I just heard about this from my friends The Mouthy Housewives -- somehow this Jessica Alba quote has been floating around the web for a few days whilst I labored in blissful ignorance, thinking myself a “real” mother to my only daughter. Fool that I was!

Jessica Alba, that fabulous actress (currently starring in Spy Kids 8-Million! Don’t miss!) and paragon of maternal amazingness, recently gave an interview in which she waxed poetic about the impending arrival of her second child.

“It feels like you're really officially, really truly a mother when you have two kids,” quoth she.

Um, excuse me?

“One kid you're a mother for sure,” she continues, “but two takes it to another level.”

Oh, OK. Thanks for the clarification, Jess. I mean, thanks for throwing me and my pitiful ovaries a bone. I bow to your business, which, surely, being merely a mother of one, I can only begin to imagine. Excuse me while I go pop some bon bons into my mouth and draw a luxurious bubble bath, whilst you toil up there on your other “level”, secure in the fact that you are “really” and “truly” a mom now that you’ve given birth TWICE. Officially!

Aughh!

I know, I know. Why do I even care about this? Where’s my sense of humor? Why am I letting the opinions of a woman who doesn’t understand why actors need to use scripts get under my skin? I mean, I read a lot of celebrity news and gossip. And I know that people say things off the cuff, and sometimes things don’t come out the way they meant them to, and blah blah blah. But hey, Jessica Alba -- from this mother of one little girl ... 'F' you!

Because guess what, you sanctimonious little beotch, the fastest way to alienate your fellow mothers is to engage in that infuriating little game of one-upmanship. I would never say that Jessica Alba is not “really, officially” a mom because she can afford nannies and private chefs and all kinds of help that most of us can’t.

Surely Jessica Alba doesn’t REALLY think that I’m not a “real” mom. (Right?) But it’s so freaking insensitive to say something like that. What about women who want to have more children but struggle with infertility? Or make the hard choice not to for financial reasons? What about adoptive mothers? What about mothers whose children have died, or who are missing? They sure have a lot of free time on their hands, right Jess?

I would love to have more children. I'm not sure if it's in the cards for me though, for a variety of reasons, and surely that's why this gets under my skin so much. It's a sensitive issue for me. I know I certainly don't need Jessica Alba's validation to feel like a "real" mother -- I know I'm an official mama in every action I take, from snuggling in bed with my sweet sleepy daughter this morning to writing this rant. I guess I just want to state, for the record...

There is no such thing as a mother who is not “really, truly” a mother.

April Daniels Hussar is BettyConfidential’s Executive Editor. She usually has a much better sense of humor.