Hilaria Baldwin recalls an awkward run-in with another celebrity parent in her Manual Not Included memoir.
The book — out on Tuesday, May 6 — includes several anecdotes about her marriage to Alec Baldwin and offers many tales of parenting their seven kids. (Hilaria and Alec, who married in 2012, share Carmen, 11, Rafael, 9, Leonardo, 8, Romeo, 6, Eduardo, 4, María Lucía, 4, and Ilaria, 2. He is also the father to Ireland, 29, with ex Kim Basinger.)
In Us Weekly’s exclusive excerpt from the book, Hilaria, 41, claims she was “undermined” by an unnamed celebrity attempting to parent her and Alec’s daughter Carmen. While Hilaria didn’t dish too many details about the star, she did write that it was an actress — and they did end up having somewhat of a confrontation over the incident.
Keep scrolling to read the excerpt from Hilaria’s Manual Not Included:
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On this particular afternoon Carmen was wearing a black and-white-striped bathing suit, white sun hat, and pink sandals. She was gleefully running around the low outdoor coffee table, grabbing slice after slice of French baguette. When it got to slice five or so, I said to her in Spanish, “Carmen, would it be OK to stop eating bread until after dinner? Then, if you’re still hungry, you can have more.” She got upset with me, and the people nearby took notice. I repeated it in English because I was insecure and I didn’t want people to think I was being mean. Now I couldn’t care less: I have gotten very comfortable with the idea that my kids aren’t always going to like what I say, but they know I come from a good place and have a fair heart. Back then, however, my insecurities raged. I felt that what I was saying was reasonable and I just wanted to make sure Carmen ate well. She was getting visibly madder and madder. I was in that all-too-familiar place of trying to parent in public while my toddler very loudly let me know that she was pissed.
The self-consciousness and embarrassment crept in while I tried to stick to my messaging. Then a very famous actress interjected with “Oh, gosh! Children just know what they should eat and are very in tune with their bodies, so trust their wisdom and let her eat bread!” She had spoken with such loftiness that she might as well have been Marie Antoinette talking about cake.
Then she picked up the breadbasket and offered Carmen another piece. I became very quiet, stunned at being undermined in front of my daughter at the very moment I was trying to parent. Carmen slowly took a piece and ate it. I said nothing, heart pounding, feeling that if I put a stop to it, I would be seen as the bad guy by my child. After Carmen finished that piece, the actress, waiting nearby, said, “Carmen, would you like another piece of bread?” By this point, my toes were digging into Alec’s legs, my just-given-birth hormones roiling, and I whispered to him, “Will you please take Carmen inside and I’ll bring Rafa?” As I walked away, I defensively said to the actress, “I don’t have a problem with her eating bread, I just want her to eat other things too. I don’t want her to feel sick.”
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I silently fumed for the rest of the day, masking my feelings with smiles and nodding at people’s small talk. As we left, I heard someone stumbling after us in the dark on the rock driveway. It was the actress, who was quite drunk. She slurred to us, “I gave your daughter so much bread. I hope she doesn’t get a tummy ache!” I ignored her and kept walking away with my kids.
Later on, unpacking this with my friends, we thought of all the witty comebacks I could have said to her. I wished I’d been able to leave this famous actress schooled, with her mouth open. But over the years I realized that the real problem wasn’t the bread or the potential tummy ache. The problem wasn’t even that she’d gotten involved in a private mom-and-child moment. The problem was that I didn’t have the confidence or know-how to stand up for what I felt was right. I gave my power away to her because I saw her as having a higher status. She was famous and beautiful and older than I was, with older children, and therefore more experienced. But besides that, I didn’t have the confidence that my children would love me even if my choice was less fun than what someone else was offering. I should have looked the actress in the eye and thanked her for her experience, then removed my kids from her presence. But I was young and easily intimidated, and I honor where I was back then. I acted politely and maneuvered through a tough situation without throwing her off the balcony! Kidding.
Excerpted from MANUAL NOT INCLUDED by Hilaria Baldwin, published by Gallery Books, a division of Simon & Schuster.
