Why are we all so mad at Lily Collins?
Questioning a woman’s choices around her body isn’t justified, even if you’re hiding behind claims of feminism
Last Friday, actress and nepo-baby Lily Collins and her director husband announced the birth of their daughter, Tove, on Instagram. Among the congratulatory comments and heart-eye emojis were a stream of less kind responses, which attacked the couple for their use of a surrogate to bring their child into the world.
The Emily in Paris actress has been accused of jumping on an “unethical” trend of engaging in the services of a surrogate, which some anti-surrogacy groups have likened to human trafficking. As Collins hasn’t disclosed the reason for using a surrogate, the speculation is that she has done it simply as a way to preserve her A-list body, and avoid the inevitable physical changes that come with carrying and birthing a child. She isn’t the first and likely won’t be the last, with many other celebrities having children this way, including Nicole Kidman, Khloe Kardashian and Sarah Jessica Parker.
Another suggestion is that due to her tiny frame and history of eating disorders as a teenager, her menstrual cycle has been so negatively impacted that she isn’t able to get pregnant naturally. She has openly shared her battles with bulimia, noting that it even caused her periods to stop entirely.
In my opinion, the question we should be asking isn’t why she did it, but why we feel it’s our right to know.
I can understand why it’s caused feelings of discomfort and anger, especially among my fellow millennials. With rising childcare fees, a cost of living crisis, rigid working patterns, to name just a few of the issues we face, the choice to have a child is feeling increasingly like it’s being taken away from us. That’s before you even factor biology into the equation. Surrogacy isn’t as widely available an option here in the UK, so even if you did have spare £20k burning a hole in your pocket, you’d be restricted by law as to how and whether you could use that to fund a surrogate. It makes sense, then, that women are finding the apparent ease with which celebrity women have babies grating. If you’ve gone through years of struggling to have children, either due to financial, health, security or a myriad of other reasons, only to see someone in the spotlight pop up one day with a feed full of gushing posts about their recently born babe, I can imagine it would piss you off. “Why does she get to have the thing I want most in the world so easily? How is that fair?”
For some women, it’s not a choice between gaining a few pounds and stretch marks; pregnancy and childbirth could literally kill them.
But really, how do we know how easy it was? We’re making huge assumptions about the reasons behind using a surrogate, which are very much based on stereotypes and preconceived notions of the elitist nature of celebrity life. It’s true, being in that world affords you a certain amount of privilege, but all the money and fame in the world can’t solve medical infertility, or other serious health conditions. For some women, it’s not a choice between gaining a few pounds and stretch marks; pregnancy and childbirth could literally kill them. They could have experienced recurrent pregnancy loss, or repeated in vitro fertilisation (IVF) implantation failures. That doesn’t make surrogacy an easy choice, but rather an essential one.
Fundamentally, we owe Lily the respect and privacy we should afford all expectant and new mothers. The circumstances of their child’s birth is absolutely not information that anyone else has any right to. It’s just another example of the perverse nature of celebrate culture, which gives the public a sense of entitlement and ownership, particularly over women and their bodies. We may have moved on from the days of magazine covers calling out pop stars’ cellulite, or critiquing their bikini bodies (Daily Mail not included in that), but we’re now fascinated by the intricate details of the fertility of the rich and famous. “Is she pregnant, or just bloated? Will she have another? She’s a bit old to be having a kid isn’t she?” All questions we wouldn’t - I hope - ask of anyone we actually know, yet her feel within our rights to demand of these women in the spotlight.
Having a child is the most vulnerable a woman can be in her life; she is flayed raw, her heart torn out of her chest and placed into a tiny, soft little creature that needs her constant care and nurturing. We shouldn’t be exploiting that vulnerability by prodding the soft spots of her psyche with probing and unwarranted questions or unkind comments. Those bleary, sleep-deprived newborn days don’t make allowances for anyone, regardless of bank balance or Instagram followers, so give the woman a bloody break - she is a new mother, regardless of how her baby made its way into her arms.
📮About this email
I’m Seoana, and I write predominantly about the intersection of motherhood and mental health. I’m the Communications Manager for an innovation not-for-profit, and I also dabble in a bit of freelance writing on the side and am trying to get a novel off the ground. I live in the North Essex countryside with my partner, and our two children (one fur and one human baby),
I started this newsletter while on parental leave, as a way to unleash some of the overwhelming emotions I was experiencing during that time. As well as motherhood and mental health, I am also partial to ramble about a range of other topics too, from books and reality television, to women’s health and the workplace.
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