Your daily adult tube feed all in one place!
Melinda Gates turned to Jeff Bezos' ex-wife MacKenzie Scott for parenting advice - and asked how to raise her kids without spoiling them
Melinda Gates described the parenting advice given to her by Jeff Bezos' ex MacKenzie Scott in response to her concerns about spoiling her children.
The philanthropist and ex-wife of Bill Gates told The New York Times that she and MacKenzie 'are definitely friends' and that she holds her in the highest regard.
She also shared that the pair have compared notes on parenting methods in the past, namely in the context of raising kids while harboring extraordinarily large fortunes.
Melinda, 59, and Bill, 68, share three kids: Jennifer, 28, Rory, 25, and Phoebe, 21.
While MacKenzie, 54, and Jeff, 60, share three sons and a daughter - but only the name of their eldest, Preston, 24, is publicly known.
Melinda Gates, 59, described how she and Jeff Bezos' ex-wife MacKenzie Scott, 54, consulted each other on parenting in the context of their enormous wealth
Melinda and Bill, 68, share three kids: Jennifer, 28, Rory, 25, and Phoebe, 21
Speaking to NYT, Melinda explained how she spoke about not wanting to send their kids to universities where their parents' names were 'on a building.'
'I went to school with some of those kids at Duke University [whose parents' names were on a building], and I vowed to myself that if I ever had resources at my disposal, those were not the kind of children I wanted to raise,' she added.
Melinda went on to detail that they raised their kids with allowances.
'We absolutely did not just buy them things,' she stated.
'They either had to buy with their allowance or put it on their wish list, that maybe they'd get it from their grandparents or us on their birthday or Christmas,' she added.
'And so I think it was much more of an upbringing like I grew up in: a very middle-class household where money did dictate whether I got an extra pair of shoes that year or not, right?
'And I thought that was a good principle to have.'
She further described how 'helpful' MacKenzie was in finessing her own parenting strategy.
MacKenzie, 54, and Jeff, 60, divorced in 2019 after 25 years of marriage
The pair three sons and a daughter, though only the name of their eldest, Preston, 24, is publicly known
'I could see a bit how she was parenting, and I knew we had quite similar philosophies, actually,' Melinda said.
'We were close-ish, not as close then, but I knew she was trying to raise her kids, literally just down the street from me, in essentially the same way.'
MacKenzie's divorce from Jeff was finalized in July 2019 after 25 years of marriage.
Meanwhile, Melinda filed for divorce from Bill in May 2021 after 27 years of marriage, and it was finalized the same year.
Both women have since gone on to ramp up their philanthropic and activist efforts.
Since getting nearly $40 billion in her divorce, MacKenzie has donated more than $12 billion to a variety of nonprofits, per Kiplinger.
In May, Melinda announced her plans to step down from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which will be re-named the Gates Foundation.
At the same time, she has been ramping up her political activism, with her focus remaining on women's issues, especially reproductive rights.