In a recent Instagram dispatch, boxer Tommy Fury posted a picture of his fiancee, influencer Molly-Mae Hague, in sportswear with the caption: ‘So proud of my girl, after giving birth four weeks ago she’s already back smashing in the gym.’He added she was the ‘best workout partner’ with a little heart emoji for good measure. How irritating is this post? Let me count the ways.First, the patronising tone: patting his girl on the head as though she were a good little labrador who has caught a ball.Then the tedious showing off about going to the gym – a trend that has spawned a million selfies of celebrities sharing the information that they have picked up a dumbbell (no small feat with a phone glued to one hand).Most annoying of all is the way Fury’s post perpetuates the daft and downright damaging notion that women should be back in the gym straight after having a baby.When this picture was taken, their son Midas was less than four weeks. I have cheddar in the fridge that has been in the world longer than him. And she is being praised for leaving her baby in order to ‘smash’ it on a cross trainer? Boxer Tommy Fury posted a picture of his fiancee Molly-Mae in sportswear with the caption: ‘So proud of my girl, after giving birth four weeks ago she’s already back smashing in the gym’Molly-Mae isn’t the first. This year singer Ellie Goulding, 39, posted a picture of herself doing weights three weeks after having her baby girl, triumphantly captioned: ‘Back to it all over again.’Mother-of-four rapper Cardi B, 33, takes the record, showing herself climbing 80 floors on a step machine just eight days after giving birth. Surely it won’t be long before they’re doing press-ups right after the cord is cut.It’s part of a wider trend of celebrities ‘bouncing back’ nanoseconds after birth – not just physically but professionally.Last month 44-year-old actress Sienna Miller had a baby; three weeks later she was back on the promo trail, appearing on a US talk show and posting pictures of herself being glammed up while breastfeeding. Goulding was back on stage weeks after giving birth. There seems to be a competition about how quickly women can get back in the saddle post-partum. It’s not a wisdom tooth you’ve had extracted, it’s a human being. Doesn’t a life event this seismic deserve a proper break from normal proceedings?No doubt I am committing the sin of ‘mum-shaming’. Well, so be it. Because people who spend their lives generating content for social media have huge levels of influence and with that influence comes responsibility.Millions of young people see Molly-Mae and Tommy’s posts as a blueprint for their own lives. So when a new mum sees her celebrated for exercising so soon they might conclude that they, too, should chuck their baby at the nearest responsible adult and get down to the gym themselves.This is wrong: the NHS advises that women don’t exercise until their six-week check-up at the earliest, partly because the hormone relaxin (which loosens joints) is still in the body for months after birth, putting women at higher risk of injury.More importantly, there’s the mental impact these kinds of posts have on normal mums struggling in the swamp of soggy breast pads and zero sleep.I have children aged eight, six, five and two, and well remember the shock of having my first: shuffling around for months with a baby over my shoulder, breastfeeding constantly, hours spent unable to move because she would only nap on me. Every four days or so I would manage to put the baby in a bouncy chair on the bathroom floor and climb into the shower for a few minutes before she started mewling again.While I was besotted with my daughter, I was also frustrated at how slow my life had become. Days which used to run at 100mph seemed to stand still. Sleep, eat, feed, change nappy, repeat. It was hard enough to make a sandwich, let alone pound a treadmill or wear a designer dress.Eight years on I still haven’t stepped back into a gym, though I try to get my 10,000 steps in a day. I’ve learned to surrender to the reality that life is utterly changed and not to compare it to my past life or to others.Those early months might have been a weird mixture of bliss and boredom – but at least I wasn’t on Instagram, looking at pictures of other mothers showing off their flat tummies or glamorous lives. It’s terrible to think of new mothers comparing and despairing, their feelings of frumpiness or inadequacy fuelled by these unattainable expectations.What the Molly-Maes of this world never show is the nannies in the background, the housekeeper hoovering and cleaning, the assistants ordering the shopping. If you have an army of helpers around you then it’s rather easier to get back to the gym, or head to a glam party, or pose angelically with your baby on social media.I do wish all those show-off influencers would remember the impact their posts have – and stop pressuring women to start spinning plates straight out of the maternity ward.While I totally understand the impatience some young mothers feel (because I felt it myself), I also know how fleeting those months are, when your baby is dusted with the softest hair, their legs curled up like a frog, their tiny hands splayed like stars.It is a relatively short and precious chapter of life: don’t rush to leave it. The gym can wait.Penelope Keith – a true DameI worked as a junior wardrobe assistant on a Noel Coward play 25 years ago, helping actors into their costumes backstage. Star of the show was the late Dame Penelope Keith, who always gave me a radiant smile and a friendly word. Dame Penelope Keith was always friendly to Clare Foges when she worked as a junior wardrobe assistant on a play with her 25 years agoYou can measure the character of a VIP by how they treat NVIPs (not very important people) – and to this lowly stagehand, she was utterly lovely. Oh for the days of Cliff Richard!Is it just me, or is Wimbledon not what it used to be?SW19 was once the home of English elegance. These days it’s a materialistic, image-obsessed fashion parade for celebrities and players alike, presided over by the unofficial King and Queen of Centre Court: David Beckham and Katherine Jenkins.Oh for the days of Cliff Richard singin’ in the rain. Clare says these days Wimbledon is a materialistic, image-obsessed fashion parade for celebrities and players alike, presided over by David Beckham and Katherine JenkinsParenting is to blame, not schoolsAn inquiry says white working-class children are being failed by the education system. This avoids an uncomfortable truth about the part parenting plays.Why is it that Chinese-British children consistently do best, with attainment on average 27 months ahead of white British pupils?Is it because they are favoured by ‘the system’ – or because their parents insist on hard work and high aspirations? To solve the problem, we must examine its roots honestly.TG Jones – the new name for WH Smith – is on the brink of insolvency. I’m not surprised. At my local store there’s normally numerous broken self-service check-out machines and one member of staff trying to fix them. When will the corporates learn:if you strip human workers out of your stores, they stop being a pleasure to shop in. And they wonder why the High Street’s dying.