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Family

'Bachelor' alum's decision to hire a night nurse highlights the mixed messages new moms receive

Anyone who has given birth knows how difficult those first few months feel.

new moms; mom shaming; mixed messages; Tia Booth; night nurse
Photo by Jenna Norman on Unsplash

Hiring a night nurse brings out a mixed bag of opinions and advice.

"The Bachelor" alum Tia Booth is finding out firsthand how conflicting mom advice can be and she's calling it out. Booth gave birth in December of 2022 and revealed that she hired a night nurse so she and her fiancé Taylor Mock could get some sleep a few times a week. Sleep is essential to functioning properly as a human and as a parent.

Anyone who has given birth knows how difficult those first few months feel. You're essentially surviving some version of what is classified as a form of torture—sleep deprivation. New babies have weird, topsy-turvy, upside-down sleep cycles and new parents simply have to white-knuckle it until the little bundle is sleeping for several-hour stretches at a time.

The lack of sleep can not only make you delirious but can sometimes be dangerous when caring for a new baby. I remember being woken up in the middle of the night by a nurse while still in the hospital because in my sleep-deprived state I fell asleep while feeding my son. Thank goodness she walked in before one or both of us fell onto the floor from the rocking chair.

I should've informed the nurse that I was tired and allowed her to take my two-day-old baby to the nursery, but asking for help seemed taboo. In today's world, women are advocating for new moms to not only ask for help, but to seek it out—until they do, and suddenly the message changes...again.


Booth has taken to her Instagram stories to call out the mixed messaging given to new moms. In the now-expired stories, she responded to someone who wrote, "Not trying to be mean, but having a child is taking responsibility and bonding with your baby in the middle of the night when they wake. Not hiring someone to do it for you so you can 'sleep.'" Obviously, not all parents can afford a night nurse and Booth acknowledged that fact, but she was having none of the mom shaming that was taking place.

“Moms, who have once been first time moms, will say ‘do what’s best for you and your family’ then shame you & lose respect for you for needing help. We can only be praised when we’re exhausted & doing it all alone??? It’s insanity. OK I’m done,” Booth said in the story. And honestly, she has a point that isn't talked about much publicly.

People who became parents several years ago heard the old adage, "Sleep when baby sleeps," or simply the truth of, "It's hard for everyone," with no real direction on how to make it less hard. But with parents becoming more vocal about how difficult parenting can be and advocating to reach out for help, more new parents are following that advice—and yet, some people find fault in parents receiving the help they need.

A battle surrounding what kind of help someone receives seems to defeat the purpose of telling parents to reach out. Of course, given different financial circumstances, some parents' help may come in the form of a full-time nanny while other parents rely on a nearby relative or neighbor to grab a quick shower. But the level of help doesn't make someone more or less of a parent.

The new mom explained exactly why it was important to her to have the kind of help she does, and other parents in similar situations would likely want the same if it was within their budget. “I’m able to be a better mom during the day when I can THINK & know my baby was so loved on & taken care of the night before. I don’t have family here. Neither does Taylor. This is our help a few nights a week,” Booth wrote.

Community

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And while many people respect that the decision to come out is deeply personal, not everyone does and Clements was on the receiving end of hateful behavior. According to LGBTQ Nation, Danny Pate wrote the letter outing Clements as gay and sent it to local pastors before the letter began circulating the community. This led to Clements handing in her resignation.

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David Rossler returns to the place where he hid from the Nazis during World War II.

David Rossler, 84, and his mother were taken in by Georges Bourlet and his four young adult children in 1944 and allowed to hide in their home in Brussels in the waning months of World War II. Rossler and his mother were Jewish, and Belgium was occupied by Nazi Germany. If caught, they’d be taken to a concentration camp.

Rossler had already lost his uncle and grandfather after they were taken to Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland and he would lose his father, hiding elsewhere, to an illness.

Bourlet and his family were also in danger if they were caught hiding the mother and child from the Nazis. "People who protected Jews were simply risking their lives. You wouldn't end up in jail, but in Auschwitz—and Auschwitz, you didn't end up anywhere but in the crematoria," Rossler said in a video produced by MyHeritage.com.

After Allied forces liberated Belgium in 1945, Rossler, who was born Daniel Langa and later took the name of his stepfather, moved to Austria and lost touch with the Bourlets.

As Rossler entered his 80s and was in declining health, his final wish was to thank Bourlet’s family for the incredible bravery and humanity he showed him and his mother during the war.

For years, Lionel Rossler, David’s son, did everything he could to find the family, including putting ads in the paper and posting on social media. After one such post, he received a message from Marie Cappart, country manager for MyHeritage in Belgium, who wanted to help.

MyHeritage is an online genealogy platform with 90 million family trees. Rossler's story hit close to home with Cappart.

"My husband lost his grandfather during the war. He died at the concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau," Cappart told Newsweek. "My own great-grandmother also died in the camp at Ravensbrück. She was British and was in Belgium as part of the resistance. Sadly she was caught by the Nazis and deported. She never came back."

“After browsing records and cross-referencing data, Cappart found an Anne-Marie Bourlet, born in Auderghem in 1929,” Lionel said, according to SWNS. “She discovered that Anne-Marie married someone with the surname Dedoncker and had five children—all of them possibly still alive.”

“After a bit more research, Cappart found Xavier, one of Georges Bourlet’s grandsons, and managed to contact him,” he continued.

Finally, after 75 years, David Rossler returned to the place where he hid in 1944 and 1945 and thanked Bourlet’s five grandchildren.

“It was an incredibly emotional day for us,” Lionel explained. “I was able to see, with my own eyes, the place where my father was kept safe from the Germans all those years ago.”

“If I had Mr. Bourlet in front of me, I would want to kiss him,” said David. “To say thank you with all my body, with all my life, I am alive, I have a family of which I am very, very, very proud. To tell him that my life is thanks to him.”

Bourlet didn’t know it then, but his bravery saved the lives of nine people.

“Because of his heroic action, Georges was able to save the lives of my father and grandmother,” Lionel said. “Nine people were saved thanks to what he did; my brother, myself and our children would not be here today if not for his courage and kindness.”

As a final “thank you” to Bourlet and his family, the Rosslers want him to be recognized as Righteous Among The Nations at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. This honor is for non-Jews who risked everything during the Holocaust to save Jewish people.

The medal given to honorees has an inscription with the Hebrew saying: "Whosoever saves a single life, saves an entire universe.”

Motherhood

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