On the treadmill next to me at the gym this morning was a gorgeous guy, and on the TV screen above us was a lineup of pregnant women modeling bathing suits.
"They're so beautiful," the man said, riveted.
"They're very pregnant," I observed, not so astutely, considering one of the women was wearing a bikini.
"Very pregnant and very beautiful. Sexy!" he said, still staring.
The women on the television did look great, but all I could think was: Jesus, one more impossible standard we're supposed to meet. Now we have to be pregnant AND sexy. And then we're supposed to become yummy mummies. Rail-thin foodies, a la Amanda Hesser. Billionaire cultivators of antique roses, Martha Stewart style.
These ever-more-oxymoronic ideals are just the latest way to keep women busy doing something impossible that ultimately makes them feel like failures. Heidi Klum notwithstanding, I defy you to show me a woman who finds pregnancy a major turn-on. Who feels her most beautiful while lugging a squalling toddler, who keeps her house spotless while managing a hedge fund.
Pregnant women in leopard-print bikinis make me want to slip into a maternity smock, prop up my swollen ankles, and rip open a pack of Pall Malls. Those were the days, when getting knocked up was a license in indulge in daily milkshakes and mood swings. When being a working mom meant never folding your laundry and baking cookies was an invitation to eat half the batter raw.
Few women let themselves go like that anymore, and fewer still admit to it. But I can't help but thinking: Where is all this pressure to be more and more perfect in more and more impossible ways going to end?
Pretty soon, we'll all be locked up in rooms full of straw, spending our lives trying to spin it into gold.
Follow Pamela Redmond Satran on Twitter: www.twitter.com/nameberry
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