Women choosing when to have children & my pet peeve about Brad/Angelina

[bleedingheart]

Okay...perhaps it is only me...but I got the impression over the past few years that the media circus was hovering around Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston and they were all hoping for the two to have a baby. In fact as I recall there were headlines about this daily at the local grocery store.

Now I don't know why the hell Brad and Jen broke up and it is none of my business but I can't help but feel that the media is played it like this...

Brad and Jen...how cute
Brad and Jen get married...cuter
Brad and Jen aren't breeding yet...okay...
Rumor - Brad wants babies...Jen doesn't...
Rumor - Brad gives up pot to have babies
Rumor - Jen wants to focus on career and wait on the baby thing...

Brad leave Jen...
Brad now hanging out with Angelina..
Brad adopts Angelina's kids...oh how sweet..
Brad impregnates Angelina...ooh..ahhhh
Let us try and see what Jen thinks....

So it appears that the media is scoring this as the "the first wife denied him his right to breed with her right away...and now he is moving on to the woman that will breed"...

Now I have no clue how the actual people got together or broke apart...BUT I don't like how the media is spinning this...

okay...am I being a goof?

I know that when I married my husband we discussed kids and we married because we loved one another...and decided that if we weren't meant to have kids naturally we would adopt or we would have none...in the end we had two of our own...BUT I was sensitive to the issue due to the fact that a doctor had told me as a teen that I might not be able to have any due to medical problems....
I also witnessed a friend of the family have her heart broken when her long term boyfriend dumped her when she decided for health reasons to be sterilized (she had severe childhood diabetes and it was something she was advised to do..) they had been planning on getting married and because she couldn't bear the fruit of his loins...he felt she wasn't good enough...it was really sad.

[atommom]

1. I really don't follow the movie star gossip, but I couldn't avoid hearing

all about this story. And I agree ... the media is spinning it as punishment for Jen because she wouldn't pop out a few babies when he wanted them. Very 1950s.

And no, I don't think you're a goof. You sound a lot saner on this issue than most.

[bleedingheart]

6. thanks...

I was starting to think...am I the only one who sees this "message"...that women better breed or wait for their man to go looking elsewhere???

I am glad that others see it too...

[Hello_Kitty]

2. You can't avoid the Brad/Jen/Angelina story even if you try so:

I don't think you are a goof at all for interpreting the coverage the way you do. That's it's being spun as a cautionary tale to uppity women who have the audacity to think they should have a choice about when or whether to bear children is obvious.

What I'd like to add to your comment is this: Why in the HELL do so many MEN wait until they are FORTY and OLDER to decide that they want to settle down and start a family? It's true that men have the biological capacity to procreate until well into old age while women are limited but there is a lot more to being a father than donating sperm. Fathering late in life entails trying to chase your kid around as an old geezer, not to mention the possibility that you won't even be around to see the kid graduate. Also, a wealthy handsome guy like Brad Pitt can easily get himself a young wife to impregnate but you wouldn't believe how many regular guys I meet who think they are going to follow suit. Guys in their late 30s and early 40s who are suddenly anxious to meet Ms. Mother of my Children, who must be younger and suitably domestic.

[I Have A Dream]

3. I hadn't thought of the "cautionary tale" aspect of the reporting...

but I think that you hit the nail on the head. Good insight, ccbombs!

[bleedingheart]

7. as a child of older parents I agree with you...

there are people who postpone childbearing for good reasons but to be honest there are drawbacks. in 1969 when it wasn't "cool" to be an older parent, I was born to a 50 year old father and a 37 year old mother...and while they were happy they were concerned and for good reason. My father was dead at 60 due to his health issues.

[atommom]

8. I was born to older parents too...

Mom was 38, Dad 62. I had a good childhood, but I know we missed out on some things due to Dad's health ... and I certainly miss both of them now. :( I'm still a firm believer in having kids only when you're ready, though.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. As a 50+ woman, I finally gave up on the personals because there were

so many men who were advertising for a woman under 35 to have children with. :grr:

I know I'll never have children :-( amd at my age, I also know that I wouldn't have the energy to deal with infants and toddlers full time. But I went thorugh a period of mourning in my early forties, and I've come through it.

I suppose the men don't think of this because they assume that their young wives will do all the chlid raising.

[bliss_eternal]

4. The whole thing is so bizarre--

what's worse is, there were people in the lounge going off on each other about Angelina Jolie being a 'homewrecker' and a 'whore.' Excuse me?! Some of this coming from women, which really bothered me. When some called them on it--all they could do is quote back what this tabloid or the other had claimed about their 'dating time-line.'

None of us knows them personally. We have no idea what was going on with their lives. I seem to recall the media painting a scarlet A on Meg Ryan years ago for a fling with Russell Crowe. Much later it was revealed that she was seperated at the time,that she allegedly was trying to keep quiet for her son's sake. Probably didn't help matters much that the media put her on every tabloid they could with the whole 'she's a floozy, leaving her adoring son and post addiction recovery husband, who could go on a bender any day now because SHE is a harlot.'

:wtf:

Bullshit! It's all just bogus crap! How dare anyone paint women in this light to sell their shitty papers and to reinforce extreme stereotypes of women.

[bleedingheart]

5. I personally believe that we should stay out of people's personal lives

whether they are celebrities or just the average joe down the street.

In this case my pet peeve is the way the media is spinning it...and I have to agree with you, no one knows the real story, only the story the media has spun up and that is a shame.

[bliss_eternal]

9. Agreed!

I don't get how people get so vested in other's personal lives, especially the lives of celebrities. It's as if they know them personally--weird.

The media spin is disgraceful. If they took half as much time on shrub as they do on Jolie, Pitt, Aniston, etc. the public would be much better informed! It really pisses me off... :mad:

[Heddi]

10. An odd note about Jenn/Brad/whoever

Jennifer and Brad got married the same day my husband and I did--July 29, 2000.

What was so fucking infuriating was the next working day after we were married, people came up to me and were like "oh! How special! You two got married on the same date as Jen/Brad. Did you PLAN that?"

what
the
fuck
is
wrong
with
people
??????

It's odd that for MONTHS after we were married, and I'd tell people the date we were married, people would KNOW that was "the date" for the "other wedding". They had the FUCKING DATE committed to memory.

I can barely remember what I had for dinner last night, and 5 bazillion people voted for Bush 2x's, and these ignorants can remember the fucking date that two forgetable celebrities got married?

And that, my friends, is when I realized that I was living in a world filled with people who had priorities so very much different from my own. That realization was confirmed later that year during the 2000 elections, and have been confirmed in the nearly 6 years since then....

Yes. I *DID* get married on THAT date because Jen and Brad did. :eyes:

Actually--we picked the date because we couldn't figure out how to choose a wedding date. So we started out with our dating anniversary (July 29, 1997) and looked on a calendar, saw it fell on a Saturday and bam. The date was set. And being the bad American that I am, I did not have Benn and Jrad in my mind at ALL when the date was planned.

[Hello_Kitty]

11. That IS bizarre!!

People actually know the date of their wedding?!?!

Unfreakingbelieveable....Meanwhile, I run into people constantly - and I mean people with college degrees often times - who couldn't tell you who their U.S Senators are and don't even know how many are alloted to their state. I'll bet my paycheck most of those people who made that comment about your wedding are in that category.

I weep for this country....:(

[bleedingheart]

12. on one hand it is really funny (the story)...but on the other hand it is

pathetic...

what little I know of the brad/jen affair is from my grocery shopping where I have to endure headline after headline about their "romance"...i watch little tv so I have been lucky not to endure it there...BUT...to remember their wedding date...bah...that is too funny...

I hope you have have a really sarcastic reply for folks who ask you about it...

[bliss_eternal]

13. that is INSANE!

I can NOT believe that people would have a celebrity wedding date comitted to memory. :wtf:

I'm so sorry that people first of all, diminished a special day for you, Heddi. Second of all, just when I think I've heard THE most incredible and braindead thing a person could do, once again I'm proven wrong!

What IS wrong with people?! Oooops, sorry- I shouldn't be so darned judgemental. :(

Anyway, thanks for sharing Heddi! :hi:

[BlueIris]

14. Yikers! I'll admit to keeping up on celebrity gossip, but that is

way beyond.

[geniph]

16. The only reason I even know the date of my OWN wedding

is that we quite deliberately got married on April Fools' Day. Otherwise, neither of us would remember it. I have to actually sit down and think about it to remember the year.

[BlueIris]

17. It's disgusting how much media validation exists for men like Pitt,

and for anyone who does not consider a partner truly worth loving in a permanent sense if that partner can't be useful to them as a breeding device. (Yes, before anyone jumps me, I've met women who embrace this sick mindset, too; I was never more disturbed in my life than the time a close coworker 'opened up' and told me that if it weren't for her desire to raise a child "on two incomes," she would just "head to a sperm bank" instead of trying to make her relationship with her boyfriend into a marriage.) This attitude may be common, but that doesn't mean it's not disgusting. There's a part of it that is simply and inexcusably callous. And I'm not swallowing the "it's a natural biological instinct, we can't help it" crap as an explanation. I think it's so much more likely that the trend seeing people approach their relationships from this shallow perspective is an outgrowth of the inhumane way both men and women are increasingly encouraged to think of their partners as sex objects, tools to increase their social status with, survival mechanisms and aspects of their procreative support systems, instead of other people, with brains, hearts, identities and lives of their own apart from the entity of the family unit. That pervasive Ameican entitlement mentality isn't helping shut it down, either.

I really feel sorry for the children born to people like Brad Pitt.