Model and actress Emily Ratajkowski is receiving huge backlash after a photo of her in a bikini holding her 3-month-old son with only one arm went viral. She captioned the photo, “Bday eve with the dream vacation partner.”
Emily Ratajkowski received huge backlash from the photo.
Piers Morgan took to Twitter to condemn Emily Ratajkowski. He wrote, “That’s not how you hold a baby @emrata — and your millions of followers shouldn’t be encouraged to do the same. Happy to give you some tips if you need them.”
Her comments section, which has since been removed on the post, was equally scornful. People left comments like, “It’s like an icon for today. Look at meeeeee. Not the newborn babe, meeeee, it’s all bout meeeee and just you wait for my book on parenting whilst avoiding food.” And, “All she’s worried about is showing her body off. Holding the baby like a bag of inconvenience.”
Naysayers mainly remarked on her “self-centeredness” rather than try and be constructive.
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An expert explains why people are so mad at Emily Ratajkowski.
In an interview with Yahoo! Life about the incident, Dr. Danielle Fisher, chair of pediatrics at Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, explained where Emily Ratajkowski went wrong in holding her child. At three months, a baby’s “head and neck muscles are still strengthening, so you want to support the head.” After they begin sitting up, “you don’t have to support the head as much,” but holding them by their torso makes them more likely to spit up.
Dr. Fisher emphasizes that “There are lots of different ways to hold a baby, and you don’t have to hold them the same way. You just want to make sure that the baby has good support,” and that it’s key for parents “to assess how well that baby can sit and position themselves, and respond to the needs of the baby.”
However, some think the backlash went too far and veered into mom-shaming.
Also speaking with Yahoo! Life, Dr. Tamar Gur, a psychiatrist and women’s health expert with Ohio State University, cautioned people against “mom-shaming.” She explained that “people love to be judgmental,” but likely the harshest critic for any parent is themselves. “All new parents are incredibly hard on themselves. Our biggest fear for parents is that we’re not good enough and shaming does a huge disservice,” making mom-shaming “really hurtful and unfair.”
Dr. Gur sees other reasons for why people are so harsh towards moms, in particular, saying that mom-shaming “in some way comes out of hatred of women and lack of support for women.” She criticizes those who engage in the practice, “Don’t kid yourself into thinking that you’re helping someone or their child” and that “everyone makes mistakes and even fails sometimes.”
For those going through mom-shaming, Dr. Gur has a few keywords of advice, “If you know you are doing your best and that you are human, other people hold no power over you.”
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