Emily Ratajkowski is expecting her first child.
Emily Ratajkowski
The 29-year-old model has revealed she is pregnant with her first child with her husband Sebastian Bear-McClard, and has said she’s keen to raise her baby in a gender-neutral environment, because she doesn’t want to “force gender stereotypes” on her future child.
In an essay for Vogue in which she announced her pregnancy, she wrote: “When my husband and I tell friends that I’m pregnant, their first question after ‘Congratulations’ is almost always ‘Do you know what you want?’
“We like to respond that we won’t know the gender until our child is 18 and that they’ll let us know then. Everyone laughs at this. There is a truth to our line, though, one that hints at possibilities that are much more complex than whatever genitalia our child might be born with: the truth that we ultimately have no idea who - rather than what - is growing inside my belly.
“Who will this person be? What kind of person will we become parents to? How will they change our lives and who we are? This is a wondrous and terrifying concept, one that renders us both helpless and humbled.”
Emily understands “the desire” for people to know the “gender of our foetus”, and although she doesn’t want to think about her child in terms of gender, she noted she has always wanted a daughter.
She added: “I like the idea of forcing as few gender stereotypes on my child as possible. But no matter how progressive I may hope to be, I understand the desire to know the gender of our foetus; it feels like the first real opportunity to glimpse who they might be.
“It occurs to me that as a younger person I’d almost automatically imagined myself having a daughter. I remember playing as a child, holding baby dolls and picturing myself with a future best friend: something like the American Girl doll I owned, who had brown eyes and brown hair to mirror my own features, a smaller version of myself.”
The model closed her essay by noting she has already learned so much from her baby, and is “full of wonder” about what her future as a mother will hold.
She said: “I used to use magical thinking whenever I wanted something to go a certain way. Now, though, I don’t try to envision a pink or blue blanket in my arms. I’m too humbled to have any false notions of control. I’m completely and undeniably helpless when it comes to almost everything surrounding my pregnancy: how my body will change, who my child will be. But I’m surprisingly unbothered. Instead of feeling afraid, I feel a new sense of peace. I’m already learning from this person inside my body. I’m full of wonder.”
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