A royal rant.

Let me start this post with a caveat: Being pregnant is hard, no matter who you are. Even the easiest pregnancies are tough on you. You are growing a person! It's hard! So, though this post is about to get a little rant-y, please understand that I am not knocking anyone who is pregnant. It's a tough job and anyone who does it is amazing.

Now.

I know I'm little late to the Duchess Kate party, but I can't take it any more. I got really frustrated seeing all the "news" stories about how she and Prince William went to her family for Christmas because the strain would have been too much for her at the Palace. Because, you know, they have a night where they have to make their own dinner. The horror. And a night where they have to play charades. Gasp! So, as I mentioned above, I am totally sympathetic to the Duchess. Being pregnant is hard enough without having crippling morning sickness and being a public figure. I really do just want to rub her back and tell her she's beautiful and doing an amazing thing. But it really upsets me to hear all of this talk about how easy she should take it, not because she shouldn't take it easy, but because of the privileged status. Here is a woman who is being told she shouldn't have to make her own dinner for a single night because she is pregnant and having a tough time, but what about the millions, hundreds of millions of women, worldwide, who don't have that luxury?

It's not that I begrudge the Duchess some R&R. God knows how hard it must be to have your every move scrutinized while you are throwing up your lungs and growing a human. I just wish we could instead have a larger conversation about how women are treated as second class citizens, even in first world countries. Why not turn this into a meaningful discourse on the need for better access to health care and maternity leave for ALL women? Not just the royal ones.

I am a stay-at-home mom. My husband and I worked pretty hard to be able to afford to live on a single salary, but even so, we are incredibly lucky to be able to do it. We are both well-educated and have (or had, in my case) jobs that are fairly skilled in nature and fairly well compensated as a result. But I have friends who don't have the luxury. Women who want nothing more than to stay home with their babies but are forced to find day care while they go back to low-paying jobs so that they can keep their insurance and feed their families. It breaks my heart to see these women struggle. I know, first hand, what they are forced to give up, because I am lucky enough to not have to give it up. But that's the whole point. Luck shouldn't have to be part of the equation. If you want to stay home and raise your child, you shouldn't have to be lucky or rich.

So, can we please turn this into a conversation about granting extended maternity leave and health care to all women? We can all still empathize with Duchess Kate, but it's time to turn this into something more meaningful than celebrity gossip.