On the morning of January 7, 2019, my husband was about to become the 40th governor of California, I was going to become the first “first partner” of California, and our four young children were going to take the stage and be thrust into the spotlight with a new level of national attention.
I had a plan for how I wanted to introduce our family to our state. The fight to put on tights and button-down shirts was won, though the fight to take off one coat was lost, and their hair was combed just so. And then, just a couple of minutes into my husband’s inaugural speech, our little Dutch wandered onto the stage holding his binky and his “passie”—much to the audience’s delight and my chagrin.
The media hailed Gavin as “Governor Dad,” and our son Dutch became an internet sensation. I, on the other hand, was asked by too many people to count—in that half-joking but in fact quite serious tone—how could I have possibly let him get up on that stage, and also, why did he still use a pacifier?!
California Governor Gavin Newsom at his 2019 inauguration, alongside his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom and their four children
Eduardo Ezequiel
I tried to pretend it didn’t bother me, but the truth is it did. It was a reminder that despite our partnership and despite the support I feel in our relationship, I will always bear the responsibility of our children in a way Gavin never will.
And therein lies a deep truth about the struggle for equality, a truth that can often be hard to acknowledge: Policies and structural changes are essential, but on their own those can’t change our cultural attitudes and behaviors toward women. Until we stop treating parenting as a woman’s burden and a man’s adorable hobby, the gender gap we see at work and at home won’t disappear.
The research shows that when women become mothers they face a motherhood penalty at work. Employers are less likely to hire moms than they are to hire women without children, and when they do hire a mother, they offer her a lower salary than they offer women without children. Studies also show that mothers are consideredless committed with their jobs in comparison to their childless coworkers, while men are considered more committed once they have children. In fact, men actually receive a fatherhood bonus, seeing a 6% increase in their salaries once they become parents! It’s not surprising then that my husband’s popularity seemed to soar after his big onstage dad moment!
It’s unfortunate that in 2019, women are still being criticized about whether or not they choose to breastfeed their children—or even where they decide to do so. Feeding your child is a good thing! But when celebrity moms like Amy Schumer, Hilary Duff, Jessica Alba, and Khloé Kardashian publicly speak out about the struggles (and joys) of breastfeeding and pumping (or not), it helps to normalize the conversation for all women.
Below are some of the best quotes on the topic.
Amy Schumer
The comedian gave birth to her son, Gene Attell Fischer, in May. In true Schumer fashion, she was honest and hilarious about her pregnancy and breastfeeding. “Guys what are we doing tonight? #schumerpump #ootd @stassischroeder,” she captioned a photo of herself attached to a breast pump and jokingly tagging Stassi from Vanderpump Rules with her “outfit of the day.”
Jessica Alba
Alba, an actress and founder of The Honest Company, often shared photos of herself feeding her son, Hayes, everywhere from the boardroom to a Target dressing room. “I felt like he wanted to nurse 24/7, which was obviously really challenging when you’re trying to go back to work,” she told Motherly. “Also my milk supply was challenged with him. I felt like I had the most milk with Honor and then it got less with Haven and even less with Hayes. And so that was just tough for me.”
Rachel McAdams
The actress has been mostly private about the birth of her first child but she made headlines with a photo shoot for Girls. Girls. Girls. magazine where she wore Versace—and a breast pump. “Obviously #rachelmcadams looks incredible and was quite literally the dream to work with but also this shoot was about 6 months post her giving birth to her son, so between shots she was expressing/pumping as still breastfeeding,” the magazine’s founder Claire Rothstein shared on Instagram. “We had a mutual appreciation disagreement about whose idea it was to take this picture but I’m still sure it was hers which makes me love her even more. Breastfeeding is the most normal thing in the world and I can’t for the life of me imagine why or how it is ever frowned upon or scared of.”
Hilary Duff
Duff recently opened up on social media about her decision to stop breastfeeding her daughter, Banks, after six months. “My goal was to get my little girl to six months and then decide if I (and her of course) wanted to keep going,” she wrote on Instagram. “Let me tell you. Pumping at work sucks. I had zero down time and am usually pumping in a hair and make up trailer while four hands work to get me ready for the next scene with lots of other people around. Even if I had the luxury to be in my own room, it’s not even considered a ‘break’ because you have to sit upright for the milk to flow into the bottles!”
While she was still breastfeeding, Duff recreated McAdams’ famous pumping shot.
Chrissy Teigen
“The feeding schedule surprised me a lot. If you kind of do the math, you’re kind of breastfeeding for 10 hours a day total,” Teigen said after her daughter, Luna, was born. “It’s very loving and sweet, but it’s not easy. They just use you for your milk and you just feel like you are just a cow all day. It’s hard to work your entire day around getting her the nourishment she needs because they are just little animals.”
Kate Middleton may have help from a trusted nanny, but even she has motherhood struggles. In fact, there’s one in particular she thinks all moms deal with—even ones who have all the help in the world.
She outlined it during her visit to the Family Action Charity on Tuesday, January 22. Essentially, the Duchess of Cambridge feels many mothers receive adequate help from friends and family when their children are first born, but that tapers as time goes on.
“It’s so hard,” the duchess said. “You get a lot of support with the baby as a mother particularly in the early days, but after the age of one, it falls away. After that, there isn’t a huge amount—lots of books to read. Everybody experiences the same struggle.”
Middleton was at Family Action to launch FamilyLine, a new national call service through which mothers and fathers can speak to trained volunteers about parenting, relationship issues, and mental health.
Getty Images
“Why she’s a great supporter of our service is that she does recognize that families have the same pressures and struggles and she’s no exception,” a volunteer said about Middleton, according to E!. “She may have slightly different circumstances to the rest of us but, you know, being a parent is being a parent.”
Middleton and Prince William welcomed their third child, Prince Louis, in April 2018, so we’re sure those first-year-of-parenting jitters aren’t as prevalent for them nowadays. They’re also parents to Prince George, who’s five years old, and three-year-old Princess Charlotte. Meanwhile, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are expecting their first child sometime this spring. So many royal babies!
A blog post from a conservative Christian mommy blogger is taking over the parenting corner of the Internet, a place that often has more discord than the halls of Congress. Lori Alexander, a.k.a. The Transformed Wife, posted a chart titled “Should Mothers Have Careers?” in which she compared her thoughts on working moms versus stay-at-home moms—and it’s really something.
Alexander is a full-time homemaker who has been married for 39 years and has four grown children and nine grandchildren. Her About section on Facebook reads, “Learning about marriage, raising children, homemaking, and being a godly woman who desires to be transformed into the image of Christ!”
In the flowchart, she directly compares and contrasts her perception of the lives of working and stay-at-home moms. For example, in the SAHM column she writes of dinnertime, “Dinner is from scratch, nutritious, and delicious” whereas with working moms, “Dinner is usually fast food or microwaved.” She also says working moms lack time for intimacy and that their lives are “falling apart,” whereas SAHMs spend weekends at the beach and are totally fulfilled.
It’s easy to see why people are angry—and the ire coming from both sides of the mommy aisle. (Not to mention that staying at home is not a financial option for many families.) “Motherhood is not a competition. Moms in both groups have challenges to face that are not more important than the other,” wrote one commenter on the Facebook post. “Also, welcome to 2018 where dads are like, fathers and stuff now, who also help with domestic duties such as cooking, cleaning and! (Are you ready for this? Clutch your pearls) help take care of the children. ?” Another said, “I have been a stay-at-home and work-from-home mom for the last 16+ years. This chart is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Staying home with a three-year-old makes me feel like more of a failure as a mother than working out of my house EVER did! Also, if this stay at home mom is resting when the children do, when is she preparing that from scratch meal and cleaning so she is free to spend weekends at the beach?” another commenter remarked.
When Glamour reached out to Alexander, she said she did not intend to shame working mothers but “I simply want them to ponder their life paths.” She explained that she is “teaching Christian women biblical motherhood according to Titus 2:3–5 in the Bible, where God commands older women to teach younger women to be ‘keepers at home.'”
“No one can take the place of a mother in a child’s life. I was a career woman for the first two years of my first child’s life, and I could totally relate to the left side of the flowchart,” she told us. “I knew I was the one that was supposed to be at home raising my own children. Most women aren’t even told that this is good! Homemakers are embarrassed when asked what they do. What can be more important than raising the next generation?”
As for the viral backlash, Alexander says she’s had it since she started writing in 2011 and won’t let it “steal her joy.”
“I teach what I am called to teach and leave the results in the Lord’s hands.”
If there’s one thing any new mom will tell you, it’s that maternity leave is no vacation…unless your idea of a winter break involves waking up at all hours of the night, spit-up, and adult diapers. And that’s only the beginning. Between going back to work and the emotional toll of not wanting to miss life’s big moments with a new baby, having a child—whether its your first or your fifth—can suddenly make even the most iron-willed of mothers feel like life is totally upended.
So, to help make things a little less crazed, we tasked four extremely busy new moms with one mission: Carve out 10 minutes in their hyper-hectic schedules to chill the eff out with the help of a “calming” face mask. Not just any calming face mask, though: Origins Hello, Calm Relaxing & Hydrating Face Mask; which, according to the brand, is made with cannabis sativa seed oil (from, yes, a weed plant) that’s meant to help calm skin, reduce irritation, and make you feel less stressed out.
You’ve likely heard of CBD at this point, which some brands claim can reduce inflammation and anxiety. The science behind its benefits is still murky, but that hasn’t stopped it from cropping up in a slew of beauty and wellness products lately. (It’s even in gummies now.) Origins’ buzzy mask also rides on the weed trend, but instead, uses cannabis sativa seed oil—an ingredient made from cold-pressed hemp seeds that’s rich in skin-repairing acids and said to be helpful with redness and dryness. Lavender oil, meanwhile, is what gives the mask its “de-stressing” scent.
To answer the obvious questions: no, it won’t get you high, and yes, it’s probably wise to consult your doctor if you’re breastfeeding. As for whether the mask actually does help you relax, we’ll let the moms below take it away.
Stevie for her shawls, chiffon, fringe, and gold crescent chains; my mom for her bright bold pantsuits and overbearing clip-on earrings of yore.
Her aesthetic is more yogi-chic in 2018 (she loves a good mandala and flowy pant now, which I’m also into) but growing up, I’d marvel at her outfits in old photographs. She still has most of her clothing and accessories from the ‘80s and ‘90s—bags, shoes, jewelry, even stockings. The woman could open a damn vintage store, I swear.
I used to rummage through bins of costume jewelry, and model her accoutrements around the house. Because I didn’t get my ears pierced until I was eight, I always gravitated to her clip-ons: Wearing them made me feel grown-up and sophisticated, like her.
PHOTO: Courtesy of Jessica Militare
As a teen, I stopped playing around with her big baubles, mostly because they didn’t go with my emo bangs, band tees, and skinny jeans. I wanted gauges, which I got a big “hell no” to from mom and dad. (I thank them for that now.) I settled on rhinestone heart earrings from Forever 21 and Hot Topic, or even my mom’s small, geometric posts or circles from the ‘90s. She would try to get me to wear her flashier pieces to school dances or to go out with friends, but I was uninterested. They seemed kitschy, and at that point in my teenage angst, I was prone to disliking anything she put in front of me. But I came around by my senior prom, picking out a pair of her pearl and rhinestone drop earrings that matched my sky-blue, cupcake-shaped Betsey Johnson dress.
In college, I dabbled in wearing some larger earrings, but my love for statement jewels truly took off when I moved to New York and started working in media. I saw coworkers experiment with over-the-top earrings, and even bought a few from H&M. I loved the ease of having a single accessory that could dress up a boring outfit.
I thought of my mom’s showy clip-on collection, but hadn’t gone through it in years.
PHOTO: Photographed by Michelle Sulcov
Recently, when I visited my parents in Miami, I decided to flip through her hanging jewelry organizer, which was collecting dust in her closet. It was like I struck gold: Those same earrings that I’d previously rejected as not hip enough looked damn cute now. In fact, they look eerily similar to current offerings I’ve seen at fast-fashion stores like Zara—I often find myself wanting all of them, but when I look at the price tags I also think, Aren’t these just a souped up version of my mom’s that I can wear for free?
“Have them all,” my mom told me, as I was pulling out pair after pair from the plastic sleeves. “I saved them for you.”
Holding up a pair of gold and pearl drops, I remembered her wearing them in a photo of us, when I was a baby. She looked regal and effortlessly glam.
PHOTO: Courtesy of Jessica Militare/Photographed by Michelle Sulcov
I wore them to work paired with another find from her closet: a New York City tourist T-shirt from the ‘90s. I felt like that experimental kid who used to play dress up all over again, and was proud to say “they’re my mom’s” when a coworker asked where I bought them. (Pro-tip: Because clip-ons can feel a little pinchy after wearing them for a few hours, these cushions help.) One week, I wore a different pair every day, and thought about what my mom was doing when she wore them way back when.
As a young hair stylist in Miami in the early ‘80s, my mom’s M.O. was to wear big hair and big jewelry. Her work ethic and talent—and the fact that she took her outward appearance seriously—attracted a roster of devoted clients that she still has today. Thirty-something years later, when I wear these shiny things, I like to think I’m channeling her go-getter-ness (even if I’m just wearing them for fashion’s sake). Sure, they’re just earrings. But for someone who goes through bouts of crippling homesickness, they make her feel close when I need a bit of her spirit in my step.
PHOTO: Photographed by Michelle Sulcov/Courtesy of Jessica Militare
From that first haul of my mother’s hand-me-downs, I could probably wear a different pair of earrings every week for the next year. I know I’m lucky to have a hoarder relative who so graciously passed along her killer clip-on collection (Oscar de la Renta, you’re killing me), but if you’re looking for a solid offering, Etsy’s like my mom’s closet to the nth degree. (I’m currently eyeing these colorful geometric beauties and these rhinestone teardrops.) After doing a little research, I found that Net-a-Porter offers a nice range of styles (I love these gold-tone circles and, on the higher end, this bird-tasseled pair of my dreams.)
Every time I put on one of my mom’s classic pairs, though, I know I’ll turn heads. I’ll channel her regalness, and take a little part of her with me wherever I go.
