Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie aren’t doing their kids any favors by schlepping them around from town to town all the time. Last year Maddox went to school in New Orleans, and then it was Prague. Now, after a month, he was pulled out of his New York City school so Angelina can film “The Changeling” in Los Angeles. In the mean time the kids don’t get to make their own friends or have any stability in their lives. I admire Brangelina’s wanting to be with their kids all the time instead of pushing them off on nannies, but I often wonder what if it’s really in the kids’ best interest to lead such a nomadic lifestyle. Today on Page Six, they wondered the same thing.
The nomadic superstars, who have lived in at least a half-dozen cities in two years, may be hurting their eldest son, Maddox, 6, by pulling him from schools and the younger three by “not creating a stable environment outside the family unit,” said Manhattan-based psychotherapist/social worker Puja Hall, who’s been practicing for 21 years.
“Maddox is an adopted child, so he already has a sense of abandonment,” said Hall. “Kids that constantly move are like army brats, in that very often they don’t want to open up to people. They feel loss, and there is a problem with attachment.”
I’m sure the Jolie-Pitts are going to say their kids are thrilled to be traveling and they have each other to play with, and that’s cool and all, but it’s not stability. I’m part of a very big family and while having all those brothers and sisters was indeed great, I wanted my own friends. I don’t think I would have been happy having to constantly give up my school so my mom could make a movie. The one time I had to switch schools in the middle of the year was very difficult for me. Brangelina have lots and lots of money. Do they really need to make movies all the time? If so, why don’t they stick to one location, say Los Angeles, and give the kids a little stability. Kind of selfish if you ask me.
“With the moves, the kids just don’t invest in relationships, because they’re going to lose them anyway,” Hall told Page Six’s Marianne Garvey. “They think: ‘Why bother? I’m not gonna stick around. We’re gonna pick up and go, and the loss of friends is painful.’ ”
Hall added that before Pax, 3, Zahara, 2, and Shiloh, 16 months, get any older, Angelina and Brad need to decide where to settle down. “It needs to be weighed,” said Hall. “At some point, they will have to make some important choices so the kids can form those bonds and keep them.”
That’s not the only problem - the kids also seem to be skipping the waiting lists at the schools. “We would most likely not take a child for [just] a few months, because we have a waiting list. If we take them for two months and you pay for two months, we lose money and someone on the waiting list loses a spot,” said an employee at Lycée Francais, where the yearly tuition is $18,000 plus a $2,000 contract-signing fee.
“You still have to pay for at least half the year,” the staff member said.
I’ll say this. I like the Jolie-Pitts as parents. They appear to be very hands on. They pick their kids up from school and take them to the park and the toy store. I do have issues with the press swarming these kids every time they go out, however.
Jolie’s rep, Cindy Guagenti, said that the story was “unfair to them” and that “it’s nobody’s business what they do with their kids.” She said Maddox only goes to Lycée schools. Pitt’s rep didn’t get back to us.
Well it may be none of my business, but I still think the kids have a crappy deal.
