I’m a bit late out of the gate with this one, hence why I haven’t tried to shill this to a newspaper.
It’s been a couple of weeks of deathly nursery germ warfare in this house. Every Friday, Polly goes to nursery and I say a little prayer that she won’t pick up another bug. It doesn’t usually work.
Anyway, it’s probably a positive thing I didn’t write this earlier, as my thoughts have been percolating for longer and I’m still pissed off. Because who wouldn’t be outraged by an older woman (or any woman for that matter) telling other women how to feel?
I like Molly Mae, always have. From Love Island fame to savvy business woman, she’s killing it. Regardless of your stance on her PLT title or her thoughts on what can be achieved in a day, you cannot deny that the woman knows her target audience and smashes it every time.
She is also open and genuine on her YouTube channel, where she posts vlogs about her daily life with boyfriend Tommy Fury, whom she obviously fiercely loves (and he, her).
In a recent vlog, Molly Mae reflected on her pregnancy, which was announced on September 25th.
She spoke of the “mental challenge” of the shock :
"I just can't explain how the shock literally overtook my body for the first month.
"I just felt like every single day I was living an out-of-body experience. My emotions were something I've never experienced before. I cried maybe five times a day for no reason. I was just in tears over everything. I was so happy, but also just the shock. I can't... it was the shock for both Tommy and I. It's honestly taken up until now to sink in."
As I listened, I saw myself in her words. Like Molly Mae and Tommy Fury, our baby was much wanted, much talked about, and much dreamed about.
I thought of seeing the smiley face on the test, of dancing around the room and telling Will, who’d scoop me up in a bear hug. Because let’s be honest, that’s usually what we see in the movies, or on Instagram. Like Molly, I thought I’d be documenting each step of my pregnancy, sharing week-by-week symptoms in sweet, bump-holding photographs.
Reader: it was not like that.
I cannot explain the heaviness of the rock in my stomach, the panic. The thought of Will coming home, oblivious to the news I silently sat with that would change the course of our lives together. And oh, the shame. Did I actually not want a baby? Why aren’t I on cloud nine? What’s wrong with me? I cried, yes - but not tears of joy.
In reality, I told Will and we lay in silence for a while. “Nothing will ever be the same again,” he said. And he was right. The weeks that followed, I lived in disbelief. My body unchanged, the baby still a concept. It took weeks and weeks and weeks of resetting my mind, smiling through the congratulations of well-wishers as I tried to consolidate “Will and Ella” with “Mum and Dad”.
I got there, we both did - but the mental impact was huge.
Clearly, following Molly Mae’s vlog and the subsequent relieved comments of “me too!”, I’m not the only one who felt like that. And so, with Molly Mae’s honesty, the shame of those early days lifted.
Which is why it’s SO annoying to see a weird thinkpiece from Ulrika Jonsson in The Sun, lamenting Molly Mae for “acting like she is the first person to be pregnant”.
I’m not linking the story, but within it, she calls Molly Mae “unskilled” and “unqualified”, and refers to her “gilded life”. Apparently, if you’re rich, you’re not allowed to be unhappy, ever. She slides from talking about Molly’s pregnancy announcement, and moves into an attack on influencer culture in general:
“When I am forced to witness someone make a drama out of pregnancy, having only progressed in life through sheer good fortune and not hard work, it grinds my gears.”
Ulrika, what does this even mean? What has the former got to do with the latter? Who forced you, babe?
People like this who like to take cheap shots at “talentless influencers” are SO cringe because let’s be honest. If you still can’t see, in 2022, how influencers shape popular culture - especially a behemoth like Molly Mae - quite frankly, you are totally out of the loop.
I’m aware that Ulrika’s piece was written to stir up responses like this one, however I do fear there’s a shred of truth in her words. Not that we’re all “making a drama out of pregnancy”, but that we are expected to - by a certain generation - as Ukrika puts it, “just crack on with it”.
The more open, accessible, REAL conversations we have about pregnancy, childbirth, motherhood, childcare and everything else that comes with having children in the modern world, the better.
It was the best thing Molly Mae could have done to share her reality with her huge platform of young girls and women.
Ulrika’s own daughter is a fan of Molly Mae (“...from the gasps and shrieks that came from my daughter’s gob when she screamed the news across my kitchen last weekend”).
Hopefully, Molly’s bravery in speaking about the immense life-shift and mental impact of pregnancy will help Ulrika’s daughter if she gets pregnant one day, and doesn’t immediately “crack on with it”.
Because clearly, her own mother will have no sympathy.
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