Jessie and Bebe Cave

[Snazzycat]

I've only listened to the first three podcasts, but I'm surprised by her lack of knowledge surrounding all her childbirths, maybe not not first one, but considering she has a GP mother who she is obviously close to. Did she never think to read a pregnancy book or go to an NCT class or something? I'm about to have my first baby and these are things I've done and feel really well informed.

Also found it interesting that she found it inconsiderate that some people had taken their children to their scan appointments at the hospital without considering that many don't have the option of leaving them with family or paid childcare. She comes across really naive.

I also feel sorry for her, her relationship with food sounds complicated and unhealthy, I hope she knows you're supposed to consume extra calories in your third trimester. Eat the fucking donut

 

[nectarinenihilism]

I wonder if Donnie is at a prep school cos realistically how many state schools have their seven year olds playing Edward Alleyn - founder of dulwich college/jags/alleyn’s? Tell me more about how hard life is as a working mama

 

[17daize]

did anyone listen to jessie on alfie's podcast recently? they joked that jessie is addicted to having children and when the new child is born alfie will get to go on holiday because they'll be nothing for him to do. She also said as soon as Tenn was born and he was taken away from her (for medical reasons) she knew she needed to be pregnant again.

I skipped to her section on Alfie’s unbearable podcast because I knew they wouldn’t disappoint on the bizzaro shit show front

She didn’t just say he can go on holiday because he is redundant with a new born (what about looking after the 3 other kids? ) she made it clear it’s some kind of an arrangement, ‘if you agree to another baby you can go on some bizarre antiquated walkabout while I stay at home with 4 kids’… Weird!!

The thing she said about knowing she needed to get pregnant again after the birth wasn’t what she’d hoped for just proves she has children to fulfil a selfish need. They aren’t just your experiences Jessie they are people! I mean hormones etc may make someone feel that at the time but she didn’t reflect that it wasn’t something she still sticks by.

 

[Posy Parker]

Who has listened to today's podcast? Jessie alarmed me by saying that Alfie can't be arsed to get up in the night if he needs a piss so he goes in a canteen and then he drinks water from it in the morning? Actual neanderthal behaviour displayed. Instant red card from me.

 

[Dustye]

Or why she keeps insisting on posting unnecessarily graphic pictures to go with it. I’m guessing once again it’s a tactic to get his attention. Why else would she do it? As you say, her parents are or were GPs.

Is it really that graphic? Seems like a perfectly normal pic of a baby being fed.

 

[panda_eyes]

do all partum / postpartum mothers where leggings up to their chests or is that just jessie?

Sometimes I like to pull my leggings up so high I can pop my arms down them so my shoulders are hidden too, and I look like a Mister Man/Little Miss but that might just be me....

 

[sixback]

Don't know what you guys think about this but when Jessie talks about Alfie so negatively it make me think less of her? Like, they have been together for ages, have three(!) kids together, he clearly has tried to end their relationship before but she clings to him - but then she also constantly publicly bitches about him - it's like??? When you are a kid you learn so much about relationships from observing your parents, and those kids are gonna be so messed up by witnessing the apparent disdain-obsession hybrid they have with each other.

But also it doesn't always ring true. I think Jessie likes to think of herself as *~special~* and maybe she thinks that presenting herself as a victim of this awful but "talented" man will win her points? It's like...if he is as awful as she says then just LEAVE him, but if she exaggerates for effect then that's a messed up way of talking about your partner?

Also this is my first post hello! Been watching their podcast and wondered if anyone else found them as frustrating as me - looks like i've found my people! It drives me bananas that Bebe thinks she's so clever but constantly uses the wrong words and talks very confidently about stuff but when you actually listen she has no idea what shes on about!

 

[Snazzycat]

I also agree that her breastfeeding posts are not graphic in the slightest but I'm bored of them. The Internet has an abundance of information and solutions regarding mastitis and blocked milk ducts, and like others have pointed out her own mother is or was a GP.
I think the real reason she posts those pictures is to emphasise how good she looks for someone with a newborn and three other kids. She feeds off the compliments she gets from followers telling her how great she is. To be honest I'm surprised she has the time.
I have a newborn too and the last thing I want to do is take selfies, but then I look and feel like shit, so maybe I'm just bitter!

 

[Snazzycat]

I love Parenting Hell! The difference with that is that it's all about sharing the ups and downs of parenting in solidarity with other parents, and all with a sense of humour.

Jessie seems to actively dislike other parents and can seem quite critical (e.g. talking about how she could never put her kids in nursery, after school clubs etc). I stopped listening to WCTATRN because all the weight chat was making me feel miserable, I might have to do the same with WIK because she makes me feel like a shit parent (put my son in full-time childcare from 9 months because I had to go back to work!).

Hey don't let someone who treats their own mum as a full time nanny make you feel like a shit parent! Jessie is immensely privileged to have a mum who is willing to do all that she does for free so Jessie can pursues her dreams. Most of us don't have those options, especially mothers of four young children!

Jessie needs to stop judging other parents, and to be honest I find all her childcare content annoying, I stopped listening to her podcast when I was pregnant because, to be honest she talks a load of rubbish a lot of the time. I find her relationship with Alfie very dysfunctional and unhealthy and frankly embarrassing. I also think she got lucky being cast in the Harry Potter films as she is not especially talented as an actress, and I don't really know why she is keen to pursue that career.

 

[blueberriesarenice]

I used to be a bit like Bebe and really enmeshed with my sister and my mum. Looking back it was toxic- dynamics like that in adults often are. I’m now married with a kid and live in another country but I never would’ve had the confidence to do those things if I was still living with my mum and sister and seeing them every day… it jsut enveloped who I was and I didn’t have much of an identity til I got a job in another city and moved on. But it’s possible for Bebe.

Oh and further to my last I also had rubbish relationships with patronising men a bit like Horatio and didn’t realise what prats they were! It’s crazy how young women can get into these loops but I hope Bebe gets some self esteem before she falls down the baby rabbit hole like Jessie.

 

[éman]

Just when you think he couldn't get any less supportive, now this?

I have a real soft spot for Jessie and don’t take to Alfie at all, but I think this is probably less likely to be anything to do with him having said something unpleasant, and more likely a general lingering paranoia on her part about doing anything he might find unappealing, because ultimately her faith in his attachment to her is, potentially with some justification, pretty low. If your sense of your relationship is that the other person has basically needed bribing and bargaining to keep around, you’re not going to feel blasé at the prospect of doing something you imagine might turn them off.

 

[sixback]

It's weird that they say that the people who express concern over Jessie's unhealthy relationship to food and her weight "haters". They also say that they only have an obsession with weight and food because they're actresses who grew up with Heat magazine - as though those things exclude them from having disordered eating rather than exacerbate the likelihood they'll experience it.

I don't listen to them much anymore because I find them that irritating combination of smug and wilfully ignorant. I despair for Jessie's kids, especially the girl who will probably grow up with a warped relationship to her body. When you're a kid you think your mum is the most beautiful woman in the world - and if she's starving herself and insinuating she's chubby (especially when she looks like Jessie who is thin), that really messes with your perception of worth and weight.

 

[sheleg]

I find her forced quirkiness so cringeworthy.

 

[maytoseptember]

There’s nothing more laughable than a privileged, upper middle class white woman trying to justify the absent father of her children by saying “it’s what tribal cultures do!”

I mean

 

[sheleg]

That is some colonial-era shit! I love how all these kids are so aggressively and self-consciously left wing, then you find out their relatives were governors of Hong Kong or attachés to King Leopold of Belgium or some shit

 

[Dustye]

He looks like Peter Dinklage

That's not fair to Peter Dinklage, who is a good looking man and seems like a decent sort.

 

[Topaz]

YES. I know SO many women like this and it’s infuriating. I definitely am guilty of always thinking my women friends deserve better men than they have but I do look at a lot of their man-child husbands/boyfriends and wonder why they’re settling for them.
The same is true of Jessie and Alfie. She thinks he’s wonderful but he’s so clearly the sort of tosser you’re supposed to age out of dating in your late 20s and look back on with a shudder. I can’t believe she’s chained herself to him with 3 kids. Poor girl can’t think much of herself to do that.

I feel like with them, apart from the gravitational pull of Alfie fathering her children, there's the cache of being with someone like him. What I mean is, he has this whole player-womaniser-manslut reputation () and being the girl he's chosen to be with, out of all girls, must be intoxicating for Jessie. It'd probably be hard to give that up and let another girl settle down with him. I think of it as the Annette Bening Effect people will always think there must be something unique and magnetic about you if you're the only one who can get him to settle down and commit.

 

[blueberriesarenice]

its crazy to me that jesie can be this bothered about her body shape with four young kids. i'm a mum too around her age and i'm not at all saying women do or should let themselves go or not care about their appearance after kids but the fact is, your little ones don't care about you being thin or fat (so long as you're reasonably healthy, obviously)- they care about their mum - about cuddles and reading stories and playing with their mum, you could wear a paper bag as far as theyre concerned, and at the same time your own self obsession generally does recede a bit even if you have one to look after, so i can only imagine what its like with four!

yes she's worked as an actress but she was never the ingenue female lead type lets face it, she was the quirky girl and that works for her and would work for her at most sizes - so the weight control cant be about that. i wish she could just relax and enjoy her kids and just let go of those hangups about her body or what she "should" wear or having crazy long hair etc and just realise that she's enough, for those kids - the opinions of casting directors or instagram followers or whatever doesnt matter a fucking bit right now, she just gave birth, no one cares if she fits back into her size 6 jeans straight away unlike some actresses. i mean whats the point of cultivating a career as an offbeat artist or a novelist, both very much jobs you can do from home and which are fairly cerebral, if you're so consumed with what you look like and having to act a certain way? she has total license to chill a bit now, she's [kind of] earned it.

her baby IS tiny and that's concerning and the selfie stuff is just a bit cringe, she looks like she's holding him so awkwardly it reminds me of that emily ratakowski pic where she looks like shes holding the baby like a massive purse. the difference with emily being her career actually depends on looking good in photos, etc!

 

[Heyholetsgo]

I actually don't listen to her podcasts and never seen Harry Potter I just like this thread

 

[skyehigh]

Oh I'm sure glad I found this thread. Saw her book in Waterstones at the weekend all the promotional quotes are from the usual suspects - Dolly Alderton, Pandora Sykes etc. which makes me think it's just the usual middle class back scratching (upper middle class obviously although not acknowledged because of the 'we are so kooky' schtick)