Amanda Kloots on having 'mom guilt' as a single parent: 'I'm constantly asking for help'
Amanda Kloots has been through a lot in the last couple of years.
In July 2020, her 41-year-old husband, Broadway star Nick Cordero, died after 95 days of being in the hospital battling complications from COVID-19, leaving behind Kloots and their son Elvis, now 3.
Since Cordero's death, the dancer and TV personality, 40, has spoken with raw vulnerability about grief and resilience. In a new interview on Dear Media’s Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast, hosted by Amanda Hirsch, Kloots opens up even further about life after loss and how she's navigating being a single working mom.
"Being a single parent is hard. It's really, really hard," she said. "The day-to-day things of being a single parent, it's just a lot, especially right now. [Elvis] is starting to really have opinions and talk back to me, and test me. He doesn't want me to leave and doesn't want me to go to dinner because he wants me to stay home with him, so there's a lot of mom guilt coming in right now. So it's really hard."
The dancer, who called New York City home for 19 years, met Cordero while performing in Bullets Over Broadway on Broadway; she recalled going through postpartum depression after the family moved to Los Angeles when Elvis was just three months old.
"We had nobody. We had friends, but we didn't have friends that we could, like, guarantee help with Elvis with," she recalled of that time. "I was in postpartum depression. I did not want to live here. I was begging and pleading to move back and hoping that Nick would understand and also want to move back, that he would find work and be forced to move back."
Though she's since changed her tune about L.A., parenting still takes its toll.
"I am not gonna pretend that I do this on my own. I've hired help," The Talk co-host said. "I have friends that help. I have grandparents that come when I have to go film a movie and stay with him for three weeks."
In fact, when she performed on ABC's Dancing With the Stars in 2021 (placing fourth), her parents moved to Los Angeles for three months to care for Elvis.
"They are rockstar grandparents and I could not do it without them," she said, noting that she also has a brother in San Francisco who comes down to help with the baby.
"It's hard because you have to ask," she said. "I feel like I'm constantly asking for help, constantly asking for babysitters or for people to help for an hour or two, you know, because it's just tough. You can't just leave the house. You can't come home late. You can't extend the evening. You can't take the fitness class that you wish you could take because you have to get home, and you don't want your son [to miss quality mom time]. So you end up not working out that day or something. You end up not doing something for yourself."
Kloots has been open about experiencing mom guilt in the past and how it's affected her dating life.
"I am totally open to finding love again," she told Yahoo Life in June 2021. "I love love. I love being married. I love being in a relationship. I love having a companion. I would love to have somebody in Elvis's life that would be that male figure for him.
"I know Nick would want that for me," she noted. "I know that because I would want that for him, if the tables were turned and it was me ... I'm hopeful that there's somebody else out there for me. I really am. And when I'm ready, I hope that Nick brings him to me ... I'm sure he'll have his fingers up in heaven orchestrating something."
During a November interview with Jana Kramer on her podcast Whine Down, Kloots spoke about the challenges of dating again with a toddler son.
“I have not dated a lot. This is the first time I'm dating, at 40 years old,” she explained. “I would make all this effort to go on these dates … Elvis would be crying at the door, I'd be walking away being like, ‘Why am I leaving my son to go meet this person? I don't even know. I'm stressed out now. I feel guilt.’”
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