe makes us even more “Obsessed” with the songstress.

The multi-platinum singer and 5-time Grammy Award winner sat down with Us Weekly to film a video all about her parenting style and favorite holiday traditions. While we were expecting seriously-luxe presents and maybe even Santa’s factory right in her living room, Carey shared details about her down-to-earth, loving life with her children, who she co-parents with ex-husband Nick Cannon.

Quoting “Mean Girls,” notoriously one of the singer’s favorite movies, she said that she’s unfortunately not a “cool mom.” Reminding us all of our own mamás who so often told us, “no soy tu amiga, soy tu mamá” (still as spine-chilling as ever), Carey explained, “there are rules in this house, that’s the difference.” And although she doesn’t like “being the bad guy” and actually hates it “more than anything,” the diva says trying to be “cool” is pointless. “You’re never a cool mom, like, you just never are.” Ah, we felt that it in our bones.

Besides her slightly-strict parenting style, Carey swooned over her children throughout the interview, talking about how she always tries to make Christmas extra special for them.

While her daughter Monroe’s “66 item” Christmas list and “sophisticated palate” when it comes to mealtime has the singer asking, “are you kidding me?,” the singer loves creating a true “Fantasy” holiday experience for them.

She explained, “I kind of love making their holidays great… I like Christmas morning, them opening up a lot of gifts. It’s fun. There’s really nothing like it.” Talking about her son asking for one “very costly” gift this year, she said, “I want to get it for him. I want to do that,” relating back to her poverty-stricken childhood where sometimes she only received “a wrapped-up orange” under the tree. Still, while “everything is over the top,” the songstress always reminds them what “a big deal” their blessings are. 

While her children are “aware” of her massive success, Carey is still mom to them: “Christmas morning I’ve already been up since 5 a.m. getting everybody’s packages together.” She explained, “we do breakfast and the kids open their presents… [but] I’m not opening my stuff until the next day.” Always putting Monroe and Moroccan first, it seems like the singer-songwriter strives to give her kids the childhood she never had. While she told Us Weekly that as a child, “we didn’t have much of anything. So McDonald’s was a humongous deal for me to be able to have.” 

Her 2020 memoir “The Meaning of Mariah Carey” details all kinds of abuse she endured while living with her mother Patricia and two older siblings in Huntington, New York. She famously sat down with Oprah on “The Oprah Conversation” to talk about it, describing how she grew up in a violent home, “sensing” the start of physical fights like “a storm is about to happen.” While Carey says her sister was “troubled and traumatized,” her brother once pushed her mother so hard into a wall that it sounded “like an actual gunshot.” Once the police arrived and save six-year-old Carey, she remembers them saying “if this kid makes it, it’ll be a miracle.”

Later on in life, the singer continued to feel the effects of her difficult early life, and today refers to her siblings as ex-brother and ex-sister, and her mom as simply “Patricia.” It’s easy to see why: Carey told Oprah that her older sister drugged her with valium, offered her cocaine, burned her, and tried to sell her to a pimp — all while the singer was 12-years-old.

Meanwhile, the siblings allegedly sold stories about her private life to the press, and her mother even tried to have her institutionalized in 2001 while seeing her as an “ATM machine.” Feeling “like an outsider” in her own family, she said her relationship with her mother is still “really difficult,” and the reason she always tries to make her kids’ lives “amazing.”

While the singer continues to heal through therapy, it’s safe to say she is breaking the cycle of generational trauma in her own parenting style — and that’s the biggest “cool mom” trait in our eyes.