Susie O’Brien: Magazine mums heap guilt on ordinary people
CELEB mums’ lives seem impossibly glamorous while for the rest of us it’s just impossible. But, really, we prefer a life to a lifestyle any day, writes Susie O’Brien.
Susie O'Brien
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IF YOU are a mother, I hope you’re spending today wearing a floaty designer dress and cavorting barefoot on a riverbank with a gentle breeze stirring your softly tousled hair.
You will be with your colour-matched, tow-haired offspring who have perfected the art of looking cute on cue. If they’re boys, they will be bare-chested and wearing jewellery.
Your husband, who tells everyone he’d breastfeed if he could, is your rock and saviour.
Right?
Wrong.
So why is this version of motherhood being fed to us by all the glossy mags?
Why do so many celebrity mothers want to share their bohemian brand of sugar-free “conscious” parenthood?
Leading the boho mamma pack is actor Teresa Palmer in this month’s Vogue. In one photo Palmer is playing pirates in a wooden rowboat by a river wearing a $3555 Hermes shirt and $1220 Sonia Rykiel pants. No Target $29 jeggings for her.
Her son, Bodhi, wears a vintage pirate hat from the Vintage Clothing Shop. Yes, of course he does. No Cotton On bargain bin for him.
Where’s the lurid plastic wading pool full of balls, lost matchbox cars and stale wee? The kid who’s screaming and refusing to smile because you’ve taken away the iPad and Peppa Pig hasn’t finished yet?
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The Vogue story tells me motherhood and movies are what define Palmer and “what has transformed her into the woman she is today: a veritable Earth Mother who juggles many roles — mother, wife, actor, activist, friend”.
Well, white wine and Smith’s chicken chips are what define me and what has transformed me into the woman I am today: a working mother who juggles many roles — servant, taxi driver, automatic cash machine and reality TV fan who’d prefer to watch cooking shows than make dinner.
Palmer, it says, is a “poster woman for modern mothers” thanks to her ability to be a “blonde, blue-eyed actor working her way up the Tinseltown ladder”.
Well, I’m a happy to be a poster woman for real mothers. My blonde hair has a delightful touch of both mouse brown and grey at the roots, my blue eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep and the only ladder I’m climbing is the one that helps me get soccer balls off the roof of my house.
A recent photo spread featuring model Rachael Finch is very similar. Only four weeks after giving birth, Finch was photographed cradling her naked newborn and wearing a floaty chiffon dress while sitting gracefully on a calico painter’s sheet strewn with strangely leafless hydrangeas.
“It feels so perfect to have a boy and a girl,” Finch gushes in the story.
So, does it also feel perfect to have wee running down your arm? Hasn’t she worked out by now that bare baby bums and ball gowns don’t mix?
The interview reveals Finch drinks milk-free lattes, was exercising two days after giving birth and sends her daughter to parties “full of healthy food” in case no one’s made sandwiches.
Well, two days after giving birth I was still high on caesar drugs and four weeks later I even managed to brush my hair and my teeth before I left the house.
And my kids eat whatever they like at parties.
A recent photo shoot by TV presenter and blogger Rebecca Judd wasn’t much better.
It shows her staring off into the middle distance in designer finery while her four children sit in front of MasterChef-style cloches. The table contains silver water jugs (no cups ruin this stylish tableau) and a few artfully thrown oranges.
Exactly what dinner time looks like in my house! How did they know?
Refreshingly, the interview itself reveals Judd’s self-admitted imperfections as a mum, so it’s a pity the photos make her look like a cross between a Madame Tussauds wax model and a Mad Men housewife who’s overdosed on the Prozac.
All interviews like these do are heap the guilt on the rest of us who think we’re doing pretty well when we manage to leave the house in clothes pulled from the dirty clothes basket that passed the sniff test.
Give me photos of comedian Celeste Barber any day — Barber is a writer, blogger and comedian who recreates celebrity photo shoots to illustrate just how silly they really are.
My favourite was a spoof of lingerie model Coco Austin’s “two weeks post labour” Insta post. Barber shows herself as “2 years post labour” with a tum about the same size.
I also love The Chaser’s Guide to Bad Parenting. Articles include a “toddler-years matching wine guide”, “Seven ways to monetise your child” and “A father’s guide to not looking like a paedophile at the playground”. It’s very funny.
Let’s embrace parenthood in all of its messy imperfections. Why don’t we celebrate the family car filled on the weekends with grass, mud stains, teen sweat and stinky football boots? Rifling through your son’s room to find an unread book you can regift for a last-minute birthday party present? How about giving the kids Weet-Bix with hot water because you didn’t buy milk?
I don’t have a lifestyle, let alone a “bohemian lifestyle”, I have a real life and it’s pretty damn good just the way it is.
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