Not happy – why Pharrell Williams needs to update his views on childcare | Fashion

Not happy â€" why Pharrell Williams needs to update his views on childcare | Fashion

So you’ve banged on about Beyoncé’s twins and Clooney’s twins, but you totally missed out on the big celebrity multiple births story this year. What’s happened?

Jenna, by email

There comes a point in every adult’s life when they realise they’re no longer the hot, with-it young thing they once were (or thought they were). I remember, on the much-missed Adam and Joe podcast, Adam Buxton saying he knew it when he noticed he made weird grunting noises every time he sat down. For others, it’s when they hear themselves asking questions like, “No but really, who is Pixie Lott?” For me, it was when I realised that Pharrell Williams and his unforgettably named wife, Helen, had triplets five months ago â€" and I HADN’T EVEN NOTICED. Oh God! This is it, the long slow fall into irrelevancy, with only my CD collection of Drive Time 4 to soundtrack my decline.

Once I had recovered from the shock that a celebrity had triplets and no one informed me, my first emotion was delight in imagining what on earth these children’s names could be, as Pharrell-and-Helen have not yet released them to the media. Because whatever the names are, we can be sure they’ll knock Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s twins into a cocked hat, given that Pharrell-and-Helen named their now eight-year-old son Rocket, an objectively more awesome name than Blue, which is what Bey-and-Jay opted for with their daughter. What on earth could these triplets be called? Sun, Moon and Star? Spirit, Power and Force? Oh, the options are endless! What a happy development this is, I see nothing to criticise here at all. Look, Pharrell has been giving interviews about his triplets, let’s watch those, nothing bad could possibly happen here, and â€" RECORD SCREECH.

Pharrell has been doing the publicity circuit because he has made a song for some movie, and when I heard that, my first thought was, “Wow, poor guy! Those babies are only five months old â€" I wonder how he’s even able to leave the house?” Quite easily, it turns out. Last week he was on the daily US show Today, where he was described as “a renaissance man” and he in turn described his home as “an assembly line” â€" an assembly line in which this renaissance man is not on duty.

“Do you do the diaper-changing?” asked the host (and new mother herself), Hoda Kotb.

“No. No,” replied Pharrell, as if he wasn’t saying something that is literally insane. “My wife is Seal Team Six. There’s nothing she can’t do. I mean, she carried those three bodies and she’s on it all the time.”

Yes, I imagine she is “on it all the time”, given she has three â€" three! â€" tiny babies and you are refusing to change any diapers, you lazy asshat. I especially enjoy how Pharrell says “she carried those three bodies” as though the obvious follow-on is, “and so she could continue to work like a dog now that they’re out of her body”, instead of, “and therefore I should do absolutely everything for her for the rest of her life, and let that poor woman’s pelvis recover because she is a goddess.”

“Being that you are a clothing designer, do you pick out any of their outfits?” tried Hoda Kotb, clearly desperate to find something in this encounter to make Pharrell seem less of a throwback. You like clothes and stupid hats, Pharrell, right? Maybe you like baby clothes. Alas, for both Hoda and Helen, no. “Again, Seal Team Six!” he crowed.

Can someone please explain to Pharrell what, exactly, Seal teams do? Because as far as I can tell, he seems to think they’re slaves who save him the bother of having to alter his life a jot. In fact, rather ironically, they’re about cooperation and mutual support, a concept that seems somewhat alien to the so-called renaissance man here, who thinks throwing his wife compliments such as “she’s so capable” is the get-out clause to helping with the childcare.

I’m fascinated by men who believe looking after the kids is the wife’s job, I really am. Last week a 2005 interview with David Davis resurfaced, in which he announced he did not change any of his three children’s nappies, “opting instead to teach them to ski and scuba dive to make them brave”. It would be so interesting to learn where his wife’s choice-making featured here: “Oh no, sweetheart, I’m not interested in skiing. Tell you what, you do the fun stuff with the kids when they’re older and I’ll be in charge of the dirty nappies and potty training when they’re little, OK? Deal! What a satisfying situation this is for me.”

I have so many questions for such men, even beyond: “How can you look yourself in the mirror when you dump all the dogsbody childcare work on the woman you allegedly love just because you can’t be bothered?” But my main question is this: will your wife ever have sex with you again? I’m sorry (not that sorry) to be crude, but if my partner announced he wouldn’t be doing any nappy-changing, or any childcare at all until he was able to combine it with his own leisure activities, I would take a chastity belt and hammer it around my person.

Who are these men who think it is acceptable to treat their female partners like the unpaid help? And are they the least bit interested in ever getting laid again? Well, thanks to the honesty of Pharrell and Davis, we can answer the first question. The latter, for now, will have to go unresolved.

Post your questions to Hadley Freeman, Ask Hadley, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Email ask.hadley@theguardian.com.

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