The couple gaze down at Whimsy. “She has this grumpy face,” Nara says.
“She’ll get so focused on something that she’ll look like she has resting bitch face,” Lucky says. He takes the tiny baby from Nara’s arms and nestles her confidently in the trough between his thighs.
At just 26, Lucky has lived a lot of life. Now, as a father of four, the boyish physical perfection that made him such a breakout star in the fashion world is transforming into something more manly. He certainly doesn’t have a dad bod, but here, in jeans and a chunky oversized cardigan, assuredly handling this newborn, Lucky can no longer be mistaken for a child himself.
Early in their relationship, the Smiths said they wanted six children together. The realities of child-rearing quickly disabused Nara of that idea.
“After Whimsy, we are absolutely done now,” Nara says. “Having toddlers is the best sort of birth control, because they’re wild.”
Lucky has a dreamier temperament than Nara, and he chimes in to neutralize the sentiment. “We feel like we couldn’t be as good of parents if we added in any more,” he says.
As if on cue, Rumble and Slim storm into the house with the new nanny, a young blond woman who started this gig just two days ago.
“Rumble, do you want to go in the playroom?” Lucky asks his three-year-old daughter.
“No,” she says.
“Guess what we have to do? We have to talk, do an interview,” he explains, as Slim, Rumble’s younger brother, lurches for an iPhone.
“Not the phone, Slimmy. Not the phone,” Nara instructs.
“Poop!” says Slim. “I did poop.” Sensing that the transition to the playroom might be a two-person job, Lucky offers to help the nanny and slips upstairs with the kids.
With the couple’s three young children, a booming social media business, and modeling careers that routinely require international travel, it’s easy to imagine a carousel of nannies, assistants, housekeepers, personal trainers, producers, and editors managing the Smiths’ day-to-day. But with the exception of the nanny who helps out a few hours a week, they seem to do the brunt of it themselves. In fact, they relish it. Every night before bed, Lucky and Nara review their upcoming work obligations and map out a childcare plan for the next day. Oftentimes they will divide and conquer, with each parent taking the kids for half the day and working the other half. In other households, a typical parent might spend 90 seconds making lunch for their kid. But for Nara, preparing a sandwich from scratch, filming the process, and then editing the footage can take up to seven hours. (In the meantime, her children will actually be fed something easier, like oatmeal.) Being a mother really is a full-time job, especially when you’re documenting it for 8 million followers.
