Sunday, July 07, 2013

Breathe deeply, the royal baby insanity is almost over

Sometimes the hoopla surrounding the birth of the royal baby just makes my blood boil. And yet I cannot look away from it, or ignore it despite the increasing ridiculousness of the coverage.

Case in point, Wikipedia has created a page for Baby Cambridge, even though he/she is not even born. Supposedly this is the first time a page has been created for an unborn child. Since William and Catherine are likely to have more than one child, I'm presuming Wikipedia will be coming out with pages before they're even conceived, such is the intense interest?

Kate is already being touted as the 'perfect mother'.  Hate to say this but there is no such thing. Have we really reached the point where any minor deviation from royal parenting - hugging, spending quality time with your child - is seen as innovative? Let's see a sleep deprived Kate manage a newborn and a toddler with a temper tantrum -  in public - before labeling her a 'perfect mother' shall we?

Then there's lighting up Canadian tourist attractions like Niagara falls and CN tower blue or pink to celebrate the royal birth.  Normally, I wouldn't have a problem with these things, but it just adds to the atmosphere of overkill rampant with everything related to the arrival of Baby Cambridge. Whatever happened to sending a card or some flowers? Isn't a 41-gun salute and pealing church bells across the land enough? True, it is nothing new to color monuments to mark royal births. When Prince Charles was born in 1948 the fountains in Trafalgar Square in London were lit up blue for a boy. But these are the type of tributes William and Kate and their baby will, in time, take for granted. Naming a lake or school after their baby? Old hat which only gets older. Why not inundate them with cards, gifts and unwelcome visits like every other parent? A true rite of passage for new parents everywhere.

Today, the Daily Mail published a layout of the floor of the Lindo wing where Kate will give birth, including where the nearest stairwell is. Tell me, do we really need to know this information? How much more invasive can we get? Earlier in the pregnancy, with all that happened with the death of the nurse, Jacinta Saldanha after two Australian DJs called the hospital pretending to be the Queen, wasn't a line in the sand established?

Not to mention just plain respect and decorum. Have we completely lost sight of that?

Sometimes I wonder.

© Marilyn Braun 2013

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