Not everyone is getting invited to Kelly Stafford’s house for birthday parties.
Kelly, wife of Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, has one rule she wants parents to know about hosting birthday parties for her older daughters, twins Sawyer and Chandler, 7. (She and Matthew, 36, also share daughters Hunter, 6 and Tyler, 4.)
“When the girls have their birthday party, it will be a drop-off,” she told her friend and cohost Hank Winchester on the Thursday, January 30 episode of their podcast, “The Morning After.”
In other words, parents will be asked to drop their kids off at the party and come back later to pick them up. Kelly, 35, added that kids with parents unwilling to leave won’t be invited.
“I am not here to entertain not only your child but you,” she explained. “I’m not. I say ‘this is a drop-off. Please drop your child off.’”
Kelly understands concerns parents might have, especially if the family decides to open their pool for the party, and is prepared to make them feel at ease.
“If the pool was open I would say ‘there will be a lifeguard on staff, there will be extra eyes helping me,’” she continued. “But I’m sorry, I don’t want to entertain people while I’m also trying to also enjoy my kids’ birthday and make these memories with them.”
She understands that it works both ways. Both Kelly and Hank are “drop-off parents,” and Kelly added that she thinks that’s important for her older daughters.
“If you’re comfortable dropping your kid off, if you feel comfortable in the situation they’re in, I think it’s important to foster that independence a little bit, to get them out,” she said.
That’s not to say Kelly isn’t itching to spend time with her daughters. She spent January shuttling them to their dad’s playoff games for the Los Angeles Rams, even flying them to Arizona for the Rams’ Wild Card game against the Minnesota Vikings while one of her daughters was sick.
There’s also the independent time for mom and dad. Winchester joked that he observed two “very different” types of parents at his daughter’s birthday.
“I noticed two very different camps of parents. One camp could not get their kid in that place quick enough,” he said, mimicking the sound of their cars peeling out of the parking lot. “They’re going to Target, they’re going to have a mimosa, they’re living their best life. And let me tell you what, I am in that camp, mainly because my child does not want to see me.”
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