Mayim Bialik: Not in Gisele's "Perfect Parenting" League

Actress says she respects the supermodel "tremendously for her courageous statements" about breastfeeding and child health, but she's not aiming for perfection with her natural lifestyle

By Natalie Finn Dec 04, 2010 2:05 AMTags
E! Placeholder Image

A new celebrity kinship has blossomed.

Though she sweetly protests that Gisele Bündchen is "wealthier" and "much more famous" than she is, and "never has days where she looks as crappy," Mayim Bialik is flattered to be compared to her.

And not just because of the whole supermodel thing.

"I respect Gisele tremendously for her courageous statements about global health and breastfeeding (the evolutionary and natural way to feed and nourish human babies)," Bialik, an advocate of au naturel kid rearing, wrote yesterday on the Holistic Moms Network.

"However, I don't think I should be grouped with her," she protested. "First of all, she is much wealthier than I am, I promise, so she may get help with her 'perfect' parenting that I do not have the luxury of."

And, aside from the supernatural-hotness thing, "the fact that I believe in every woman's right to an empowering natural birth, encourage and practice extended nursing on demand with no social life in sight for the next few years, choose to make baby shampoo and granola and live a holistic lifestyle, and serve as my children's primary caregiver does not make me an example of someone wanting to be 'perfect.' It just makes me me."

And what prompted this stream of commentary from the Big Bang Theory star?

Bialik was responding to a post from a fellow mom on a website for parents trying to get their kids into private elementary schools that singled out the actress and Gisele for things they've said about motherhood under the heading, "Perfect Mommy Syndrome: Are Celebrity Moms Too Perfect?"

Bialik told People that she gave birth at home, doesn't vaccinate and plans to homeschool her kids. Gisele, if you remember, talked up the importance of breastfeeding, threw her support behind a mandatory-breastfeeding law, and told a Brazilian TV station that natural childbirth "didn't hurt in the slightest."

But Bialik insists that she wasn't trying to thumb her nose at other mothers or talk down to anybody just because she has chosen a certain lifestyle for her family.

"The next time you see a picture of me or Gisele on the red carpet, picture me instead on my hands and knees scrubbing my crummy bathtub with only a cracked open box of generic brand baking soda as my cleaning product," she wrote.

"As for Gisele, you can picture her the same exact way if you want to, but picture her looking 1,000 times less 'normal' than I do. And let's all try and be happy for her about that."

Fair enough. But the next time Gisele painlessly gives birth, let it stay between her and her midwife.

—Additional reporting by Jennifer Arrow