Kylie Jenner Opens Up About the Pros and Cons of Being a Young Mom

You likely know Kylie Jenner from her glittering beauty brand, her role as one of the famed Kardashian sisters and maybe even as a mom to Stormi, 6, and son Aire 2. There’s a lot that makes Jenner different from the everyday mom, from nannies at her disposal to an unlimited budget, but then again, there are plenty of things about motherhood that seem to transcend it all.

In a recent cover interview with British Vogue the model and entrepreneur opened up about the pros and cons of becoming a mom at just 20 years old. “The tricky part is figuring out the balance of growing up with your kids. I have to remind my friends who don’t have kids all the time, who are like: ‘Let’s do this in the morning!’, that I have children,” she told the outlet. “Letting go of your selfishness and your freedom at a very young age…I don’t think we realize how selfish we are as human beings until we have children. But, you know, that is also the biggest pro.”

Another big pro of having kids at a young age for Jenner? Having a built-in future best friend. “I’m 26 and I have a first-grader. I’m going to be 40 with a 20-year-old,” she said, adding: “And we’re going to be best friends.” Her decision to be a “young mom” is one that she says she feels at the forefront of in every room, conversation and online. For the internet trolls at least she’s found her peace.

“No matter what I’m going through or what I look like or what the internet writes about me that day I come home and my kids just love me unconditionally. They’re just obsessed with me and that’s taught me to walk through life a little easier,” she notes. “I’m like, ‘OK, well I have these little humans at home that need me and love me and think I’m the most perfect person in the world, so I don’t really need validation from outside sources.’”

The stigma of being a young mom isn’t the only parenting struggle Jenner has come across. The star suffered from prolonged postpartum depression after both of her children’s births. “I’m going to be 27, and I’m finally feeling like myself again, and [looking back] I think, being pregnant, I wore sweatpants every day, I didn’t have time to figure out even some of the little things in my life, and then postpartum lasted a year. Mentally, it’s really hard. Hormonally, it’s really hard. I didn’t know how to dress,” she said.

“It hit me differently both times. Probably with my son it was major baby blues, so I was just so emotional over things that I probably wouldn’t be that emotional about [typically]. On the phone with my mom all day hysterically crying, saying, ‘I can’t figure out his name.’”

Jenner says now her best advice to all her friends having children is to pick their name beforehand. “When the hormones hit you can’t make decisions. You can’t,” she said. “When I met him [Aire], he was just the most beautiful thing to me and I couldn’t believe just how perfect he was. I felt like such a failure that I couldn’t name him. He deserved so much more than that. It just really triggered me.”

It took her a year to settle on Aire. “My son’s name was actually Knight for a long time and my daughter, still to this day, is like, ‘Do you remember when Aire’s name was Knight?’ And I’m like,‘No.’ And she’s like, ‘That was so funny, Mom. I like Knight better.’ And I’m like: ‘You know what, we are not doing this again.’”

Seven years after welcoming her first child, Jenner says she finally feels like she has time to fully jump back into fashion and life beyond motherhood. “I feel like I’ve been in full mommy mode in my early 20s, [so] just to do something more for me after I had my son…” she said. “I’ve been way more into the fashion world and fashion week, and it’s been so much fun. I’m like, ‘Why didn’t I do this sooner?’ Every time I go to Paris things just happen. I love the fast pace. It’s a whole new world.”