Katherine Schwarzenegger has learned from experience that she values children having their privacy until they decide otherwise.
The 31-year-old author was a Today show guest on Tuesday, March 30 and told Hoda Kotb that she and husband Chris Pratt don't plan to show their 7-month-old daughter Lyla's face to the world anytime soon. As Katherine explained, this decision was informed in part by her own experience from growing up with a famous set of parents—in her case, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver.
"Obviously, I didn't grow up with social media being a thing at all, so it's a little bit different in that way just because I feel like we share so much in today's world," the new mom explained. "But I think one of the greatest gifts that my parents ever gave me and my siblings is the gift of privacy and having a really normal upbringing, or as normal of an upbringing as possible."
She continued, "We had a really normal and magical childhood, and we were allowed to kind of be our own people and have our own identity and kind of choose to step into whatever form of being public we wanted to when we felt comfortable. That was such an incredible gift to have given us kids."
Katherine grew up with three siblings, including her brother Patrick, who became an actor, and she believes this privacy was important in her own development.
"It's something that's really important to my husband and I to be able to give to our kids and to be able to have that privacy, and not necessarily show as much of them on social media," she explained. "All four of us kids would say that it has been such an amazing thing that our parents gave us, and so I want to be able to give that to our baby, too."
Katherine and Chris rarely post any images to social media that include Lyla, who was born in August 2020, and when they do, her face is covered by a hat or other item.
"Closing out 2020 with a quiet beach walk (and a first beach experience for one of us )," she captioned a post on Dec. 31 that included a tiny glimpse of the child's forehead.
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