It’s certainly not news to say that the internet gets offended by everything, so no one should be surprised that fashion designer Victoria Beckham is now on the receiving end of some fairly heated criticism. The former Spice Girl received backlash for posting a photo on her Instagram that some viewed as inappropriate. The photo was of Beckham holding her five-year-old daughter, Harper, and giving her a peck on the lips. While many of Beckham’s followers thought there was nothing wrong with the picture, others were extremely uncomfortable with it. Some deemed kissing on the lips too sexual for a parent and child, others went so far as to call Beckham a lesbian for the photograph. This is hardly the first time the action has been called into question by parenting experts, though the overwhelming consensus seems to be that it’s fine to kiss your kids on the lips as long as they are okay with it.
A simple show of affection from mother to daughter should hardly cause such outrage, but celebrity mothers are always under fire for some perceived mistake. Back in May, Chrissy Tiegen was attacked on Twitter for going out to dinner with her husband, John Legend, without her newborn daughter. And oddly enough, most of the cruel comments are coming from other parents. Not only does this “mom-shaming,” as it’s come to be called, harm the women it’s targeted toward, it harms other moms when that original victim is a celebrity. After all, if Chrissy Tiegan can’t go out to dinner without her kid, apparently no other woman can either, lest she be deemed a bad mother. This kind of shaming places a huge amount of guilt on moms, and it also gives women everywhere even more impossible standards to live up to. As if motherhood isn’t hard enough!
Thankfully, many moms are on Victoria Beckham’s side of this particular critique. Many of them have even shown their support by posting pictures kissing their own children on social media. Mothers who show their kids love and affection are doing their job, so let’s just all let Victoria Beckham wish her daughter happy birthday in peace.
