Today I saw a picture of a celebrity in her
underwear having just had her baby 6 weeks ago. She looked like she’d never
experienced a food baby, let alone a real baby. What are these people DOING to
themselves to achieve this?!?! 6 weeks after I had my baby, I looked like
someone had transplanted a large sack of jelly onto my front, drawn a line down
the middle in black marker pen and enlarged my belly button to 14x it’s original
size. That belly would not have looked out of place making Christmas toys for
children in Lapland. Genuinely though. it’s not biologically reasonable to look
like that 6 weeks post baby unless you are implementing some serious forms of
intervention. Intervention that requires some hardcore and let’s be honest,
possibly surgical commitment. I just don’t believe it’s anything close to real
life. In fact I know it’s not. But does it make me feel pressured? Hell yes!
There is FAR more media out there
displaying women who have ‘got their bodies back’ in record time than there is
media explaining and portraying that it is completely natural (and safer) for
it to take at least 9 months before you even start looking like your old self
again. The media representation of pregnancy and post-pregnancy bodies is
nothing close to real life. FACT. In particular, my favourite photos are of
pregnant celebrities in tiny bikinis on a foreign beach looking picture
perfect, with perfect shiny, blemish-free bumps, bodies, hair and make-up. If
someone had put me on a foreign beach when I was that pregnant, I would have
looked like a Hungry Hippo in serious distress. I would have been sweating
extensively; my chin acne would have been glowing in the midday sun, I would
have been on my back on a sunbed, spread-eagled, moaning about how
uncomfortable I was, whilst downing as many Gaviscon Liquid Sachets as I could
fit in my mouth. I’ll be honest, I was doing that in my own bedroom in the
middle of November so it inevitably would have been even more of a car crash on
a beach.
There are a lot of little things people
don’t tell you can happen to your body during and after pregnancy…. Things like
developing a giant belly button cave, splitting your stomach muscles,
consta-pation (constant constipation), literally the worst acid reflux you have
ever experienced in your life, a broken vein party on your legs, your hair
falling out… The list could go on…
So us normal-tons who don’t have hair
stylists, or the money for hair extensions or time to blow dry our hair
properly or delicately arrange an ‘up-do’ that disguises the post pregnancy thinning
hair… we have to wander harmlessly into Co-Op, baby in tow, to buy some wet
wipes, looking like we’re channeling ‘The Greg Wallace’ and be faced with
magazines and newspapers showing us ‘new celebrity mums’ who have more hair
than a Wella production line. Then when you read the interview with them, they
are complaining about their post-pregnancy hair loss. YOU WHAT LOVE???!! Don’t
try and ‘identify’ with normal new mums! It is HIGHLY unlikely that you only
had 23 seconds worth of a shower this morning, during which you could only fit
in the shampoo, before having to tend to your baby’s 4th shit of the
day, which has also leaked onto your cream bedsheets, whilst wrestling the
remote control out of it’s mouth and searching through the dirty washing to
find a passable item of clothing to wear. It is HIGHLY unlikely that you then
could not blow dry what’s left of your hair because the baby now thinks the
hairdryer is a baby terrorizing machine so had to leave it to frizz up in the
muggy air and then tie it up using an elastic band you found on the floor
before trying to make a breakfast exciting enough for your baby to want to eat
using the only two ingredients left in your supermarket-deprived cupboards,
which happen to be mustard and icing sugar. Be real. I’m sure you actually
spent a substantial number of hours being pampered to look like that, whilst
someone else entertained your child and a nutritionist hand delivered your baby
an organic, fresh, homemade gourmet breakfast. And I’m pretty sure in order to
get looking like that 6 weeks after birth, you probably had to spend a
substantial amount of time away from your baby, training and preening. Well if
it’s all the same, I’d rather spend that time reading Meg and Mog to my baby
and practicing clapping in our pyjamas. I’ll get an ironed stomach some other
time.
(It’s at this point I imagine some people
might be thinking ‘well don’t read the magazines then you stupid woman.’ To those people, I would say ‘fair point,’
But I like those pages that point out celebrity imperfections in a circle of
doom. Because I am a shallow and bitter person.)
Don’t get me wrong, some (most) days I have
real anxiety about the way I look now. Things like:
- · Is my hair getting thinner?
- · Have I got more cellulite?
- · Am I getting wrinkles from being so tired?
- · Do I still look pregnant?
- · Will my stretch marks fade?
- · Have my stomach muscles joined back together again?
- · Will I ever look like I used to look?
… and I look at those pictures with a
jealous sort of yearning. I like to think I’ve been quite sensible since having
a baby.., I’ve eaten pretty healthily and exercised when I can. But it’s not
real, healthy or achievable for the vast majority of ‘normal’ mums to look
like that that soon. Some are lucky and very easily spring back to their normal
body shape and size. Others have to work hard for many many years and never
quite make it back. If they even want to.
I have genuine concern for my daughter
growing up in a world so obsessed with image. How can I make sure she is happy
and content with whoever she is and whatever she looks like?
I’ve seen the stark reality of the impact
on young people. Teenage girls are incredibly vulnerable and it has genuinely
frightened me the extent to which they go to perfect a photo that is going to
be published on social media. It can comsume them. I didn’t even understand
what all this ‘filter’ business was…. I kept seeing #nofilter and thought
people were perhaps referring to some sort of new exciting band or perhaps a
new form of slang similar to YOLO. I don’t really even understand the meaning
of a hashtag if I’m entirely honest. Then a 13 year old girl at school gave me
a scarily in depth tutorial about which specific filter could make it look like
you had no under eye circles, which one could slim your face down, which one
could make you look more tanned, which one could make your eyes glow (?!),
which one could make it seem like you had no spots etc. She showed me a photo
of herself in which she was unrecognizable. She looked like some sort of
supermodel popstar and completely unlike herself. If you put the photo next to
her face, I think I would have struggled to believe it was the same girl.
THIRTEEN YEARS OLD. When I was thirteen, the most cosmetic I got was with pink
hair mascara and trying to see if I could get out of the house wearing clear
mascara without my mum noticing! Funnily enough, we were talking because she
was struggling with quite serious low self esteem issues. Except it’s not funny
at all…. It’s very sad and very worrying.
The thing is.. I can’t blame them for
feeling that way and I am 28 years old and really should know better. But I
feel the pressure sometimes. If I was doing a photoshoot for a magazine looking
the best I ever had, I would still tell them to photoshop the crap out of me.
Hell yeah! I feel constantly surrounded by images of the unachievable. As I’ve
got older, I’ve become much more accepting of myself, sure. But there are days
when I really need a good slap round the face and a reminder of what is
important. Particularly now I’ve had a baby. I really want to be one of those
super positive life-enhancing people. And now and again I decide to become one.
Then after an hour I get bored and have a good moan instead. It’s just not
meant to be. You need some professional moaners in the world to make the
positive people look good. I shall shoulder that responsibility!
Sometimes though, you have a moment of
clarity. Mine was in Waitrose. I was completely overcome with love for this
chubby little thing that had come out of my uterus. I love her in that way that
when you love something so much it makes you angry just from all the love. And
although I have moments of vain upset… I really do. And although some days I
stare with longing at people who are thin and toned… At the bottom of it, I
couldn’t care less. I don’t think you can fully comprehend the phrase ‘it makes
you realize what is important’ until you have children. I am literally in love
with her. All I care about is that she is happy and healthy.
Sometimes I feel sad that I can’t afford a
new pair of jeans or shoes or the expensive moisturizer that I used to have.
But I would genuinely rather look like Keith Richards the morning after and use
the money to buy her an absurdly coloured rattle toy thing that she will love
for 2 days and then never want to look at again. Or a little cardigan that she
will grow out of in a week.
 |
| Keith. |
Plus it’s ok, because if I stand in a
certain way, at a 45 degree angle to the left in very soft lighting on certain
days, when I haven’t eaten much carbohydrate and I stand very, very still… It can sort of look like I have a tiny bit of
stomach definition.
Maybe one day I will look like my old toned
self again. But maybe I won’t. And that’s ok.
