Mayor Bill de Blasio Monday chastised two city tabloids for their “deeply disturbing” coverage of his wife Chirlane McCray’s parenting that was described in a New York Magazine profile.
The New York Post devoted the front page to a photo of McCray alongside the headline “I Was A Bad Mom!” while the Daily News ran a front-page headline that said, “Didn’t want to be a mom.”
“I think both the Post and the Daily News owe Chirlane an apology. I think they owe all of us an apology for absolutely misrepresenting what she said, and for caricaturing, you know, a reality that I think so many women face,” de Blasio told reporters at a bill signing ceremony, according to a transcript from the mayor’s office.
McCray said in the profile that she regretted the amount of time she devoted in 1994 to her newborn child, Chiara.
“I had a life. Especially with Chiara — will we feel guilt forever more? Of course, yes,” she told the magazine. “But the truth is, I could not spend every day with her. I didn’t want to do that. I looked for all kinds of reason not to do it.”
McCray added that she needed to adjust to her new role as a parent.
“I love her. I have thousands of photos of her — every 1-month birthday, 2-month birthday. But I’ve been working since I was 14, and that part of me is me. It took a long time for me to get into ‘I’m taking care of kids,’ and what that means,” McCray said in the story published Monday
De Blasio Monday said that McCray had wanted children, which was evident in the New York Magazine piece.
The New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women defended McCray with a social media hashtag in her honor. The Rev. Al Sharpton on Twitter singled out the Post’s “repulsive distortion” of her interview, which shows “they do not even hold motherhood to be sacred.”
Reps for the tabs did not immediately respond to request for comment.
