I feel bad for Jennifer Garner

By Meredith

The former kick-butt TV spy accompanied her actor hubby to a movie premiere recently, and a single image from the event sparked an online discussion of whether she was pregnant or just fleshy.

Online rumblings about whether Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes actually had a child -- and whether the whole pregnancy was a fake -- degraded into a dissection of photos of Holmes and a debate about whether the belly glimpse in one of the paparazzi shots showed actual skin or a prosthetic pregnancy bump.

Hapless Britney Spears is mercilessly tracked wherever she goes, her every gesture made when carrying her baby -- even stumbling and nearly dropping her child -- is recorded.

Putting aside the fact that these folks are celebrities who need a certain amount of exposure in order to sell their products (themselves, their movies, TV shows, CDs, etc.), they are parents. They are real flesh and blood people. With feelings.

Now I'm just as interested in entertainment news as the next person, but what I despise is the deconstruction, the piece-by-piece demolition and examination of those who dare to earn their living via the entertainment arts.

I cannot imagine what it's like to be pregnant, to go through all the different stages of pregnancy while the entire world watches and scrutinizes. You venture out of the house, lift your arm and *gasp* inadvertently reveal that you have stretch marks. The entertainment media complex them starts musing over when you'll have surgery to repair your professional career.

You bring your child out of the house and stumble a bit while maneuvering the child out of her stroller. The whole world then discusses what a bumbling parent you are.

You start losing your pregnancy weight, and major magazines judge your progress.

When I was pregnant, there were plenty of "bad" fashion days and plenty of accidental public exhibitions of my stretch marks. When my children were babies, I was plenty awkward with them on occasion as I tried to move them from car seat to stroller and back. But I was lucky. No one was around to mock me for every mistake. No one was musing over whether I'd eaten a bit too much take-out, or whether I was pregnant again (not that I ever heard about anyway).

So why can't we just give these fellow parents some space? Sure, critique their professional work products -- their shows, music, interviews, etc. -- but let them and their families live in peace. Can't we?

Meredith O'Brien is a journalist who lives with her family in the Boston area.

Comments

[micheal]

I AM YOUR BIGGEST FAN PLEASE ADD ME SO WE CAN CHART MORE, THANKS MICHEAL FROM NIGERIA.

[Lisa]

I live in L.A. and have lots of celebrity friends who are parents. The examples that you bring up are the extreme case, and are often calculated by these celebrities who want attention and PR (both good and bad). For the most part, celebrity Moms in L.A. can be normal Moms if they choose to be (some exceptions here, but generally true).

-Lisa

[Robin P]

I am not a celebrity follower. Half the time I don't know who the heck my co-workers are talking about.

That being said,I am tired of hearing about everyone's "baby bump." When the heck was that phrase coined? I find it offensive.

This world is beyond obsessed with flat stomachs and G-d forbid it isn't flat....you MUST be hiding a pregnancy,right?

I'm waiting for the headlines to read...."Oprah didn't poop today."
That's gotta be as newsworthy as the rest of the crap I have to read about people I don't know and will never meet.

Will we be following Suri to her first dental check-up in a few years and then wagging our finger at her abusive parents because she has a cavity??

I think this stuff is so ridiculous. I'd drop my baby every day if cameras were constantly in my face and I had no space to take care of my child.
I am totally against Brit not putting her kid in a car seat but all the other stuff.....it needs to stop.

Unless one of these celebrities is running off with MY husband, I have no interest in their personal life.

Obviously someone is interested in all this junk,otherwise,no one would be buying the magazines.

[Kristina]

I agree totally. I think so many people put their own inadequacies on celebrities in order to avoid taking a REAL look at their own lives. I am so sick of people juding Cruise and Holmes, Spears and Ferderline, even Jolie and Pitt...no one, and I mean no one should have to answer for EVERY thing.

[Jenn]

I couldn't agree more. How much harder would it be to parent if you knew that everyone was staring at you through a microscope.

It's hard enough to take critisism from family and friends some day, let alone people that don't even know you!

[Amy]

I'm with you. I'm so sick of magazines' concepts of fat and skinny anyway. YAY you!!!