Popular Aussie radio presenter and television host Fifi Box has announced she is pregnant – but it was an announcement that’s a game-changer.
Box, 41, revealed her news on Instagram on Sunday, in a video where she told daughter Trixie, five, that she was “good sick” because there was a baby in her “tummy”. The video was sweet, and the accompanying caption heartwarming.
“We’re having a baby!” Box wrote.
“Yes, Trixie and I are over the moon/jumping out of our skin/can’t stop smiling/floating on air/dancing in the streets/walking on sunshine and every other metaphor that conveys absolute pure joy…Being a mum is my greatest joy in life…I will cherish Trixie and this little angel forever.”
The video has been viewed more than 151,000 times, and has attracted over 2,500 comments of congratulations.
In the social media euphoria, one might not have realised there was something very different about Box’s announcement.
Box said, “We’re having a baby!” and yes, that’s a very common phrase to use.
But if you thought that by ‘we’, Box meant her and her heterosexual husband, you thought wrong.
If you presumed that by ‘we’, Box meant her heterosexual but unmarried partner, you thought wrong.
If you even assumed ‘we’ meant ‘my same sex partner and I’, you would be, once again, incorrect.
Because unlike most other pregnancy announcements, and unlike any other celebrity announcement we can think of, ‘we’, for once, didn’t mean any of those things. No, when Box said ‘we’, she was talking about her and her daughter.
You see, the post also mentions that Box had IVF to become pregnant through an anonymous sperm donor; so there was no adult partner in her ‘we’. She meant Trixie.
This difference is why after Box’s announcement, the rest of us will never look at ‘we’ the same way again. It was the most perfect reminder that not all families look the same in 2019, and it’s something we don’t see nearly enough of.
Box made her point by simply using a phrase that’s commonly used to announce a pregnancy, and she let people interpret that for themselves. It was the ultimate pregnancy announcement that was pregnant, ahem, with meaning. It was the ultimate recognition for every family who is a ‘we’, and has always been a ‘we’, but isn’t always accepted as such.
Families like the one created by American comedian Mindy Kaling, 39, who is a family with her baby daughter, Katherine. And the small family of Australian media personality Laura Csortan, 42 , with Baby Layla Rose.
Both Kaling and Csortan are raising their kids as sole parents – but don’t differentiate themselves from any other family. They actively talk on social media about their family-of-two as family – without explaining why there isn’t the traditionally expected ‘other’ adult on the scene.
Because this is 2019 and there’s no such thing as a ‘traditional’ family any more. There are just families, without definition imposed by others. Box made it clear the only definition of family that matters to her twosome, is hers.
On behalf of every child and parent in a ‘non-traditional’ family, thank you, Fifi Box, for showing the world we are a ‘we’, too.
What did you think of Box’s pregnancy announcement? Tell us in the comments below.
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Top Comments
I have to wonder - as Trixie has contact and visits with her dad Grant Kenny, and I imagine, time with his extended family, what's the plan for the new child growing up seeing his or her sister having that? No matter how much love Fifi (and Trixie) lavish on this child, all the toys, attention, cuddles, great education, nice house, family holidays can't make up for this. There'd have to be a plan formed with psychologist advice, surely?
Big deal
Does anyone really care?