There is one approach to pregnancy that is all about stressing about following the rules: don’t eat this, don’t wear that, always listen carefully to all the many people who love to tell pregnant women what to do, and be sure to apologize when something inevitability goes wrong or gets messy. This is the “nice girl” model, the path that tells us that when perfect strangers choose to comment on our pregnant bodies or parenting choices, we’re supposed to respond with politeness and humility.
Then there is the Rihanna approach, which is a whole different vibe.
Rihanna’s approach involves deciding not to reveal her pregnancy until she was good and ready, in choosing to dress her pregnant body in whatever the hell she wants (and looking gorgeous doing it, naturally), and showing up where and when she wants. She recently had a viral moment when she effortlessly shaded someone who tried to shame her for being late for a Paris fashion show. She glided through the crowd, paused for the tiniest second when someone shouted "you're late" and gave them an epic side-eye and the simple two word response “no s—”.
Yessssss.
Was she late to the fashion show? Yep. Was there anything she could do about it at that moment? Not unless she could build a time machine. So, rather than apologize or stress about it, Rihanna acknowledged that she was late but refused to be shamed about it or to try to stress about something she couldn’t fix.
And while most of us will never know the feeling of showing up to a fashion show pregnant, wearing lingerie, and looking fabulous, we could all probably benefit from figuring out how to get to that “it is what it is” place.
So much of pregnancy and parenting is outside of our control, right? We can’t control if we get terrible morning sickness. We can’t control if we get stretch marks. We can’t control if we go into labor early or late. And once the baby arrives and parenting begins, trying to control everything only leads to madness, especially if other people are standing by ready to point out all the things that might not be going perfectly.
So maybe we should all try to be a little more like Rihanna.
How freeing would it be to not apologize for the reality that pregnancy and parenting is messy and hard sometimes? While we might not be able to actually say “no s—” every time someone points out something obvious like, “Hey, that belly is getting big” or, “Um, your toddler is licking the Target cart,” we can internalize the Rihanna energy and choose to glide right past anyone standing on the sidelines trying to tell us what to do.
There is something so freeing in recognizing that lots of life is messy and deciding to stop apologizing for things we can’t change or control.
Maybe Rihanna has already figured out what other moms need to.
Look, Rihanna sure was right about makeup when she started the Fenty line. So let’s follow her lead on this energy when it comes to embracing the whole “it is what it is vibe” and keep on moving when the critics try to slow us down.
