Stassi Schroeder can take plenty of criticism, but when it comes to her children, she is drawing a hard line.
The former Vanderpump Rules star is addressing the backlash she received over her parenting after the release of her Hulu series House of Stassi, which gave viewers a look at her life with husband Beau Clark and their two children, Hartford and Messer.
While the show focused heavily on Stassi’s career, personality, marriage and inner circle, some viewers walked away accusing her of being an “absent mom” because Beau was shown taking on a lot of the day-to-day parenting as a stay-at-home dad.
Stassi says that narrative could not be further from reality.
During an appearance on the Disrespectfully podcast with Katie Maloney, Stassi admitted she can usually handle people having opinions about her. But being called a bad mom hit her differently.
“Because I’m like, I try so hard and I care about that so much, which is why you see me implode and explode at the end because like, that was the thing that got triggered,” Stassi shared. “It’s the thing I think about the most every day. And so it’s like my biggest insecurity.”
Stassi said what made the criticism even more frustrating was that viewers barely saw her children or her actual parenting on the show.
“And so to see people say that when I’m like, you didn’t even see a scene of me parenting,” she said. “We barely put my kids in it.”
Stassi then questioned how people could judge her entire role as a mother based on such a limited look at her home life.
“How do you know if I’m a good mother or bad mother?” Stassi asked. “How do you know my schedule?”
House of Stassi showed Stassi balancing work, filming and family life while Beau held down the fort at home. But Stassi made it clear that what viewers saw was only a tiny piece of their actual routine.
In fact, Stassi said her real life is almost entirely centered around her kids.
“I barely get to see you or friends because I’m with my kids every single night at home,” Stassi told Katie. “Like I never miss bath time.”
She added, “It’s just kind of like wild where like my whole life so much of it is wrapped around my kids. Yet I just did this show, and people are saying I’m an absent mom and it’s like crazy [expletive] with my head.”
For longtime Bravo fans, Stassi is no stranger to being polarizing. During her Vanderpump Rules years, she was often known for her sharp tongue, dark humor and dramatic reactions. But Stassi said this kind of criticism feels very different now that she is older, married and raising children.
“Back during Vanderpump Rules I didn’t care that people thought I was a [expletive],” she admitted.
What disappointed her more this time around was seeing people suggest she has not changed or grown since her early reality TV days.
Stassi also got candid about the complicated decision to show her kids publicly at all. She admitted she and Beau have wrestled with whether to post their children on social media since they were born.
“It still keeps me up at night, and it’s still an ongoing conversation in our heads,” Stassi said.
Still, Stassi explained that her children were born into a very public family, whether she likes it or not. And in her mind, if they ever decide they want to be part of entertainment, social media or the family business, she wants them to have a foundation.
“I always want to be able to give my kids a head start at anything, and they were born into a reality TV circus family,” Stassi said.
She joked that this is their version of nepo babies.
“This is our version of nepo babies. Sorry, this is the family business!” Stassi said. “So, if they choose to do that, at least I’m giving them a head start.”
But Stassi also made it clear that if her kids ever tell her they do not want to be shown, that will be a different conversation.
“And until they get like, ‘I don’t want to do it,’ then that’s a conversation,” she added.
For Stassi, the backlash seems to come down to one thing: viewers saw a curated version of her life and filled in the blanks.
And while she may be used to people judging her personality, her marriage or her reality TV behavior, she says judging her motherhood based on a few edited episodes crosses a line.