No really. In a Friday interview with the Independent, the Oscar winner talked about the challenges of being a globe-trotting celebrity while trying to raise six children. And unfortunately for the conventional education system, it "hasn't caught up with our children and our way of life."
Does it take a village to raise a child? It does if the kid's last name is Jolie-Pitt. Jolie, who has a few million more resources than most, explained that "for us it's about building a team around us where we can all be enhanced culturally and they can help with following a curriculum legally ... I'm the first person to say, 'get the schoolwork done as quickly as possible because let's go out and explore.' I'd rather them go to a museum and learn to play guitar and read and pick a book they love."
Few among us get to build a "team" of individual teachers for our kids or sprint off to Cannes or sleep with Brad Pitt -- though I keep looking for that job posting on Craigslist. And not every mother can say, with the voice of experience, "We love safari adventures and living in tents, we love to go to Asia. Really any place new, something beautiful that's also physical." For many more of us, the concept of going "any place new" means driving all over town looking for that Dora the Explorer doll your kid's been screaming for. No wonder then that Jolie's comments inspired a fair amount of Internet eye rolling, from commenters who noted that it's "easy to say when your children will never NEED a job. Such arrogance. Sorry, but my kid isn't going to earn a living traveling and playing guitar," and more pithily, "Why do people buy this crap from these celebrity idiots?"