So much fuss over the Duchess of Cambridge in her red dress and high heels. If it were any other day the pictures of lovely Kate would have made it to numerous best/worst dressed lists around the world, based on what fickle minded fashion editors had had for breakfast that morning.
Of course, since it was right after she’d had Royal baby number three, there was far more excitement. I personally don’t know what all the fuss was about. I too looked like royalty right after delivering my boys. The resemblance to the Empress of Blandings was uncanny.
I’m not sure why everyone is piling on poor Kate. After all, she was only doing her job — keeping people interested in a Monarchy that has little relevance in the modern world. Yes, she could have refused to face the cameras and done women everywhere a solid. But she didn’t.
There’s a huge pressure on women to get back into shape post delivery. What ‘shape’ women exactly must be in is uncertain. Pear is a legitimate body shape. Circle is a shape. So is sphere. Dodecahedron too.
I remember the morning after I delivered thing 2. I was crawling down the corridor to the nursery at the insistence of a scary Nurse chechi, trying to keep my uterus from falling out of the gaping portal-into-another-universe that was my vagina. I found myself face-to-face with my gynaecologist.
At 65+ she was I suppose in the ‘shape’ that everyone keeps talking about, her biceps cut beautifully from decades of pulling reluctant babies out of women. She was dressed in a crisp silk saree with her de rigueur pearls and diamonds around her neck. The less said about what I was wearing the better. I believe it was patterned with dried dal. The good doctor looked me up and down before smacking my stomach and commanding “This better not be there when you come for your 6 months check up.”
You know those moments in life your you’re struck dumb? The ones you spend the rest of your life coming up with cutting answer backs to? This was one of them. (I am happy to report that after much thinking I did come up with a repartee. ‘You SUCK!’)
I’m not sure why we all expect so much from women in the limelight regarding how we should look post delivery. Sure, they hold immense power to change the narrative. But why wait for them to wake up and realise that? Why not look to the many amazing women around us in our own lives who show us what bodies post baby are capable of? Not when the world tells them to, but when they are ready to. The woman who run marathons, climb mountains and do sprint triathlons. The ones that get out of bed even when they don’t want to. The ones who know better and stay in bed with a book.
Indeed, Kate does deserve applause. Not for the dress, not for the heels, but for that smile. It takes some inner strength to stand next to a man whose third baby you’ve just had and smile. We all know what we’d like to do to our partners post delivery, am I right ladies?
Menaka Raman
Twitter@menakaraman
The writer’s philosophy is: if there’s no blood, don’t call me