Welcome to NYC, baby! pic.twitter.com/OArARK0GQS [1]
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) July 23, 2017 [2]
I find it incredibly annoying when people say moms are brave for showing their stretch marks or for wearing a bikini. So when I saw that people were applauding Chrissy Teigen's bravery, I assumed it was for something like that and was about to get up on my soapbox: "Women don't need to be brave to show their postpartum bodies! Women shouldn't have to fear their own skin!"
But I was wrong. Chrissy was brave. Incredibly, bravely brave. Why? She shared a photo to millions of Twitter followers [3] of . . . her daughter, Luna . . . in a car seat.
Gulp.
Now, I'm the first one to say that if you see something, say something [4], and if you notice that a parent is unknowingly doing something that could harm their child (like Kim Kardashian did when she put her 18-month-old son in a forward-facing car seat [5] six months too early), it's our job as "the village [6]" to do our part and help.
But that doesn't mean for one second that I'd be comfortable taking a photo of my kid in a car seat and posting it to my modest collection of followers. And I'm pretty confident that I'm doing it right. Which is why, when a fan jokingly praised Teigen's "bravery" in posting such an image, we all internally agreed that it was nothing short of courageous.
Chrissy herself responded, "Oh trust me, I looked at that chest plate for 10 minutes before posting!"
And she can trust that so did the mommy-shamers before commenting anyway. (For what it's worth, Chrissy, that is some great chest plate placement.)