Mother’s Day, Sex in the City,

I am very excited about the Sex and the City movie. And as Mother’s Day approaches, I have been thinking about one of my favourite episodes: the one where a shaky Charlotte reassures a very pregnant Miranda that she will be a good mother. It’s very touching. Miranda reaches her epiphany while comforting Charlotte, who is weeping in the bedroom during a baby shower she is hosting for Miranda. Charlotte is having trouble coming to terms with the fact that her husband is willing to accept their infertility and a childless marriage.

What I love most about this episode is the way the two women ‘mother’ each other. There just isn’t another word for it. Most of the time, most of us would prefer a friend to be a friend and not a mother, but sometimes we can all use a little mothering.

Lately it seems that there is a shortage of mothering where it is most needed: with the young.

First there was the brouhaha over the Lolita-like picture of tween sensation Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair. If you haven’t heard, the million-dollar baby, also known as the outrageously popular Disney character Hanna Montana, had a bare-backed, sheet-draped, red-lipped shot taken by Annie Leibowitz, who is known for just such controversial images. There is no doubt the image is very sexy. It reminded me of the images taken of Brooke Shields when she starred as a child prostitute in Louis Malle’s Pretty Baby, and was at the centre of a similar controversy.