Nick Cannon is defending the way he's building his family in the face of criticism.
Nick appeared on The Breakfast Club morning radio show on August 9, where he discussed the outrage over the fact that he has become a father to four children in the last year. Nick has seven children with four different women.
During the interview, he explained that he doesn't buy into "Eurocentric" concepts of monogamy. He went on to say that monogamy implies ownership of one person over another, and it isn't something he can get behind. He feels like he's just one of many people who are going to gravitate toward this mentality.
Nick Cannon is explaining the philosophy surrounding his family structure. Nick has gotten a lot of criticism from different corners over the fact that he now has seven children with four different women. Nick is father to 10-year-old twins Moroccan and Monroe with ex-wife Mariah Carey, 4-year-old Golden and 9-month-old Powerful Queen with Brittany Bell, newborn twins Zion Mixolydian and Zillion Heir with Abby De La Rosa, and son Zen with Alyssa Scott.
Nick began by speaking on how fatherhood has deeply impacted him. "The beauty of fatherhood, when you really talk about living as a father, I've learned so much just from my children, and it's so amazing. I really just love being around my kids. That youthful energy, it feels like you get to relive every time," he shared.
"I think I've been through so much in my life physically, mentally and spiritually, the best place that I find is the time that I spend with my kids and that energy," he continued.
"And to get as much of that as possible and to pass on all that I've lived into something else, that's why I do it, man."
When one of the show's hosts pointed out that people question why he has children with so many different women, Nick fought the questioning.
"That's a Eurocentric concept when you think about the ideas of you're supposed to have this one person for the rest of your life," he said.
"And really that's just to classify property, when you think about it. When you go into that mindset, if we're really talking that talk, the idea that a man should have one woman — we shouldn't have anything. I have no ownership over this person."
"It's about what exchange can we create together," Nick continued.
"I've never really subscribed to that mentality. I understand the institution of marriage if we go back to what that was about … I don't have ownership of any of the mothers. We create families in the sense of we created a beautiful entity."
Nick also asserted that he's never started a family with a woman who wasn't interested in starting a family.
"Those women and all women are the ones that open themselves up to say, 'I would like to allow this man in my world and I will birth this child.' So it ain't my decision, I'm just following suit," he said.
"They know how I feel. I'm not going around like, 'Who am I gonna impregnate next?' When you really look at how the family infrastructure is designed, the woman is the one that always leads and makes decisions."
Nick also shared that he's very active in all his children's lives. "For every single one of my kids, I'm at every basketball game, I'm at every martial arts practice," he said.
"People don’t understand how I do it, but my children are my priority."
