(Lainey: How was your Mother’s Day? Mother’s Day belongs to Hollywood now. Does it feel like Mother’s Day is being taken over by celebrities and their babies? None of the writers usually featured on this site have babies. So... meet Maria. Maria is a friend. She is also the Managing Editor of Vitamin Daily and just celebrated her first Mother’s Day as a mother (of Jackson, born last year).

Last week, Maria’s rage kept building and building in response to the Hollywood Mother’s Day motherload so I asked her to share her thoughts. Were other mothers feeling the same? See below and then send us your thoughts!)

Did You Survive Celebrity Mother’s Day?

I did. It was my first. I watched Breaking Bad gag reels and my son gave me a Shopbop gift card. Perfect. It felt like Mother’s Day was Valentine’s Day on steroids this year. Did you get that sense?

On Wednesday Lainey and I started talking about the marked uptick in mommy coverage. It was a bombardment; here’s a small (very small) sample. There were so many headlines, I stopped counting.

It starts with the A’s:

Sandra Bullock “All the Love She Needs”, which sounds like an ‘80s power ballad.

Beyonce and Jay-Z “will have more kids.” (They just had their first, chill out people!)
Tina Knowles: “We’re excited to celebrate Beyonce’s first Mother’s Day.” Doesn’t this go without saying? I mean they aren’t going to be morose about it.

Gwyneth gets complimented on her children’s manners. I can’t even hate on this, because I actually believe Apple and Moses have impeccable manners.

Ben Affleck telling Jennifer Garner – with whom, correct me if I’m wrong, he has never walked a red carpet since they’ve been married – that she’s a “world-class mom” on Facebook. Ben knows exactly how it works; this small piece of parental pimping led to more exposure for the video, which is in support of his work in the Republic of Congo.

Not to be upstaged, Jessica Simpson’s nursery details (it’s “boho,” in case you needed to know), tweets about being so in love with “Baby Maxwell,” and Eric’s “diaper duty fear” on the cover of US Weekly. It sounds like a storyline from What to Expect When You’re Expecting, the movie. Simpson Family parental pimping is hereditary, like eye colour. It’s just part of their DNA.

Everyone played. Anna Farris and Chris Pratt announce her pregnancy just in time for The Dictator release. Kelly Preston: “I got sober to be a better mom,” which is a months old quote they are pulling out now because of John’s handy j problem. Katherine Heigl outside a friend’s house with her new baby in a bassinette – what a coincidence that the paparazzi know where Katherine Heigl’s friend lives.

Motherhood is the all-around strategy these days: it’s how they go on the offense to book jobs and the defense to sanitize their image.

Ellen had a Mother’s Day show, and Hilary Duff was a guest. Don’t celebs usually go on talk shows to promote something? I guess Hilary was promoting… birth. She talked about delivery room snacks and her easy labour (her words, not mine).  Little Lizzie Maguire is trying so hard to stay relevant. Or become relevant again, depending on how you look at it. But she is doing a charity partnership with Johnson & Johnson and seems quite sweet. She’s the same age as Lindsay Lohan. At one point they were contemporaries (and were fighting over Aaron Carter!). So no matter how hard Hilary uses her momness, she isn’t Lindsay Lohan. That’s saying a lot.

And the hardest working mom pimp in the game: Jessica Alba on US Weekly.com with the caption “Haven’s Fierce Mama.” I would rather have my photo caption read “Alba Bitch” than “Haven’s Fierce Mama”, especially when my outfit is so damn cute!

Not to mention the shrewdly timed TIME Magazine cover and celeb reactions to it. You’ve all seen it right? Of course you have. It’s Monday, so let’s not get too deep. This is a cultural war and it’s being waged on the playground.

And that’s just a sampling of what we’re dealing with, not including the photo albums, special Mother’s Day features (like the advice letters D-listers wrote their children to be published on USWeekly.com- huh?) and coverage on every pregnant celeb from Drew Barrymore to Molly Sims. It really does pay.

And it also shows what they think of us, the editors, the publicists, the marketeering teams. We are supposed to forget that Jessica Alba is an actress and accept her as an eco-friendly expert. We are supposed to be concerned with how Jessica Simpson loses her baby weight. They depend on us to care.

It would freak me out to have my kid photographed the way celebs do. I don’t have Facebook even. And so few hide (Johnny Depp or James McAvoy are the only ones that come to mind). I know how photos are released is a discussion, but I wonder if why photos are released is ever talked about. Or is it just a forgone conclusion for most? They say teens have no filter when it comes to social media, that they put everything out there.

But no one overshares like a mom.

The only photo I’d like to see is Linda Evangelista and Salma Hayek having a playdate.

We can change the conversation or start a new one. It doesn’t have to be tut-tutting and giving side-eyes to moms who don’t do it exactly like us. Step one: promise not to see What to Expect When You’re Expecting.