La La Anthony is getting honest about her parenting paranoia.
During a recent visit to “The Breakfast Club,” the “Power” actress spoke on several personal topics, from taking another chance at marriage to co-parenting her son Kiyan with her former NBA star ex-husband Carmelo Anthony before being asked by co-host Charlamagne Tha God how she balances giving the teen his freedom with her desire to keep him safe.
LaLa admitted, “I keep a close eye,” but still, “I want him to live life and be a 15-year-old. It’s also, you know, growing up in Brooklyn; it’s different. I just gotta make sure he’s in the right places where he needs to be because he’s 15. He wants to hang out and go to certain places and play basketball.”
However, the “BMF” actress said it does get challenging on certain days with her son, “not really understanding sometimes why he can’t just do what everybody can do all the time.”
She added, “Now it’s to the point where everyone’s having like sweet 16 parties and all this stuff, and he’ll be like, ‘Yo mom, it’s a party in Queens, and somebody’s whatever, apartment complex and this and this. And I’m like, ‘Oh, you can go, but I just want to have somebody outside even if they don’t go in,’ and he’s like, ‘Well then, I don’t want to go.’”
LaLa explained that her teen “doesn’t want to feel like he’s walking around with eyes on him and stuff like that. He’s so low-key.” The 40-year-old explained having to teach the aspiring ball player how to conduct himself in specific environments.
“The truth is my son is in that environment. He goes to school in Queens. We live in Brooklyn. He’s not sheltered,” she said. “He walks around. He goes to the corner store, so it’s not like he lives a life where he’s behind everything. He’s out there, and he’ll go to different projects. His friends live there.”
She continued. “He wants to play basketball in different projects or whatever, and it’s like I gotta let him live, and I love that he’s well-rounded and guess what it’s like to grow up all different kind of ways, but I also have to make sure that he’s careful and understands that he’s a target, and he doesn’t understand that yet.”
