BEC: Dear morality police: Back off.

By REBECCA SPARROW

Oh Kate Winslet, you irresponsible slut, you.

Who do you think you are getting pregnant again?   You clearly don’t realise (so let me point it out for you) that you’re about to have three kids by three different fathers.  You don’t have the morals I thought you did. Get your lovelife together, will you?

In a nutshell, that’s been the reaction around the world. From Hollywood. The media. Fans.  Haters. Twitter.

Award-winning actress Kate Winslet announced this week that she was expecting her third child to her new (and yes, third) husband Ned Rocknroll and then large numbers of people clutched their pearls, screeched “ERMAGERD” and went into meltdown about Kate Winslet’s values or morals or awesome fertility or something.

Here you go, take a look at a few of the comments that have been written about Kate online in the past 48 hours:

“3 children, 3 different dads. Not as classy as I once thought.”

“as much as i think this is great news she isn’t setting a very good example for her kids is she really by having yet another child by yet another man.”

“She’s untouchable, well she thinks she is and can do whatever she wants “as long as the children are loved”, yeah right Kate, I don’t think so.”

What the what? (I stole that expression from Alana at iVillage)

And then of course, the Daily Mail had this to say:

Even by the easy-come, easy-go standards of modern show business, to have chalked up three marriages and three children by three different men, all before you hit 40, is going some …

Of course, everyone accepts that there can be youthful mistakes, and that partners can let you down.

However, Miss Winslet’s romantic history is so drama-soaked that one starts to wonder why she finds her happy-ever-afters so transient.

You know this over the top reaction by the public and some media reminds me of the reaction Rod Stewart received when he announced he was having a second baby with Penny Lancaster.  Hello Rod?  That’ll be eight children to five different women!  Remember how we all called him a slut? Remember? REMEMBER?????

No, me neither.   Because we didn’t.  Rod’s a charming rogue. It’s different with Kate. She’s a WOMAN!  A woman who has sex with her husbands!  And three kids to three different fathers?  This is going to screw up my life now because .. oh no, hang on, it doesn’t impact my life at all. But still!  Kate’s an irresponsible, desperate woman with no values.

I hate to point out the obvious but unless Kate Winslet is beating her children with her Best Actress Oscar or calling them “stupid, worthless prats” or locking them under her stairs and feeding them a steady diet of crack cocaine, then I think we can safely say they’re fine. She’s fine.  The world is fine. The sky is not falling and (drum roll, please) it’s NONE OF OUR BUSINESS.

The morality police thing is getting tired.  I’m all for debate and discussion (I work for Mamamia for pete’s sake). I’m all for hearing different points of views about career and politics and parenting and love and all the bits in between. I find it fascinating to read posts from people who make entirely different decisions to me because it never fails to teach me something.

But this ‘you’re wrong, I’m right’ mentality has got to end.  There is no one right way to live your life.  To raise your kids.  To navigate your career. We’re all in it together doing our best. Well the majority of us are anyway. Serial killers, not so much.

But for easy reference, until things change, I thought I’d write out this little list of what makes someone a ‘bad woman’.  Just so we’ve all got a handy guide about what not to do with our lives.

Here we go.

You are a bad woman …

– If you wear short skirts or short shorts at any age
– If you’re overweight
– If you’re too skinny
– If you remain a virgin until you’re married
– If you have loads of sex with loads of people
– If you never marry
– If you get married too young
– If you have a baby in your teens or early 20s
– If you terminate a pregnancy
– If you put a baby up for adoption
– If you have a baby but admit to not liking motherhood or say you find it hard
– If you have a baby and say you find it easy
– If you try to ‘settle’ your baby or put them into a routine
– If you are an attachment parent and co-sleep with your kids
– If you – by choice or circumstance  – don’t have children
– If you only have one child
– If you have more than 3 children
– If your children have different fathers
– If you have a caesarean (lazy!)
– If you have a natural birth with no drugs (smug!)
– If you breastfeed  (Hippy with no life)
– If you bottle-feed (ARTIFICIAL POISON!!!!!!!!)
– If you put your baby into any form of childcare (Why did you have kids again?)
– If you have a nanny and work full time (Glad you’ve got your priorities right)
– If you are a stay at home mum .  (GET. A. LIFE.)
– If you change your name when you get married.
– If you don’t change your name when you get married.
– If you go online and ask for advice about how to make beef stroganoff (MIDDLE CLASS!!!!!!!)
– If you send your child to a private school
– If you send your child to a state school
– If you’re Christian
– If you’re Muslim
– If you’re Jewish
– If you’re <insert another religion here>
– If you iron your partner’s shirts (never admit to this)
– If you hate sex
– If you love sex
– If you watch Australia’s Funniest Home Videos and think it’s funny.
– If you have Botox
– If you look too old (get Botox would you!)
– If you read commercial fiction (dumb-arse)
– If you read only ‘literary’ books (SNOB!)
– If you’re too opinionated
– If you’re quiet and reserved
– If
– If
– If

Enough already. Enough.

What would you add to the ‘bad woman’ list?  What did I miss out?