A friend and I were talking about Kate Winslet this morning. Yes, Kate Winslet. Why, you ask? Because she's pregnant. What does that have to do with us? Not a damn thing. How does this news affect the world at large? It doesn't at all. Yet, her pregnancy has become a big story. For those not in the know, she is pregnant for the third time and it will be her first child with this particular husband. She's been married twice before and has a child with each ex. And the interwebs and gossip columns are all a flutter about how scandalous it is that she has three children by three different men. One article in particular is just flat out awful to her, questioning why she can't "keep" a man and wondering if she'll eventually marry a fourth time and have yet another child with a "different surname". I'm sorry, did I wake up in the 1950's? Who the fuck cares? First of all, she was married to each dude when she had the kids and yet people still get their panties in a bunch over it. Second, is there some rule that you can only have babies with your first few spouses and then you have to be sterilized? This isn't China. The author, who is a woman, also went on to say that since the common denominator in her relationships is her, she must be the reason why they've all ended and that she should hire a "qualified relationship consultant" to pick all future partners (Wtf is that?). Plenty of people are bad at relationships (*raises hand in the one subject he's always had an A in*), but it's not like it means we should all be put out to pasture, never to date or mate again. And I certainly don't think it undermines her credibility, as the author claims. She's a performer, not a "qualified relationship expert", and she's not a poster child out there telling people she knows how to keep everything in a relationship together. She's someone who happens to be in the public eye because that's where her passion led her. At the end of the day, she has a life and a family and should have no fucks to give over what people think of how she lives it.
It may have escaped your attention, but I have a child myself, born outside of wedlock (or even coupledom, really). It's likely that either her mother or I will have more children with other partners at some point. The sick thing about that is people wouldn't think twice about me, a man, having two kids by two women but the MOMC (mother of my child) would get some kind of looks when people found out she had two children by two different men. Why is that? It's so fucked up. I mean, it's one thing if anybody goes out and knocks up eight different people or gets knocked up by eight different people because they don't know how to put on a condom. But it's completely different if a baby is brought into the world within the confines of a loving, mature relationship. Some people lead with their hearts and feel the need to have children with their spouses. Anyone who is having a kid because they genuinely want it and are committed to it for the rest of their lives is someone who will be a great parent. A friend of mine talks about how she will only have kids with the man she marries and raise them within the traditional family unit. And that's great for her, that's her decision, but things don't always work out that way for everybody. And not everybody wants that. My daughter can and will still be raised within in an amazing family, it will just be a bigger one that includes her step-parents and their families. There's no such thing as too many people who love and support a child. My father (term used loosely) had eight kids by (at least) five different women. No one batted an eye. Several male rock stars have multiple children by multiple women, but that's also just accepted as the norm. Yet an actress decides to breed with her latest husband and there goes the neighborhood. Society is so fucked up. We claim to be the most civilized, smart beings to ever grace the earth but in a lot of ways we're dumber than the monkeys we evolved from. In many ancient civilizations there were no preconceived notions about divorce or being sexually liberated, it was just accepted as the way things were. Now everything carries a stigma. And it's all so needless.
