Pippa’s sister-in-law: Don’t ‘mum-shame’ me for working when my baby’s 8 weeks old
WITH a successful modelling career and caring for an eight-week-old baby to juggle, she already has plenty on her plate.
But now Vogue Williams and her husband Spencer Matthews claim she is being ‘mum-shamed’ for going back to work so soon after giving birth to their son.
Reality TV star Matthews – whose brother James is married to the Duchess of Cambridge’s sister Pippa – said the Irish model, 33, has done a ‘very good job’ since Theodore arrived in September.
Eight days after he was born, Miss Williams hit back at social media trolls for criticising her when she posted a shot from a modelling job.
Since then, she has done a number of photoshoots and was spotted partying at the star-studded Adwoa Aboah X Revlon London Fashion Week event on September 18 – two weeks after welcoming her son.
Now her husband Matthews, 29, a former star of E4’s scripted reality show Made In Chelsea, has sprung to her defence, saying his wife is a hands-on mother.
‘Poor Vogue is working really long hours – she’s a “model”, that’s what it says on her Wikipedia or whatever,’ he said.
‘People just assume she does nothing but she’s super-busy all the time. So to be able to handle a kid as well is nothing short of a very good job by her and you get everyone piling in with “do this, do that, don’t do this”.
‘It’s like, if we want anyone’s advice we’ll ask, thank you very much. Our eight-week-old sleeps through the night so see you later. You know, we are doing just fine.’
Matthews, who was forced to withdraw from the 2015 series of I’m A Celebrity following reports of steroid use, admitted he and his wife are currently ‘trying to make it so we are not both working all day’ and share parental care.
The couple married at an intimate ceremony at the Matthews Glen Affric estate in June, five months after getting engaged on stage at the Lyceum Theatre in London.
Matthews’s hedge fund manager brother acted as his best man, returning the favour from when James married Pippa Middleton
‘She’s super-busy all the time’
last year. Matthews, appearing at a dating campaign he was fronting for Bristol shopping centre Cabot Circus, added: ‘If Vogue is working a half-day I will pop along and take him or if we are both working we’ll find someone to look after him.
‘We have a miraculously wellbehaved baby. He has had two meltdowns in two months and even the meltdowns are ended with a quick cuddle. He has cried and got bright red and emptied his lungs but only about twice. And a lot of people say that happens daily. I don’t mean to gloat.’
In September, Miss Williams wrote on Instagram: ‘So many messages about going back to work yesterday. It’s my choice and I feel happy to.
‘I’m not fully back to work yet. It was one shoot. I only intend on taking jobs where I can have my baby with me as I’m breastfeeding so we shall be glued together for a few months.’
She added: ‘I don’t get maternity leave in my job so I’ll obviously be going back sooner than others. Let’s not start parent-shaming already, he’s eight days old and a VERY happy loved baby.’