A Little Privacy, If You Please?
Wednesday 24th of July 2013 | Category: Opinion | Written by: Leoarna MathiasSo Kate has had a boy. I’m glad she’s fine and that her little boy is too. I hope that in the hurly-burly that surrounds St Mary’s they have managed to feel a degree of cocooned privacy for those first few precious hours.
I am neither staunch royalist nor devout republican. I admire Kate’s nerve in agreeing to a life in the public eye, for the sake of love, given the experience of her sadly demised mother-in-law. But I don’t need to know all the details. As I stood in my local supermarket queue on Sunday morning and surveyed the paper headlines and the front covers of the glossies, I smiled a wry smile to myself; barely a single one was without image or mention of Kate and Will. What a pressure that is to live with. Yes, she has a privileged life, and she made her choice in possession of all the facts. But, as mums all around the world know, preparing for your first labour is a highly personal process, and I have wondered about what her strategies for maintaining a sense of focus have been, in the face of all this attention.
A Very Public Pregnancy
As Kate’s pregnancy has progressed I have seen twitter debates unravel on every aspect of Kate and William’s approach to parenting. Will she labour naturally? Will she breastfeed? How ‘involved’ will William be? Do they have a Nanny? While we have to concede that for many Kate’s choices will be seen through the lens of ‘role-model’, I privately end up feeling a little sorry for her that she can’t just mull this all over without everyone needing to know her decisions. Some of us love Gina, some of us choose Attachment Parenting. Some of us extend our breastfeeding, some of us feel a failure, others are at peace with the straw that we drew. Some Dads change every nappy – others not a single one. The difference for us, is that we get to do this all behind the luxury of our own front doors. Furthermore, if we choose, we can always find, through local groups or an online life, other parents who do it as we do, for solidarity, insight and support.
Can Kate join her local NCT group or baby yoga class? Can she pop onto Mumsnet for a digital cuppa or pop onto our pages for advice on everything from nappy rash to travelling with a small baby? Can she call her Mum when it’s all getting a bit much, and that rush of hormones has her crying her eyes out? I don’t know if the protocols allow these things, and for this reason, I feel again a degree of pity for her. Modern motherhood is always potentially isolating, and for the Duchess of Cambridge, this is doubly so.
As I sat down to finish this blog post, I have just seen them leave the hospital with their son. No matter which channel one flicked to, the commentators were busy pouring over every minute detail of what took place, and what was said. Again I find myself thinking that all those people waiting to see you leave the hospital 24 hours after you have laboured is pretty intense. Lord knows I wasn’t wearing a pretty blue dress and in possession of blow-dried hair when I left the labour ward; but then I wasn’t expecting the paparazzi on the steps of Torbay General. Having to think about trying to look ‘good’ at that moment is enough for anyone really. I hope tonight they are truly granted some privacy. That she can pull on her pyjamas, and cuddle up in bed with her son in her arms, while William brings her a hot chocolate. While it’s true that we do want to see them out and about as a family, we can all remember too, that feeling of wanting to hide from the world and get on with the much more important business of bonding with our child. For this reason, we can all wait a while to see them again, can’t we?
About the author
