Mothers no longer have the luxury of looking like slobs and blaming it on their children. No, these days we are all expected to be yummy mummies; back in our skinny jeans minutes after giving birth, our nails manicured and our hair perfectly blow-dried. Oh and did I mention we should also be wearing designer clothes in order to compete with all the other perfectly turned out yummy mummies at the school gates?
I was trying to buy a pair of jeans from Gap a few months ago when the friend I was with told me that under no circumstances would she be seen dead in Gap jeans. “I’m not having the other mothers laughing at my backside,” she said and went off to spend 1500 dirhams on a pair of designer skinnys.
Where does this pressure come from? Surely we could all agree just to relax a little and give each other a break? Is it celebrities? Is it men? Whatever it is, we hate it. A Mumsnet survey conducted in 2008 found that only one in four mothers were satisfied with their bodies and that 40 per cent were depressed by pictures of celebrity yummy mummies, saying they made them feel “saggy”.
When I was heavily pregnant with our second child, we moved to France. I had lost most of the baby weight from the first baby, but I can’t pretend I was looking my best. My husband was too nice to say anything at the time. But he did tell me afterwards he was rather shocked by how far I’d let myself go. In my case the pressure to change came from being surrounded by skinny French women. I would wander around the streets of Paris and wonder why I was the fattest person on the pavement. And I wasn’t even that fat. I was also terribly unstylish. So I decided to write a book about French women and find out how they stayed so thin and looked so good, basically so that I could copy them.
There is no magic formula, but what it comes down to is small tweaks that you employ every day. For example you can make sure your nails are in good shape, even if your bottom is a longer-term project. Drink one glass of wine with dinner instead of four. Opt for skimmed milk in your latte. And walk as much as you can. Surprisingly I found that most French women would rather stick needles in their eyes than go to the gym. They stayed thin by walking, even shopping is seen as good exercise.
Obviously they watch what they eat, one of them told me she hadn’t eaten a croissant in 13 years, but they do still eat what they want. However, instead of scoffing a slab of Brie, a French woman will have a little taste and then stop. They also pay a lot of attention to detail, so the eyebrows are shaped, and the lip-gloss is always in place, even if they’re only taking the rubbish out.
I do think before the rise of the yummy mummy English women had a habit of using childbirth as an excuse just to let go. “I’ve had a baby,” they would say, lounging on the sofa with a box of doughnuts. “I need to keep my strength up.” And I don’t think it’s a bad thing that we have sharpened up slightly, but what I do hate is the relentless quest for perfection that is just unrealistic when you’re struggling with exhaustion, a colicky baby and nothing that will fit you bar a pair of hideous tracksuit bottoms.
So relax as much as you need to, but try to emulate the French a little. And lay off the croissants, as well as the doughnuts.
Good Housekeeping yummy mummy column
3 thoughts on Good Housekeeping yummy mummy column
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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.
Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.
Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.
In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group.
Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.
Bibliography
More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004
Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)
All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006
Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007
Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006
Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007
So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)
More, More France; Gibson Square 2009
To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)
The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009
Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011
The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013
Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016
The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016
Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018
The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019
Hahaha! I had my third baby four months ago (a girl, finally) and i am stuck in hareem pants because my old clothes don’t yet fit and i refuse to go a size up. I wear my hareems with a biker jacket and expensive ballerinas but it’s still annoying not to be able to wear ‘normal clothes’. Nobody ever dares to say it but being fat limits your life so much. On another note- absolutely nothing wrong with Gap jeans…
As someone who turns to books like “How To Be Impossibly French,” (just betrayed myself as an American, oops) for a little glamour–can’t say I’ll be traveling to France anytime soon–I cannot fathom needing to spend that much on a pair of jeans. If I wanted to feel indulgent, I would buy a Chanel lipgloss instead. : )
Oh, and after recently giving birth to our 3rd child, can’t say my stomach will ever look the same, although I am able to wear my normal clothes.
I agree on the lipgloss, in fact anything Chanel. I am desperate to get their new skincare range but have to save up for it…