Supermodel Naomi Campbell made headlines last year after she announced she became a mother for the first time at the age of 50. While many people congratulated the model there were also those who expressed concern at a woman entering motherhood at that age. However, as Campbell’s latest with British Vogue shows, the model is thriving in her new role as a mum.
Campbell’s daughter, whose name will be revealed in a book Campbell is working on, also became a magazine cover star for the first time, appearing with her mother in the photoshoot.
If the Vogue interview is anything to go by, Campbell finds motherhood a breeze, saying that her nine-month-old daughter is very easy to take care of. “She’s a good girl: she sleeps very well, she hardly ever cries and I’m told she’s very alert for her age. She’s just started waving, which is fun. She laughs a lot. She’s almost talking,” Campbell said.
She also cleared up (somewhat) about how she became a mother by saying in the interview: “She wasn’t adopted – she’s my child.”
The comment about adoption didn’t sit right with a number of social media users.
“Adopted children are 'your' children too. I'm going to hope this quote was pulled out of context,” one Twitter user .
“An adopted child is also their Mother’s child - they’re just not sharing genetic material,” said another.
According to Vogue, the exact details of how Campbell's daughter was conceived will also be shared in her upcoming book.
In what will be news to no one, it is clear that Campbell is very privileged. In her interview she mentions a nanny she hired with very exacting standards who was employed from the moment her daughter was born, while also talking about her daughter’s extensive designer wardrobe. It is this privilege, which shows a supermodel’s experience of motherhood will be very different to that of the rest of us.
As writer and lecturer Zeynep Gurtin mentioned in in The Guardian, Campbell’s ability of being able to enter motherhood late in life isn’t one that’s afforded to most women.
“The key question here, of course, is not what Naomi Campbell has done...” Gurtin writes. “Rather, it is why women and men in general seem to have such inaccurate ideas and expectations about fertility and reproduction that the news of older celebrity mothers – including, in recent years, , who had her first child at 50, and Brigitte Nielsen, who had her fifth at 54 – can easily mislead them about their own options.”
As reproductive scientist Prof Joyce Harper points out in the same article: “Celebrity pregnancies at advanced ages give women false hope about what is actually possible. The reality is that it is very, very unlikely for a woman to naturally become pregnant at 50. And, what’s more, it is equally unlikely that she can do so using IVF.”
A from the University of New South Wales last year revealed that for women under 30 the rate of live births was 40.4 per cent. Whereas for women aged 40–44 the rate was 10 per cent, dipping to only 1.7 per cent for women aged 45 or older.
The truth of how Campbell became pregnant may or may not be revealed in time. However, she admits she kept the details of embarking into parenthood very private. “I can count on one hand the number of people who knew that I was having her,” she said in the Vogue interview.
As Campbell goes on to reveal, she’s had no issues keeping up with her young baby at her age, mentioning that she can happily function on only a few hours of sleep and has more energy than most 20-year-olds. She also mentions how she’s encouraging her older friends to have babies. “I’m telling them all, do it! Don’t hesitate!” she said.
Clearly her friends, much like Campbell, have the money and the privilege behind them to be able to become parents at an older age. Though no one can deny the joy in seeing someone who has always wanted to become a parent, finally become one.
“I always knew that one day I would be a mother, but it’s the biggest joy I could ever imagine,” Campbell says. “I’m lucky to have her and I know that.”
