Hollywood's Latest Trend

It seems like everywhere I turn, someone is pregnant! Maybe that is just the way it goes when you are 30 something because that's the time when most of your friends are having babies, but it seems a bit crazy right now. My friend T is a couple of months along now. My friend L from teaching last year is 7 months pregnant. And all you have to do to see a pregnant woman these days is flip through people magazine, where apparently, being pregnant is so very "in" these days.

There was a time when being a working Mom wasn't even an option at all. Fathers went to work and brought home the money to support their families. Moms stayed at home, forsaking any career goals or aspirations for the greater good of their family unit. How times have changed!! There are still Moms who stay at home, of course, but that is because they are choosing to, not simply because that's what "everyone else is doing." It took a while I think for celebrity women to really be allowed to have a career and family, though. There was a time in Hollywood where pregnancy or motherhood meant the end of a woman's career, period. No studio was going to hire a woman who had a child, and that was just it, like an unwritten law.

Suddenly, however, it seems like having a baby is just as trendy as wearing the latest Versace designs or carrying the newest Berkin bag. A pregnant belly is no longer a shocking thing to see at awards ceremonies or a thing to be hidden until your trainers can work you to death to get your celebrity body back. The press has even given it a cute name... a baby "bump". They will call it a "bump" even if it's a freakin mountain sized belly, just because it sounds more trendy and cutesy. So, let's count the celebrities who are pregnant or have very recently given birth:
Jennifer Lopez (who just had twins), Christina Aguilera, Nicole Richie, Jessica Alba, Halle Barry, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Lisa Marie Presley, Salma Hayek, and who can forget little Jamie Lynn Spears. I am sure I am leaving out tons of others, but I'm sure you get my point. Everyone is pregnant!!

I have no doubt that being a mother is what everyone says it is. It changes your life, it gives you new meaning, and all that good stuff. Salma Hayek says in a recent magazine interview that she was "born to have this girl." And I also think it is wonderful that my friends are happy and are having babies of course. I just know that even though I have found the man of my dreams, I am not ready to go down that path yet. There are already so many pressures put on women (especially in the south I will say) to have certain things like husbands and families, like I wrote earlier this week... and now it seems like the pressure to have a baby is coming from all sides as well. That doesn't mean I am going to have one, but it certainly makes me wonder how younger girls are handling it. if there's already all that pressure from your everyday life to get married by a certain age and have children, then you turn on the tv or flip through a magazine and are bombarded with baby "bump" photos... maybe it just seems more and more like the thing to do these days.

I am not really sure what I am trying to say with this post, I am just making some observations I guess. On one hand, I think it's amazing and wonderful that women have more choices and can more easily handle the stress and pressures of being a mom, a wife, a celebrity or a working mom, and all of that. On the other hand, though, it does appear that some people are taking this newfound freedom that women have and abusing it simply because it seems like the "it" thing to do. After all, Angelina Jolie may make it look easy to have 4 or 5 kids, but we normal women need to remember that she also makes something like $30 million a year and can buy all the help she needs to raise them all. I don't know what my final point is here, just that it's been on my mind lately.