Ashley Tisdale isn’t willing to take “the risk” of letting her children have sleepovers with their friends.
Ashley Tisdale won’t let her kids have sleepovers
The 40-year-old star, who has daughters Jupiter, five, and Emerson, 20 months, with husband Christopher French, admitted while her viewpoint “might be controversial”, she is “just not a fan of sleepovers”, going back to a childhood experience where she stayed as her best friend’s home only to be mocked by her older brother’s friends after she went “sleepwalking” in the night.
In a new blog post on her By Ashley French website, she said: “These days, my hesitation around sleepovers goes beyond my own childhood embarrassment.
“As a parent, it comes down to this: You can know someone well and still not really know them. You just don’t always know who people are in their home.
“You don’t know how parents talk to each other, how they handle conflict, who else has access to the home… the list goes on.
“A family can seem lovely from the outside, and most are. But the risk of getting it wrong isn’t one I’m willing to take.”
The High School Musical star insisted she is “not trying to be dramatic” about the issue, and she realises that “tons of kids have fun at sleepovers” with their friends.
However, she argued: “But I also know that when things do go wrong for kids, statistically, it’s rarely due to a stranger. So the idea that I know someone ‘well enough’ only goes so far.”
Ashley is keen to find a solution to allow her daughters the opportunity to “have fun with their friends” as they start to get older, and she’d hate for them to “miss out on the jos of childhood”.
She and some of her mom friends have hatched a plan for “some group getaways” when they kids are older.
Ashley explained: “The moms can get away from the house for a night, bring the kids, and they can have a sleepover in the same space. (Maybe an Airbnb or hotel rooms with a shared door.)
“The kids can have their independence and fun while the parents unwind nearby. That feels different and doable.”
The former Disney Channel star noted that she isn’t judging anyone who is happy sending their kids on sleepovers, as every family is different, including on topics like TV, iPads and more.
She said: “I can respect other people’s opinions! But as the kid who went sleepwalking through someone else’s house, I think I’m going to spare my kids that kind of midnight adventure.”
Ashley previously sparked plenty of discussions and controversy with her toxic mom group short essay for The Cut, in which she called out “mean-girl behaviour” and wrote about cutting ties with some of her friends last year.
Reflecting on the fallout to the piece, Ashley told WWD: “I think that in the audience it was for, the response I got was pretty amazing. It reached who it needed to reach.”
Ashley discussed leaving her “toxic” group of mom friends in the blog post last year.
She said: “Here’s the thing nobody prepared me for: Mom groups can turn toxic.
“Not because the moms themselves are toxic people, but because the dynamic shifts into an ugly place with mean-girl behaviour. I know this from personal experience.”
Ashley explained there were group text chains that “didn’t include everyone” and there were “hangouts” she didn’t get invited to.
In her essay for The Cut, she went on to open up about how she started to feel “excluded”, writing: “I remember being left out of a couple of group hangs, and I knew about them because Instagram made sure it fed me every single photo and Instagram Story.
“Another time, at one of the mom’s dinner parties, I realised where I sat with her – which was at the end of the table, far from the rest of the women. I was starting to feel frozen out of the group, noticing every way that they seemed to exclude me.”
