Free Being Kendra by Kendra Wilkinson Page A

Madison and Bridget Marquardt in the past, but they were really just roommates, not close friends. We shared a boyfriend, we shared the spotlight, but now that I’m a mom we’re all just in different places. I just changed. I think it’s something that just happens naturally when you become a mom. You just grow up. Someone like Holly has a different lifestyle from me. I love her but I don’t know the people she hangs out with—they are more on the party scene, and I’ve put those days behind me. We still talk (she always gave me amazing words of encouragement during Dancing with the Stars and sent me fun little notes) but being a Vegas showgirl and constantly on the prowl for a new boyfriend . . . that’s her world, not mine. When it came to the baby, people like that just weren’t around. I was very alone.
    After hitting my breaking point, I immediately flew back to L.A. and I gave Hank a deadline. If I didn’t have a house in three months, I was prepared to call it quits. I couldn’t do this anymore—the constant moving around and instability was too much. I told him, “I can’t live your life anymore. I’m not just a football wife.” After that he started moving quickly, because he knew I wasn’t fucking around.
    Hank is the man in my life, and I think the man should step up and take care of things. Even though we make the same amount of money, I’m old-fashioned that way. He is the one who builds the nest. I’m the woman. I’m the one who raises the kid. He likes it that way too, and he chose that role. But that is why he let me down, because he didn’t hold up his end of the bargain. If I had my way and we could have guaranteed security I’d quit working today and let Hank do it all. But we need the money.
    So I was doing my job and he wasn’t doing his job. I knew we weren’t done as a couple, but it had been a tense couple of months, so I had to threaten him and let him know that part of us being a family was starting a life together in a home. Without that, we were incomplete. If we couldn’t have afforded one or were unemployed or down and out then our options would have been different. But working our asses off had given us the ability to have a secure, stable place to live. We (and by “we” I mean Hank) just hadn’t done anything about it. The amount of pressure that was on us at such a young age—I was twenty-five and he was twenty-eight—was too much. It’s a lot of pressure and we’ve never done any of this before. Not only being in a marriage but also both working and being parents.
    I’m having fun with it now, thankfully. Once you get through the tough parts parenthood is obviously extremely rewarding. Hank and I have figured out our lives and roles more, and it doesn’t hurt having the off-season, when we are all together and Hank’s not traveling the country and playing football. I feel much more secure in our relationship and that we’re providing stability for baby Hank. We opened up an account for baby Hank a long time ago so that every day we are working for him, his security and college. We want to make sure that he’s never moving around from city to city searching for work and a home like we did. Hank is going to hopefully grow up enjoying the fruits of our labors. I’m not a person who likes glamorous stuff so our money’s not going to get tied up in Chanel bags and Tiffany necklaces. I look at life before glam and I want to make sure that Hank Jr. is secure. I’ve been on TV nine seasons; I know I deserve my home. I don’t need a mansion but I do need a home. Doesn’t everyone?
    At one point or another, we had seen what a mess we were in aspects of our life, financially, health-wise, emotionally, and physically. We spent a lot of time and effort getting all that under control, but one thing we still needed to figure out was taking care of our finances. We were clueless.
    I got to the Playboy Mansion at eighteen years old. I was fresh out of high school, and