11 h. ago Is ‘princess treatment’ a harmless trend – or yet more fuel for misogyny? | Emma Beddington

A life of passive ‘perfection’, in which you minister to your partner and don’t speak unless spoken to, is a nauseating prospect that leaves women dangerously vulnerableDo you wish you were a princess? Do you crave being cosseted and showered with gifts, having every door opened and every chair pulled out? Perhaps you’d rather not pay for your clothes; maybe you’re sick of deciding what to eat and where.Courtney Palmer can help. The self-proclaimed housewife princess has a series of TikTok videos on “princess treatment” and how to get it. It’s a matter of accepting compliments graciously, dressing the part, being unapologetically good to yourself (disappointingly, this seems to mean exercising and drinking water) but mostly ministering to your partner, who is treated as a weirdly needy and highly suggestible man-baby. Would-be princesses should create a calm, frictionless domestic paradise for their provider prince, “speaking in a feminine way – we’re not screaming, yelling; we’re n...

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39 h. ago The holistic therapy that saved Kate in her toughest times: How the Princess of Wales turned to acupuncture to aid in her cancer recovery

The mother-of-three is believed to have also used the method to help cope with her severe morning sickness in 2012, while she was pregnant with Prince George.

Politics

4 d. ago I was a big orca fan – but their skincare regime is giving me the ick | Emma Beddington

These supposedly serious cetaceans have been spotted massaging each other with kelp stalks. This is the sort of performative nonsense you’d expect from dolphinsI’ve thought for a while that it would be nice to be an orca. Not because I hate boats and they sink them (though I get it – the briny depths are none of our human business). What actually appeals is the idea of being charismatic megafauna – I love that phrase – and also important as a post-menopausal female. Orcas are one of very few species that go through menopause, living for decades after their reproductive years. These older matriarchs remain an integral part of the community, improving pod survival rates thanks to being “repositories of ecological knowledge”, caring for young and even, research suggests, keeping their giant adult sons safe from being attacked. The fact that they’re fashion-conscious is a bonus: the 80s orca trend for wearing jaunty salmon fascinators was revived, intriguingly, in some pods last Decembe...

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6 d. ago What’s it like to be 23 and starting a new life? I’m unpacking a lot of emotions as my son heads to the US | Emma Beddington

Can he really be that old? Was I ever that young? A trip to clear out his student flat has brought back so many memoriesThere’s an accurate, if snide, thing I’ve seen online that reads “No parent on Facebook can believe their child has turned any age”, and yes, OK, not the “on Facebook” bit, but there is a rote astonishment at time passing that I sometimes slip into, contemplating my adult sons. But, allow me, just this once, a Facebook parent moment. My elder son turned 23 last month and we’ve just been to London to collect his stuff at the end of his degree. On the way, I realised I was 23 when I moved there myself.You can’t often pre-emptively pinpoint parenting “lasts”, but when you can, they’re strange and melancholy – even when they’re not, objectively, things a person would choose to do again. This trip involved (I hope) my last time standing, hips screaming from the drive, texting “We’re outside” as we waited for our son to wake up (my husband ended up throwing a ball at his...

Politics

2 w. ago I’m thrilled that Liz Hurley is 60, naked and smiling in a meadow. But when will the nude celeb arms race end? | Emma Beddington

From Hurley to Amanda Holden to Jennifer Aniston and Martha Stewart, women over 50 in the public eye are increasingly taking their clothes off and posing artfully on Instagram. It strikes me as a lot of hard workMany thoughts came to mind on seeing Elizabeth Hurley’s recent 60th birthday Instagram post, where she is sitting smiling in a meadow, in as she writes, her “birthday suit”. Like, where will this older celebrity nudity arms race end? Jennifer Aniston did a birthday shoot at 40 for GQ; Gwyneth Paltrow posted nudes three years running, culminating in one painted gold at 50; Amanda Holden posed naked on some rocks (ouch) at 53. Now here’s Hurley. In the era of Martha Stewart (now 83) posting semi-clad thirst trap pics, I’m half expecting to see Sir David Attenborough mark his 100th with his modesty preserved only by a strategically placed aardvark (though the patriarchy seems to have ensured men don’t feel compelled to do this).I also found myself thinking: yes, she looks incre...

Politics

3 w. ago You say we need more babies, rightwingers? Come back to me after you’ve fought in the trenches of soft play | Emma Beddington

A ghastly coalition of tech bros and religious conservatives is pushing a baby boom. Let’s see how they feel when they’ve dragged a screaming child out of an excrement-fouled ball pitI absolutely cannot fathom the number of populist rightwing politicians and commentators who have looked at the smouldering mess that is the world currently and thought: “I know what this situation demands – more toddlers.” Population-boosting discourse and policies have spread across Europe (Hungary, Poland, Greece, Italy and beyond), while in the US an unholy coalition of tech bros, religious conservatives, blowhard podcasters and the politicians who pander to them have gone loudly pronatalist. JD Vance used his first speech as vice-president to proclaim: “I want more babies in the United States of America”; Elon Musk called declining birthrates “a much bigger risk to civilisation than global warming”; and Trump is considering various procreation-incentivising policies, including a $5,000 “baby bonus”...

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