People! Please everyone listen to me now, as I am a parent, and everything I say is the new truth!!!!
The truth is, humans have been reproducing since we evolved from our previous form (this is not a blog about our origins), so people the world over have been mothers, and fathers, etc…… since time began.
So why is it that every time someone ‘high profile’, ‘superstar’, or whatever word you like to use, enters this ‘non-exclusive market’, it is like this phenomenon never took place before it happened to ‘them’. We are not only talking about natural parenthood, but also about the high profile adoptions of children by the ‘elite’
Through the years several names have sprung to mind. It began (during my youth) with the singer-turned actress, turned model, turned dancer, Madonna. Besides having children of her own, she also made international news by adopting several African kids and taking the to The USA. She gushed about the joys of motherhood and gave advice to anyone who would listen (and there were millions), and gave her reasons for such ‘selfless acts’.
Another generation later, the actress (see a pattern here?) Angelina Jolie did a similar thing by adopting several African boys and girls, in between having her own children, which attracted world media attention, and again prompted her to also gush about the joys of motherhood, and explain the feeling to the world of billions of mothers who obviously didn’t know this feeling until they were told by her.
Now after not such a long generation gap, the latest is the tennis player Serena Williams. She was pregnant in 2017 while she was playing competitive tennis and gave birth in September 2017.
Upon her return to the tennis world the usual frenzy of media and fans were treated to multiple displays of, and monologues about, the joys of motherhood and the descriptions of how things are ‘so different now being a mom’ The tennis has actually been reduced to a sideshow circus of Serena and daughter. I happen to be a big tennis fan, but of the sport itself, not everything which goes with it. Unfortunately I have to change channels several times when it was time for the Serena interviews.
This has nothing to do with parenthood, but it has everything to do with the world we live in; a world in which the idea is that billions of mothers around the world do not know anything about being a mother. Only the famous sporting, acting, or singing stars know this feeling. It does a disservice to all the women, including my own mother, throughout history whose worth has been cast aside at the expense of the ‘superstar’ These people try to pretend that they are ‘normal’ people and go through the ‘normal issues’ In some respects they do of course, but in most respects having multiple millions in the bank, worldwide exposure, and an army of assistants to help with your children, is hardly what you would call a real existence. There are billions of mothers who go about their daily lives and raise their children, feel the joy, the pain, the emotion of raising kids. They do not need a rich kid telling them what it is like.
I hope one day that the birth of offspring to the ‘elite’ stops drawing so much attention and press, but I feel that it will only get worse.
