Why You Never Hear of Sandra Bullocks Kids

by Amy Sciarrito | June 17, 2016

Sandra Bullock adopted both her son Louis and her daughter Laila, who are 5 and 3 respectively. A single mother, Bullock has expanded her family while steadfastly retaining her and her kids’ privacy. You don’t hear much about Sandy’s two super-adorable kids, and here are some incredibly pivotal reasons why.

Bullock has never been a Hollywood diva, out every night at the Chateau Marmont like so many of her peers. Instead, the Oscar winner consciously sidesteps the gossip-driven spotlight. When she first adopted Louis, Bullock maintained a home in Austin, a cool, hip city far away from Tinsel Town. She commuted between Austin and L.A. for years, for professional purposes. Through it all, she has kept her kids away from the glare of the pap’s flashbulbs, so they can grow up with a modicum of normalcy.

Even before she became a mother, Bullock’s persona and profile were low-key. She showed up for work and red carpets and that’s it, becoming America’s Sweetheart by being real and relatable, as opposed to passing out in a Range Rover and grabbing TMZ headlines. In 2015, Bullock told Glamour, “I’ve always been insanely private. When I [first] stepped into this, it was still loud. The tabloids were violating. I went, ‘How can people write that?’ I spent a year and a half, two years, distraught, saying, ‘You can’t say these lies.’ I spent years fighting battles you can’t win.” So now, rather than stoke fires, she avoids them. That’s an intelligent parenting move.

Bullock welcomed Louis into her family around the time the actress learned that her husband Jesse James had cheated on her. The messy news became public days after she nabbed her first Best Actress Oscar. while the couple was in the middle of the process of adopting him together. But once the marriage crumbled, Bullock proceeded to adopt Louis as a single parent. She had already been keeping the adoption under wraps, and the fact that she endured her greatest professional triumph and her biggest personal embarrassment, at the same time, likely heightened her value of privacy. Ultimately, Bullock’s 2010 marital drama taught her how to protect her kids at all costs. When adopting Laila, Bullock kept details close to the vest for months. E! reported the actress denied expanding her family, a mere two months before confirming Laila’s adoption. That had to be a protective move.

Bullock’s son and daughter are single digits in age, and Bullock clearly feels that’s far too young for them to be out and about, causing trouble or havoc on Hollywood’s mean streets. They are simply not old enough to be the center of the rumor mill, and so Bullock isn’t parading them around on social media. Even when she announced Laila’s adoption on the cover of PEOPLE, we only saw the back and side of her little girl’s head, further protecting her privacy. Those buns were cute, though!

Both of Bullock’s adopted children are African-American, which has generated some unnecessary criticisms, such as how she doesn’t often discuss their race, or that her son wore ethnic-looking beads in the 2010 PEOPLE photo spread that revealed his adoption. Bullock likely keeps the kids under wraps in general, so she can prevent them from being subjected to further unkind nonsense or intolerance. She is fiercely proud of her brood, telling PEOPLE, “My family is blended and diverse, nutty, and loving, and understanding. That’s a family.” She also told the publication that she knew her adopted children were “the ones,” saying, “When I look at Laila, there’s no doubt in my mind that she was supposed to be here. I can tell you absolutely, the exact right children came to me at the exact right time.” That’s all that matters, far more than race.

One might argue revealing both of her adoptions on two separate PEOPLE covers were publicity-seeking stunts. However, outside of that, Bullock isn’t out there campaigning and oversharing her kids. In that respect, she’s unlike a lot of celeb moms (Kim Kardashian, what’s good?) Sure, it’s cute to see little North West gifted with custom Balmain outfits. But what about 15 years from now, when she’s spectacularly overexposed or TMI’ing the world with non-essential details of her life? That’s a future for her kids Bullock clearly does not want.

Since Bullock is keeping her kids out of the public eye, they won’t be used to celebrity chaos. Public scrutiny won’t affect their work, their play, or their friendships at such formative stages. Even when Bullock was married to James and took on a mother role with his daughter Sunny, you only saw the family out and about every so often. Those photo ops never felt like planted pics, or as though Bullock’s’ publicist tipped paparazzi off to their location for positive press hits. Overexposure can have a negative effect, and Bullock ain’t having any of it.

Rather than overexpose her kids, Bullock is one protective grizzly mama, a role that suits her perfectly. She also told Glamour that, while she tries to drown out the chatter and gossip, it does get to her. But she won’t stand for her kids being targets. She stated, “As much as I profess to being able to shut it out, there are times I can’t, like when it’s hurtful to people I care about. Me, I get it. But when it hurts other people? Like, you come after my son, I’m gonna go postal. But they do.” All the facts point to Bullock doing Hollywood parenting the right way.

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