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Original poster

to get annoyed by celebs who always say their new babies are 'really good'

31 replies

Nanga · 30/08/2009 13:05

spent two (blissful)hours in the hairdressers yesterday and read OK/Hello interviews with jamie oliver and kate garraway who both answered the (annoying in itself) question 'is he/she a good baby?' with gushing responses about how their new borns are so calm and quiet and not being any trouble at all. in fact, i can't recall any celeb who admitted that their baby is a frickin nightmare who cries all the time, never sleeps, has oral thrush, colic, reflux, or any of the other hideous experiences we normal people go through. Is this what they teach them at celeb school? OK, I admit no one's going to admit to having anything less than a perfect life, but a smidgen of honesty wouldn't go amiss would it? Makes me feel so inadequate ... I don't care I don't have the perfect bod, or face, or husband, or home, but purleease, someone own up to how hard motherhood is!!

OP posts:
claw3 · 30/08/2009 13:15

I should imagine all celebs babies are calm and quiet as nanny probably deals with!

StarlightMcKenzie · 30/08/2009 13:19

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Meglet · 30/08/2009 13:19

Celebs have nannies (don't blame them TBH, I would have loved the help too!), PA's, housekeepers (so they never have to go shopping), cleaners and possibly personal trainers. With all that help they are bound to find it a doddle.

RL parenthood is relentless and exhausting a lot of the time.

fandango75 · 30/08/2009 13:23

they should all admit to being knackered feeling fat and ugly and moany, it should be the law. celebs are flaming annoying - especially idiots like kerry katona and katie price - my god what a sad refelction of the nation that people are interested in these type of morons. It makes me quite cross

KingRolo · 30/08/2009 13:27

Just don't read OK and Hello.

WidowWadman · 30/08/2009 13:48

I'm guilty of saying the same when asked. To be honest, my daughter is easy-going 99% of the time, but I didn't feel it neccessary to describe to everyone who just was making small talk how I spent days on the sofa crying and lactating in the early days.

I remember when my boss and his wife came for the obligatory visit a couple of weeks after my daughter was born he asked me 'So do you have PND and cry a lot"? and I found it quite rude and intrusive, especially as I looked neither teary nor depressed at the time, he just went by what he heard early motherhood is like.

I find it quite tiresome when people get attacked for keeping personal turmoil to themselves or have the cheek of working on getting their body back instead of letting themselves go. These women can't win. If they are depressed and binge on pie and complain about finding it hard, they get attacked, if they're not, they get attacked too.

But then all these gossip magazins are deeply misogynist at hard, and noone hates women quite as much as other women.

loobylu3 · 30/08/2009 14:01

Nanga- completely agree that the question is daft as babies aren't capable of being good or bad.
Celebs are not going to find their babies as demanding as most mums because of all the help they can afford. They are also giving that answer for the purposes of the magazine interview, whether it is true or not.
Widowwadman- I'm sure you're right that celebs get criticised whatever they say but it is their choice to do (well paid) magazine interviews in the first place remember! They could avoid interviews and keep they're elation or depression to themselves!

PfftTheMagicDragon · 30/08/2009 14:05

I agree that babies are not good/bad, it just doesn't work like that.

I had a terrible time with DS, but would always say he was "good" when asked, or that everything was fine. The truth of it was that I really did not want to be discussing the details of my sleepless nights and sore nipples with people that I hardly knew and would imagine that I would feel the same about a magazine.

LadyOfTheFlowers · 30/08/2009 14:05

I do laugh at people who say this, and people who ask me when I have a newborn 'Is he good?' I just humour them now and say 'Oh yes, so good!'.

Also friends with PFBs who say Oh, Johnny is soooo good - he sleeps thru the night already and he is only a week old!' and I'm saying to myself 'Yeah, wait till he actually WAKES UP!!' lol

Tidey · 30/08/2009 14:08

Celeb interview Id like to see:

Journo: Is she a good baby?

Celeb : Well, no, I suspect she's planning something. She sits there with her fingers in pyramid-evil-scheming formation, stroking this toy white cat. I keep seeing lightning flashes around her crib too.

WidowWadman · 30/08/2009 14:21

Loobylu, of course it's their choice to make an interview deal, but they're paid for giving an interview and some pretty photos for the readership to coo over. They get money for selling the magazine, not for telling the truth.

turtle23 · 30/08/2009 14:27

Not that I rate her for much else...but Brooke Shields told the world how bad her PND was and how much she hated her baby when it was little. Am wracking my brain for others, but...

slowreadingprogress · 30/08/2009 14:43

I agree you just have to remember the mags are just about selling mags, and the celebs are just about self-worship.....no one in that scenario has any vested interest in telling the truth

I always remember kate winslet - who 'i don't know how, I just coped with the pain, pushed the baby out and wanted another straight away!' (I know i'm paraphrasing but that was the much-blabbed gist) and in fact had a c section. Also can't bear the celeb body culture but likes to be air brushed

It's not about the truth

agree with KingR - don't read this stuff!

sockmonkey · 30/08/2009 14:58

Tidey... I like your thinking

blueshoes · 30/08/2009 15:21

Widowadman: "But then all these gossip magazins are deeply misogynist at hard, and noone hates women quite as much as other women."

Agree.

Vinomum · 30/08/2009 15:33

I read an interview with Jane Danson (Leanne off Corrie) in OK a couple of months ago who said her second baby had colic and she admitted that she found the whole experience pretty awful and exhausting and much harder than she thought it would be. It made me really warm to her - though expect she probably has the whole nanny/housekeeper thing going on like most celebs.

Original poster
Nanga · 30/08/2009 16:43

apols for slow response, too busy dealing with my 'difficult/bad/evil' baby.

tidey, ROFL.. i'm so going to use that the next time i get asked if DC is a good baby

I know that we are expected to hero worship the celebs, and I know I'm being a bit vacuous to have even raised this, but I'm incredulous at how consistent they all are in their standard baby responses. When they get asked how they found motherhood, do their PAs stand in the background mouthing at them 'wonderful, say it's wonderful'. Above all else, it's just so un-sisterly.

Interesting to see how people feel about responding to (normal people's) qu's on whether their baby is 'good' or not. I've always been probably too honest for my own good and told them as it is, whoever they are. And if I meet a mum who has got a worse night's sleep/more thoughtless husband/more wicked MIL than me, then I go about my day with a spring in my step?? Does that make ME evil??!!

OP posts:
Horton · 30/08/2009 17:08

I read a really interesting thing in 'What Mothers Do' by Naomi Stadlen about how early on mothers make a choice (or have it made for them by their state of mind etc). They either choose to see their baby as essentially good, in which case they will be very likely to follow their baby's cues, trust him or her to know what is best for them, allow their child to set the pace and routine etc. Or they see their baby as essentially bad and in need of training out of all those pesky things that babies do like waking up at night and feeding fifty times a day. Charitably, I hope that all those celeb mums are choosing to see their baby as a little angel who will then hopefully be responded to sensitively etc!

Horton · 30/08/2009 17:08

Agree that it is a really stupid question, though.

loobylu3 · 30/08/2009 18:53

Exactly widoww- completely agree with you. I think I said that too in previous post

thesecondcoming · 30/08/2009 19:59

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poppy34 · 30/08/2009 20:07

The other one who was honest was kirsty gallagher who said her eldest was up all night needing feedig and wouldn't sleep more than three hours at a stretch. She also said she was on the phone in tears to her mum about not coping every day.

But generally take the whole thing with a pinch of salt ESP myleene klass . Am sure she is very nice but arrival of her dd did present a new way to get attention just as the jungle thing died.

But you are hardly going to get an account of my life is a mess and I don't know what day it is and I cry every night and wonder how people have more than one in ok.

Umlellala · 30/08/2009 20:07

remember seeing a pic of a stony faced Geri Halliwell carrying a tantrumming toddler Bluebell through a carpark and reeeeeally feeling for her (oh,and the 'look at geri's terrible stretchmarked tummy' pics where her top had ridden up 2 months after she had given birth ffs.)

UndomesticatedGoddess · 30/08/2009 20:10

that Kate Winslet chose to lie about the birth of her first DC.

I'm not a sleb (obviously) but my standard response when people ask me if DS2 (5 months) is 'good' is to ask them what they mean by good?

It amuses me as they stand there very uncomfortable because actually they don't have a definition of a 'good' baby.

But that's the kind of bitch person I am.

thesecondcoming · 30/08/2009 20:19

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