Rebecca Reid

Years ago, when I was first attempting to make a living in journalism, I did the occasional stint of consultancy (risible as it now seems that a 24-year-old could ‘consult’ on anything). PR companies would pay me to come in and tell them how to get more coverage, better coverage or just coverage which centred their niche and unappealing clients. And one of the things they always seemed to want was to author a social trend.   The most famous social trend, the one they all cited time and again, was the #NoMakeUpSelfie, a mega viral whirlwind which got women all over the world posting pictures of their - shock horror - makeup free faces.

When you have children, it’s incumbent upon you to develop a variety of new skills – paramount amongst which is the ability to ignore unsolicited advice. From the moment you share a grainy black ultrasound with the world, it rolls in. Birth, breastfeeding, sleep, diet, teething, clothing, tantrums... everyone’s got ideas about how to do it right. If your choices diverge from their wisdom, you immediately become tenants of different camps. The only sensible approach is to put your hands over your ears and go ‘La la la la’ until your children are emotionally well-regulated, financially independent adults with a 2.1 from a Russell Group university.

There comes a moment, a few weeks after you give birth, when your baby outgrows their Lilliputian clothes and you’re obliged to replace ‘newborn’ with ‘0-3 months’. At which point, usually while still absolutely steaming with hormones, you find yourself sitting on their bedroom floor, staring at these teeny garments, trying to decide if you’re going to keep them (have another baby) or give them to the charity shop (start leaving leaflets about vasectomy around the house).  Historically, this was a major decision for you, but one which had almost no relevance to anyone else.

As a woman in my early thirties, it is my God-given right – arguably my duty – to have an opinion when Taylor Swift releases an album. And it’s a role that I’ve always performed without compunction. But on this occasion – the release of album 12, The Life of a Showgirl, my ability to get into the weeds (does ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ represent close text analysis of Shakespeare?) was hampered by my shock at one particularly audacious lyric.  Previous albums have had the the odd raunchy moment. So when, on this new album, she sang ‘His love was the key that opened my thighs’ in a song titled ‘Wood’, I was unmoved.