And another (celeb) thing...

That J-lo article has started to really rankle me, and I feel the need to rant again.

The first issue I have was that her babies slept in their own nursery next to her room. As any new parent knows, after about 2 nights of getting up every 2-3 hours to feed the little blighters, you move them as close to you as you possibly can. Unless there are a couple of night nannies in the nursery that she didn't confess to.

The second is that she has decided not to breastfeed, but formula feed after she "looked into the options and what is best for the babies". Yeah, right. Personally, as anyone who has read this blog will know, I wholly believe in each to their own and formula is fine, but for J-lo to fly in the face of all medical evidence proving breastmilk is best for babies (however it is delivered) is just ill informed.

She is also unsure whether to send the children to public schools or home school them because she will be away so often that a regular school might not be practical. Well, firstly, hiring tutors to come on tour with you is not home schooling. Secondly, dragging small children around the world might be fine for you but isn't desperately fair on them. Finally, it's not like you will be teaching them anyway.

I can't help wondering whether all these celebs actually have an impact on the choices of young women. Certainly, pretending that child raising is easy must give all sorts of false impressions to your average 15 year old who may find herself pregnant either by choice or circumstance. Claiming that formula is "best" for babies puts the breastfeeding debate back about 20 years.

That said, there can be some positive outcomes. I read an article ages ago in that bastion of top quality journalism, Now. It was a horrible feature on how much weight celebs have lost after birth and how they did it. It covered a couple of Spice Girls, Catherine Z-J et al. In amongst the very sensible tips on fitness and healthy eating they all attributed their weight loss to breastfeeding.

For every J-Lo there is a Geri Halliwell.