Oops! Brit Did It Again! (Made Moms Feel Awesome, That Is)

The following italicized article is from www.huffingtonpost.com:

Oops! Britney Spears did it again! She may have missed several of her 14 court-ordered drug tests! And she may have walked out halfway through a national radio interview with Ryan Seacrest to hop in the shower!

But what Brit did choose to show up for this past weekend, according to the new issue of Star magazine, was a major session of liposuction in Las Vegas. Her stomach and upper thighs all kept their appointment with Dr. John Minoli of the Minoli Plastic Surgery Clinic & Spa.

Once again, Britney has succeeded in a mission that, though unintended, is actually providing great relief to millions and millions of women across North America — and I'm one of those women. It's not that I and women like me don't care about the plight of little Sean Preston and Jayden James. We do. Obsessively so. And we're relieved that the unlikely dad of the year, K-Fed, has primary custody.

Nevertheless, every time that our girl Brit cluelessly tries to whitestrip her toddler's teeth instead of brushing them or runs a red light with the court-appointed monitor and her two sons all strapped in her car, working moms across the continent can set back our own personal guilt-meters about our mothering skills.

Yes, we may feed our kids pizza for dinner, miss mid-week soccer matches and fake that we actually baked brownies for the school fundraiser.

But we have never, no never, used our kids as paparazzi bait — and we have practically taken college-level courses to make sure we strapped our babies into their car seats correctly. We even installed the car seats facing the right direction in the first place.

While Brit has contributed the most among Hollywooders to lessening the burden of guilt for working mothers, she isn't the only Hollywood icon who deserves our gratitude.

No less than Tinseltown's Mother Theresa, Angelina Jolie, can induce us to breathe easier. Oh, so maybe we didn't whip up homemade Halloween costumes, but at least we haven't schlepped our kids to three different pre-schools around the globe in the past year. I'm sure little Maddox is well-loved, but what kid wants to attend kindergarten in all of LA, New York and Prague? It's hard enough making one set of friends, let alone facing three classrooms full of strange faces. And what other mom is ever going to get up the gumption to call Angelina for a playdate? That's even if you could get her number. And you know what else--what normal size 12 mom is going to want to even stand next to 95 lb Angelina at the school Christmas play? Fat chance, it would be me.

Now, gossip high priestess Liz Smith wrote in her November 13 column that "celebrity madness fueled by instant technology" is her top choice for Time magazine's "person" of the year. And I have to second her choice.

But while Liz may agree that celebrities and celeb newsweeklies like Star serve the purposes of entertaining us, informing us about popular culture, fashion and style, I bet not even she understands that celeb mommies play an all-important role as guilt-evaporators.

Most of us will never have to explain to our kids like Madonna will why we published a book filled with naked pictures of ourselves. They will never have to be terrified to introduce us to their future in-laws because like Brit, Lindsay or Paris, we couldn't remember to wear underwear in public in our '20s. Nor will they have to dread getting out of bed before 1 PM every day because like Lynne Spears, we wrote a tell-all book about them.

So, my frazzled compatriots, give yourselves permission to pat yourselves on the back for a change. You may not be the perfect mom, but you ain't Britney.

Source: Star Magazine, Huffington Post/Break The Ice