Royal Pressure For New Moms
This probably isn’t the best week to mention this, but I am not a fan of Britain's royal family.
Sure, I watch “The Crown,” but I also believe we should look at this family of figureheads and thank the good Lord we fought a revolution to be free of the profoundly terrible idea of a hereditary monarchy.
What could be less democratic?
That said, even I am impressed with the Duchess of Cambridge’s ability to birth a baby and emerge from the hospital seven hours later, wearing four-inch pumps and smiling for the cameras.
The girl is fierce. She looked fab.
One more reason that I’m glad my child-bearing years are behind me. What new mother wants to compete with THAT?
Where are most new moms seven hours after childbirth? In the hospital, hopefully, unless they’ve been kicked out. They’re feeling flabby, sore and tired. Some are applying ice packs to their nether regions. Others have just realized they’re still too fat to close their bathrobes.
Now, thanks to Kate Middleton, there’s going to be subtle pressure on these exhausted, lactating ladies to leap out of bed and look runway ready.
We must stop this. Alas, it may be too late.
My daughter, who’s younger than Kate, says the latest trend in childbirth is to have a stylist on call to do the mother’s hair and make-up while the doc’s cutting the umbilical cord. That way she can pose for magazine-quality maternity ward pix with her naked newborn.
The New York Times reported on this two years ago:
When Donna Yip, a lawyer who lives in the financial district, went into labor with her second child in June, she had more than just her husband and medical team in her room at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital.
Jackson Simmonds from the Julien Farel Restore Salon & Spa was also there, with a curling iron, hair dryer and boar bristle hairbrushes in his Longchamp tote. They were his tools to style Ms. Yip’s hair immediately after delivery.
Ms. Yip is one of a growing number of women who are booking hairstylists and makeup artists to come to their hospital room for postpartum grooming, typically with the first photographs of mother and child in mind.
“I think someone realized, ‘Why should I not look good for that great picture that I’m going to show everybody, the first picture of my child?’ ” said Joel Warren, an owner of the Warren-Tricomi salons.
Oh please. Must we curate everything?
I blame Facebook and Instagram. Seems some ladies are determined to be seen as superwomen. Their photos tell their friends that childbirth is no big deal. Shoot, they did it without smearing their mascara.
But they didn't.
I’m guessing Kate Middleton looked like something of a dog’s dinner as she popped out Royal Baby #3. But then her glam squad stepped in. They gave her a bird bath, a blow out, a facial and then artfully applied her makeup.
She just sat there, no doubt, sipping a cup of tea.
Then her dream team slipped that pretty red dress on over her head, slid those pumps onto her feet and shoved her out the hospital door where she managed to remain upright for a few minutes. Once in the car and out of camera range, poor Kate probably collapsed. And back at the palace, a servant likely snatched the newborn while the duchess was whisked off to some comfy royal bed.
Where she probably remains, relaxing on 1,000-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets. Frankly, that’s where she belongs. It’s called labor for a reason. Most women are wiped out afterward.
Remember, unlike commoner moms, Kate doesn’t have to fix her own snacks, answer the doorbell or chase her two older kids around the house. She doesn't have to clean the litter box, empty the dishwasher or change diapers, either.
She’s royalty. She’s not like us.
So ordinary moms should forget the Kate-inspired pageantry and just enjoy that hospital wheelchair ride to their cars.
It’s the last chance many will have to sit down.
