Until about two minutes ago, I didn’t know who Chrissy Teigen was. I still probably wouldn’t be able to pick her out of a lineup, unless of course the lineup was comprised of normal people, because she’s surely taller, more bronzed, and altogether more superhuman than the rest of us. Anyway, I didn’t know, didn’t care about her, but then a story came up in my Facebook feed about how the Internet is mad at her for going out to dinner when her new baby was just 10 days old.

So now I have to defend her, this woman I don’t know.

I have barely left my son since he was born. He’s now 15 months old, and the longest I’ve been apart from him is six hours — and that was for a wedding he was not invited to. When at a mom’s group someone asked if everyone had already been on weekends away from their 6-month-olds, I just ducked my eyes and smiled. A weekend away? He won’t nap without me lying next to him, his hand on my stomach, making sure I’m there and ready to nurse him if he stirs. I’ve become used to typing one-handed.

I never set out to do the whole attachment parenting thing. I’d read about it, thought it sounded nice, but also maybe a bit too much? And I don’t really buy the idea that not doing it damages the baby for life. As far as I can tell, everything damages them for life, according to someone on the Internet.

But I did want, desperately, to breastfeed. And breastfeeding leads to co-sleeping, leads to co-napping, leads to baby expecting unlimited access to nursing/being held all day and all night, and voilà!, attachment parenting here I am. It was when I Googled “accidental attachment parenting” and saw the auto-complete suggestion that I realized I was not alone and also that I was probably beyond help.

But I digress. My point is that I have barely been out of sight of my son in his first year of life, and I wish I had. I wish I’d left him more. There are some valid reasons why — for starters, my family lives 3,000 miles away. But there were other options — and I didn’t take them. So now when I do leave him, a fist of worry, fear, and guilt lodges itself in my gut.

Meanwhile, he is totally fine and having fun — it’s me who’s battling the separation anxiety. I believe that if I’d left him earlier and more often, I’d find it easier now. I wouldn’t feel uprooted without him beside me. And maybe he’d be a little more prepared to be held by someone — anyone — other than me while I make dinner.

Maybe Chrissy Teigen needed to assert the importance of her marriage into the overwhelming fog of those early postpartum weeks. Maybe she really wanted steak and they didn’t deliver. Maybe she wanted to see if the industrial-strength Spanx she bought got her one of those infuriating “look how quickly she lost the baby weight” headlines.

I don’t really care. Presumably, the baby was looked after — quite possibly she slept the whole time her mom was gone. And if I’m honest, I wish I’d done the same. I wish I’d left my son earlier. If it takes a village, it helps to let the village lend a hand every now and again.

However, if I’d left the house when he was a week old, I’d probably have been arrested for indecent exposure, since I definitely wasn’t wearing anything other than an unclipped nursing bra at that point. So, hooray for Chrissy Teigen for doing what’s right for her family and for putting on clothes and passing as human a week after giving birth.