How should a woman look hours after giving birth?
Kate’s been pilloried for looking so picture perfect. Here, SARAH VINE (that’s her above after having her daughter) and other mums ask ...
OW, my eyes! The internet is alive with pictures of ‘real’ women post-partum, after Women’s Hour asked listeners to send in pictures of themselves after giving birth — and it’s not a pretty sight. Just to make things worse, here’s one of me, shortly after being delivered of my first child, Beatrice (she’s the very wrinkly thing in the pink blanket), after two days in labour and an emergency C-section.
I think we can all agree I look truly horrendous, even by my own low standards. Blotchy, puffy, not to mention a rather alarming shade of greeny-grey. And this was two days after the actual event, at home.
I don’t have any pictures from the hospital. must have broken the camera. Even if I had wanted to I could not have put on a dress and appeared in a pair of nude heels, and a full
face of make-up, Duchess of Cambridge style, on the hospital steps to show off the new arrival to the world.
For the first few hours after the operation I wasn’t even allowed to sit up. I couldn’t hold my baby, either.
As for make-up, I was so puffy from morphine (I’d had a spinal block), I doubt whether anyone could have located my eyes in order to apply that signature Kate liner.
My legs, meanwhile, were encased in porridge-coloured support stockings, out of which my toes poked like poached chipolatas. If anyone had even suggested a pair of nude heels I might well have stabbed them with a stiletto.
The rest I won’t describe. Some things are best left to the imagination.
So I have lots of sympathy for all those women who, over the past few days, have pointed out the stark difference between their own birth experiences and that of the Duchess of Cambridge.
And I completely understand why they feel that her version of motherhood — in and out in a matter of hours, no pain relief, smiley, wavy photocall — is unrepresentative of most women’s experiences.
Leading the way was former Blue Peter presenter Katy Hill who said: ‘I wanted to shout “Nooooo Kate”. I don’t expect to see a woman hours after giving birth wearing tights and heels and earrings.’ They are completely right. But that doesn’t mean what Kate does is wrong. And it certainly doesn’t mean that her picture-perfect version is any less worthy than my — or anyone else’s — experience.
In fact, for every woman defiantly showing off her ‘just crawled from a train wreck’ photos this week, there were also those quick to show how they, too, liked to keep up standards and felt there was absolutely nothing wrong with making sure your roots were touched up, and your make-up bag packed among your baby essentials. Births are like babies — no two are the same.
DoN’T get me wrong. I find the Duchess’s ability to pop sprogs — and big ones, too: this last one was 8lb 7oz, just 1lb lighter than my first one — without them appearing to even touch the sides extremely irritating.
Bad enough that she never seems to put on an ounce of extra weight, or that her ankles have never once — in three pregnancies – exhibited even the tiniest hint of water retention.
The fact that she’s in and out of the labour ward in the time it takes most new mothers to get dressed in the mornings just contributes to the overall sense of a woman who is too good to be true.
It’s this perfection that annoys people. They see it as some kind of implied judgment of their own failings, a sign of superhuman abilities they somehow lack. They, wrongly, infer that the Duchess is somehow acting as a self-appointed role model for new mothers everywhere.
This is, of course, completely irrational. Kate can’t help it if she’s good at having babies. Nor should she be made to feel guilty about it, or forced to pretend otherwise. It’s just one of those things: some women have easy births. I envy them, of course. But I don’t judge them.
As to the rest — the dress, the hair, the make-up — Kate isn’t trying to prove a point at all.
She’s just doing her job, which is to put on a good show for the British public.
The fact that she is prepared to put aside her own, no doubt burning desire to sit around in an elasticated waistband, tucking into chocolate Hobnobs to fulfil what she clearly sees as her end of the bargain is only to her credit.
It shows that she knows the responsibilities of her position and takes them seriously.
It shows she understands what duty is. It shows that she is prepared to go that extra mile. And that kind of grit is rare in this day and age. She should be praised for it, not pilloried.
oh, and by the way, if you think Kate looked polished, just wait until it’s Meghan’s turn . . .