Kylie Jenner is being praised across social media for speaking out about the struggles of postpartum recovery.
Six weeks after giving birth to her second child, Wolf, on Feb. 2, Kylie — who has kept a pretty low profile on social media in recent months — made a return to Instagram on Tuesday to update her fans on the realities of her journey.
After sharing a clip of herself walking on a treadmill, Kylie uploaded a string of videos speaking candidly to the camera about how she’s coping since giving birth.
“This experience for me personally has been a little harder than with my daughter,” she began, making reference to 4-year-old Stormi, whom she famously gave birth to in secret after keeping her entire pregnancy completely under wraps.
“It's not easy mentally, physically, spiritually, it's just crazy,” she continued, emphasizing that she felt it necessary to be as honest as possible with other new moms who may be facing similar struggles after giving birth.
“I didn't just want to get back to life without saying that because I think we can look on the internet — for other moms going through it right now — we can go on the internet, and it might look a lot easier for other people, and put the pressure on us, but it hasn't been easy for me either,” she said.
“It’s been hard,” she went on, revealing that she found it difficult to make it to her workout that day. “But I'm here, and I'm feeling better. So you got this!”
In a second series of videos posted moments later, Kylie went on to talk more specifically about the societal obsession with physical appearance after birth, assuring her followers that “it’s OK not to be OK.”
“Once I realized that I was putting some pressure on myself... And I just keep reminding myself I made a whole human, a beautiful healthy boy,” she said, before adding: “We have to stop putting pressure on ourselves to be ‘back.’ Not even physically, just mentally, after birth. So yeah, just sending some love. I love you guys!”
Her candid statement came as a pleasant surprise to many of her followers, particularly in light of the fact that she famously experienced her first pregnancy and postpartum journey away from the spotlight.
Gathering on Reddit shortly after, fans praised Kylie for her honesty, with one user noting that this feels like the most authentic she’s been online in a long time.
“Does anyone feel like this is the most real Kylie has been in years?” they wrote. “Showing her vulnerability and relating to other moms … this seems like a huge step for her.”
“I really appreciate her being vulnerable and sharing that she’s struggled,” agreed another.
Similarly, a running theme in the praise was the stark contrast between her current openness and the highly curated and perfected content she typically shares on Instagram.
“This is so different for her to open up like this. Appreciate the realness!” someone wrote. “Nice change from her usual content.”
“This is such a genuine moment from Kylie,” echoed another. “I appreciate her showing the person behind the veil for a moment.”
“I really appreciate her saying this because I feel like she’s always made it look easy (like a lot of moms do) and I [struggled] so fucking bad during postpartum,” they said.
However, there were a couple of fans who, while appreciative of Kylie’s candor, couldn’t help but highlight that she and her family have been largely responsible for perpetuating the kind of societal pressures that make new moms feel the need to “snap back.”
“Yes, but also it’s so tone [deaf] of her to make this ‘real’ video about postpartum pressure when things like her own plastic surgery post-birth with Stormi are what amplify that pressure on the average woman in the first place….” someone wrote, drawing attention to Kylie’s grand return to the world stage following her first pregnancy.
“Good on her for speaking out on the unrealistic expectations influencers like her & her sisters help create in the beauty industry,” agreed another user. “I hope she carries this openness and realness the rest of the time she posts.”
If you’ve been following the family for a while, you’ll know that Kylie’s recent statement marks a shift in conversations about postpartum recovery for the Kardashian and Jenner sisters.
Despite what her social media presence may have suggested at the time, Kylie struggled with body image issues after gaining weight during her first pregnancy.
During a 2018 episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, the beauty mogul can be seen grappling with her postpartum insecurities while preparing for a Calvin Klein photo shoot with her sisters just weeks after she gave birth to Stormi.
In the scene, her sisters reassure her that her body looks perfectly fine, to which Kylie responds: “It just doesn’t.” Later in the episode, Kylie reveals that she found returning to photo shoots to be “hard and discouraging,” reflecting a much wider issue about the pressures to lose weight after giving birth.
With this in mind, Kylie’s decision to speak candidly in real time about the struggles of postpartum recovery with her second pregnancy marks a distinct contrast to her approach after Stormi’s birth, perhaps alluding to a new and more unfiltered presentation of motherhood in the public eye.
After giving birth to her first child, Mason, in 2009, Kourtney felt so much pressure to lose weight for a “post-baby body” magazine reveal that she ended up collapsing following weeks of dieting and overexercise.
Similarly, Kim revealed in 2016 that after giving birth to her son, Saint, she set a date for a major magazine shoot to act as a deadline for her weight loss, motivating her to stick to a strict diet until the date rolled around.
And so, less than six months after welcoming baby Saint, Kim posed nude on the cover of GQ Magazine to debut her weight loss after pregnancy.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to feel your best after facing a pregnancy as medically complicated as Kim’s. However, the enforced timescale of her weight loss demonstrates the prevalent obsession with postpartum beauty expectations, resulting in extreme pressures for new moms.
With all this in mind, it seems like Kylie is taking a new approach and opting to keep it real with fans about her slow and steady recovery — a surprising but welcome turning point in the Kardashian/Jenners’ filtered feeds.
