The One Way Donald Trump Never Helped Melania When Barron Was A Baby

Donald Trump and Melania Trump's underage son, Barron Trump, was largely kept out of the spotlight during his father's presidency. He remained so after his dad left office, and shortly before the news of Donald's indictment broke, a source told People the ex-president's looming legal battle likely wasn't disrupting Barron's low-key life at Mar-a-Lago, his family's home in Florida.

Barron, who turned 17 shortly before his dad's indictment, reportedly has his mom to thank for providing him with some sense of normalcy. "She is a doting mother to Barron. ... Of course, she is worried and concerned about the legal issues but she has not done anything more to protect Barron now than she ever did," People's insider said. 

Melania had recently given birth to her first and only child when Donald allegedly had a sexual encounter with adult film star Stormy Daniels. The Manhattan District Attorney's office investigated a purported hush money payment Daniels received from Donald's lawyer, Michael Cohen, and this led to Donald's indictment, per Insider. Daniels told InTouch she had sex with Donald in July 2006, and a month prior, Donald spoke to the New York Post about his parenting skills. While he has denied cheating on Melania, he had no qualms about admitting he was a hands-off dad when it came to caring for baby Barron.

By the time Donald Trump welcomed Barron Trump into the world, he was already the father of four children: Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, and Tiffany Trump. After raising so many kids, some dads would be pros at changing diapers. But not Donald. While speaking about baby Barron to the New York Post in 2006, he said, "I would never ask to change him." In an apparent attempt to save face, Donald explained that his aversion to helping out with nappies had nothing to do with him being a neglectful father. "I would love to change him! But Melania probably wouldn't let me. I'd just do it wrong," he said. Donald also insisted his wife actually enjoys changing diapers, which reportedly earned him a scowl from Melania.

But when Donald appeared on the "Opie and Anthony" show a year prior, he admitted that he actually would not "love" to change a diaper. "It's not my thing," he said. When elaborating on why, he made a sexist remark about the art of dealing with dirty diapers, saying, "There's a lot of women out there that demand that the husband act like the wife."

Before Melania got pregnant, Donald appeared on "The Howard Stern Show" and made it known that she wouldn't just be lacking his help in the diaper department. "She would take great care of the child without my having to do very much," he boasted.

When Donald Trump got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007, he was happy to hoist baby Barron Trump up in the air and declare that his son already had the makings of a successful businessman, per Hello!. But, as Donald confessed on "The Howard Stern Show," he was less interested in interacting with his kids when there weren't cameras around — when they were younger, anyway. He revealed that his ex-wife Marla Maples once confronted him about his lack of interest in taking their daughter, Tiffany Trump, on walks when she was a baby. "Right, I'm going to be walking down Fifth Avenue with a baby in a carriage," Donald scoffed. "It just didn't work." Maples later told People that she considered herself a single parent.

Donald shares his three oldest children, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump, with his late ex-wife, Ivana Trump. In a 2006 interview with The New York Times, Eric revealed that Donald didn't do much actual parenting when he was a kid, saying, "In a way, [Don Jr.] raised me. My father, I love and I appreciate, but he always worked 24 hours a day."

In 2016, Ivana confirmed to The Daily Front Row that she did all of the child-rearing when the kids were younger. She recalled, "When they were 21 and out of university, I gave them to Donald and said, 'This is the final product — now it's your job.'"