Cardi B reveals how she pushes her children to be better than her: ‘I want you to be better than me’

Cardi B has long been candid about how she’s raising her children with a balance of discipline, luxury, and perspective.

Cardi B runs a tight ship in her house.

During a recent appearance on Jay Shetty’s “On Purpose” podcast, the 32-year-old mother of three (soon to be four) opened up about the intentional way she’s raising her children.

After listing off the many enrichment activities her two older children, seven-year-old Kulture and four-year-old Wave, take part in after school, the “Am I the Drama?” artist made it clear that participation isn’t optional. “They’re mandatory,” she said, no matter how her kids feel that day.

“It’s discipline,” she explained. “It gotta be in you and you have to be better than me. I want you to be better than me. There’s things that I cannot do, that I want my kids to do.”

“I want you to be smarter than me,” added the “Bodega Baddie” performer. “I want you to be — not perfect because you cannot make your kids perfect and you don’t to put pressure on your kids [to be] perfect — but I want you to be a 100 times better version than me, and I’m gonna [instill] that in you and you’re gonna be mad and you’re gonna be crying, but you’re gonna appreciate that one day because I wish the things that that I put on my kids that somebody put in me when I was younger.”

Cardi shares her three children — Kulture Kiari (born July 2018), Wave Set (born September 2021), and Blossom Belle (born March 2024) — with her estranged husband, Offset, and is currently expecting her fourth child with boyfriend NFL player Stefon Diggs. The rapper has long been candid about how she’s raising her children with a balance of strict discipline, luxury, and perspective.

She made headlines earlier this summer when she gave fans a close glimpse at just how much she invests in creating stability for her kids during a recent X Spaces chat. 

“My kids got their own driver,” she revealed. “The kids’ driver is on a retainer for $10,000 a month.” 

She went on to explain that her children’s private school tuition is $45,000; they receive tutoring four times a week (which she noted with Shetty), Kulture takes piano lessons costing $300 an hour, and that the family has a full household staff, including a chef, a nanny, and even a cousin who helps care for the kids.

But for all the comfort and privilege her children enjoy, Cardi has made it equally important that they remain grounded. While appearing on “The Jennifer Hudson Show,” she explained how she keeps her children connected to the people and places that shaped her, from family in the Dominican Republic to her old neighborhood in the Bronx.

“They have a lot of cousins and a lot of my friends. They still outside. They still in the hood and everything,” she said. “They was just in the Dominican Republic and it’s like, ‘Yeah. My grandma’s going to make you clean and stuff.’”

“I want them to know that it’s like there’s another world out there that’s not your world,” she added. 

Despite their lavish upbringing, Cardi says her kids have retained their curiosity and humility.

“They really enjoy going to like, I guess, the hood,” she told Hudson. “They love going to their cousin’s house. They love going to my dad’s house and stuff like that. They’re very well-rounded, I love that.”