Photo: Press Association via @ClarenceHouse/Twitter
Even if you don’t follow celebrity news, it’s hard to avoid hearing about Prince George’s first birthday on July 22. I don’t normally follow the tabloids, but in the past year, I couldn’t help but notice that the media surrounding Will and Kate and their royal offspring seemed a bit…harsh.
It’s hard to feel sorry for a royal couple with a legion of maids, nannies, chauffeurs, and chefs, but it’s just wrong to be scrutinized like this as a new parent.
It’s hard enough to keep sane in the first year of a child’s life, and the Duchess of Cambridge (née Kate Middleton) has to do it in the public eye.
Had my motherly duties been not only to keep my infant fed, clothed, and safe from harm but also keep myself perfectly attired and coiffed, I would have lost my mind. Stretch pants, t-shirts, and a ponytail were about all I could muster after sleepless nights of marathon breastfeeding and tears (my daughter’s and mine) for months on end.
The criticism has ranged from the admittedly terrible car seat fail the day Will and Kate took Prince George home from the hospital to, in recent breaking news, Kate wiping drool from her son’s mouth with (gasp!) her hand.
The duchess has been chastised for taking her son on a too-long flight to vacation with her and her parents in the Caribbean and, paradoxically, for leaving her child with grandparents at 7 months of age to go on a weeklong vacation with her husband. And then again for saying she misses her son when she takes part in dutchess-ly duties during the day because, as one dissenter said, “some parents actually work all day every day”.
If I were a duchess, I’d be sunk. I can just imagine what the tabloids and blogs would say about my choice to introduce solids with baby-led eating, transport my child via bike seat beginning at 8 months, take a 10-day vacation without her when she was 14 months old, and the fact that she’s still breastfeeding at almost 2 years.
The bottom line? Moms can’t win.
There are real problems out there. Abandonment, abuse, hunger. Whether I agree or not that a one-year-old child should be rear-facing in a car seat (another cause for Prince George–related outrage), I don’t think it makes or breaks a parent.
Being a new mom is difficult. For many of us, it comes as a shock just how difficult it is and how much of it does not come naturally. The learning curve is huge, and I’d argue that it’s even more of a shock for new moms in their thirties (or forties) who have had a decade or more to be adults sans child.
Most moms I know are constantly worried they’re doing it all wrong. It’s bad enough to receive little digs from family members or strangers on the sidewalk. Entire blogs dedicated to our failings (I could include a link to one of several Kate Middleton burn blogs here, but I won’t) is going too far.
But for most real moms I know, a wonderful thing happens somewhere between years one and two: we start to just not care.
Real moms have been through the trenches. We know none of us is perfect and we know that apart from providing love, shelter, and sustenance, there’s no “right” way to do this parenting thing.
So here’s to real moms and to the Duchess of Cambridge not giving a flying hoot what anyone says. Flaunt your live-in nanny (wouldn’t we all have one if we could?), take a vacation, and, heck, go topless like you did in your pre-pregnancy days if you like. (So much easier to breastfeed, really.)
And to all those naysayers venting on Twitter and message boards? Real moms don’t have time to partake in those types of vitriolic shenanigans.
And we certainly don’t have time to care.
