The Just A Little Shady podcast has finally returned, and Hailie Jade comes back with a major update: life with baby Elliot. Eight months into motherhood, she sits down to talk about the transition, the surprises, and the story behind choosing her son’s name.
Apparently, the “EM” initials were not intentional, but they feel strangely perfect now.
Hailie admits she felt completely unprepared for the naming moment. Before pregnancy, she had a list of favourites. Yet when Elliot was born, none of the names felt right.
“I kept saying, I don’t picture this as him”, she recalls. Evan, her husband, felt the same. Nothing fit. Then the hospital stepped in. They were about to discharge a newborn. Hence, if the new parents didn’t choose a name, they would have to handle all the paperwork themselves.
“My brain was barely functioning”, remebers Hailie. “So I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, we have to do this before I leave because there’s no chance we’re going to remember to submit all the documents after the fact’. So, we finally got to the point where we were down to two names, two totally different names. The other name was Rowan, and then we had Elliot”.
The meaning wasn’t clear at first. She panicked, thinking the name needed a deeper purpose. However, there was one point of certainty: the middle name had to be Marshall. “I wanted my son to carry something from my family”, Hailie says. Elliot Marshall McClintock – it flowed, it fit, and it felt right.
The Accidental Easter Egg
After the announcement, fans immediately noticed that his initials are EM. Naturally, they made a connection evident to any Shady follower. Hailie laughs about it now.
“Truthfully, that’s great. I’m glad there’s more meaning to it than we initially meant. I actually didn’t think of that”, she chuckles. “But I’ll take the credit”.
Detroit Roots Run Deep
There’s another layer to the story. Elliot was almost born on March 13, Detroit Day (3/13).
“It would’ve been so cool”, Hailie says. But she also hoped for the 15th, to honour her late grandmother. True to form, baby Elliot arrived right in the middle: on the 14th, Pi Day.
Pulling back from posting
Hailie also mentioned online pressure that now extends to her baby son. At first, she loved sharing monthly update photos. But missing a single post led to unsettling messages demanding content.
“I was sharing some pictures of him online, but now we’re going to take a little step back from it. I was doing the monthly pictures, which I still think are so cute. And we do still take them at home every month. But I stopped posting those. At four or five months, we took him to the Lions game that was the same day. So, I didn’t do the picture that day, I did it after that.
And as soon as I didn’t post the picture, I got some creepy messages, “Where is the picture?” Like, people being angry that I didn’t post the picture. I’m like, “You know what? No, you don’t. We’re not going to do this anymore”. So, we’re taking a break from all of that”.
She still takes the photos privately. She still celebrates every milestone. But she refuses to let strangers dictate her boundaries. It’s a lesson she learned from her father, who protected his children fiercely from the spotlight.
Hailie says that she loves sharing the joy Elliot brings. But she’ll do it on her terms, not on the internet’s timetable.
“I’m sure in the future I’ll still be sharing more and talking about all the fun things he’s doing”, she says.
Sincerely, most fans will agree that protecting baby EM matters far more than posting monthly photos. But we miss his little face!
