Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Parenting Called Out After She Revealed She Makes Her Kids and Their Friends ‘Stand Up’ When She Enters the Room
Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s ex-wife, Maria Shriver, 69, is currently under a public microscope after the Chicago-born journalist spoke about parenting practice encouraged by her late mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver.
In the Jan. 8-dated episode of Hoda Kotb’s “Making Space” podcast featuring Shriver as a guest, the duo discussed how her kids were made to respond when she entered a room.
“I make them stand up. I used to make them. Now they just do stand up. My mother did that,” the Kennedy family member told Kotb about her now-adult children.
The conversation was filmed during Making Space Wellness Weekend last October.
Shriver explained, “There are many things that I’ve emulated from my mother, but my grandmother and my mother were big on manners. So when somebody who was older walked in the room, aka my mother, everybody stood up.”
The ex-wife of the “Terminator” movie star, added, “I wanted my kids to, when I walked in the room, or their dad walked in the room, or you would walk in the room, that they stand up out of respect.”
Shriver forced other parents’ children to stand up to greet her as well. She said, “I started doing that with my kids’ friends because I didn’t want to walk in the room and they’ll be sitting looking at a phone or watching the game. I’d be like, ‘I’m here.’”
CTV’s “The Social” covered Shriver’s parenting admission on the Canadian daytime talk show. The program’s panelists shared their takes on what the niece of former President John F. Kennedy had to say to Kotb.
“This is way too far,” media commentator Bee Quammie argued. “What this is is something I think a lot of parents get confused which is teaching respect versus teaching deference to my ego as your superior. And I don’t like that.”
When it was mentioned that Shriver adopted the tradition from her mother, Quammie stated, “She learned it, but eventually, you’re going to have a child somewhere down the line who’s gonna say, ‘This doesn’t make sense. I don’t need to learn respect this way.”
However, “The Social” co-host Andrea Bain had a different opinion. Bain recalled being taught to show respect to her parents and other elders by formally greeting adults when they visited their home.
Viewers of “The Social” addressed the debate over Shriver’s parenting choices on the show’s YouTube channel. Several of the responses sided with Bee’s criticism of the Georgetown University graduate.
For instance, someone posted, “This is too much, and [I] agree with Bee. Who does she think she is?” A similar reaction read, “Completely ignorant! [Who the hell] does she think she is? She isn’t royalty… I can’t believe her kids did it after they turned 18.”
Additionally, one commenter wrote, “All manners are is showing respect for others. Something that is in very short supply these days. People today are just uncouth and it’s just normal behavior to them!”
Shriver and Schwarzenegger, 77, wed on April 26, 1986. After 25 years of marriage, they announced their separation in May 2011. Their divorce was finalized over ten years later in Dec. 2021.
“We are continuing to parent our four children together. They are the light and center of both of our lives,” Shriver and Schwarzenegger said in a joint statement at the time of their split, per Variety.
Shriver gave birth to two daughters by Schwarzenegger. Katherine, 35, was born on Dec. 13, 1989, and Christina, 33, was born on July 23, 1991.
They also have two sons: Patrick, 31, arrived on Sept. 18, 1993. Christopher, 27, came into the world on Sept. 27, 1997.
Schwarzenegger also has a 27-year-old son named Joseph Baena by the former California governor’s longtime housekeeper, Mildred Patricia Baena.
The “True Lies” actor did not publicly confess to the extramarital affair with Mildred until 2011.
“[Shriver] was crushed because of that. I had an affair in ’96,” Schwarzenegger admitted in his 2023 Netflix docuseries titled “Arnold,” according to People.
The Austria-born Republican also said, “In the beginning, I really didn’t know. I just started feeling the older [Joseph] got the more it became clear to me and then it was really just a matter of how do you keep this quiet? How do you keep this a secret?”
Apparently, Schwarzenegger was able to build a close bond with Joseph over time. A May 2023 report by Page Six claimed that Shriver’s children did not have a relationship with their half-brother.
“To be honest, the other kids don’t love Joe. It’s a shame as he’s a really good kid, and Arnold has always treated him like all his other kids — very fairly.
But for whatever reason, the other kids take [the affair] out on Joe,” the outlet reported it was told by a source whose identity was not revealed.
