Or did I (and the famous people I like) just get older, or what?
I always got the sense when I was growing up that if you looked around at our music superstars, and our idols and such, we wanted (depending on who you listened to) fame, money, independence, pride, freedom [from oppression], and I guess sex… (And of course some rappers wanted drugs.) The point is, I don’t remember anybody ever talking about wanting a family.
[If I understand correctly, some popstars even used to have to hide relationships because record companies wanted to keep the illusion that they were single, to keep the fans happy and screaming and such.]
Even the television shows I watched felt like they were a bunch of generally single people having fun (Friends, Seinfeld, Will & Grace). And now, I feel like a number of them revolve around families (Modern Family, Blackish, Fresh Off The Boat)…
But now, it feels like our music royalty is having kids. (John Legend and Chrissy Teigen do not fit the mold when it comes to being “lame” now that they have a kid. They seem as fun as ever!)
We applaud Ryan Reynolds for being a good dad. (And as far as I can tell, Blake Lively still has a pretty nice career!)
Even Gal Godot was pregnant while shooting Wonder Woman, and people are uplifting her for being a working mom.
I just kind of feel like babies and families have permeated the culture so much – more so than I ever noticed or imagined when I was a kid… And to some extent, I guess it’s because some people have been famous for so long that that just kind of happened (ex. Britney Speaks).
And the internet is starting to see that I’m a semi-ish-grown-up, and so I’m getting more ads or stories about babies or marriage.
Or also maybe with the boom of social media, we just see more into people’s lives than we ever used to before, which conceivably could’ve changed the dynamic.
And it’s not like no one was ever married or had kids. We can point to examples from when I was growing up too… I mean, Michael Jackson was married and had kids.
So, I don’t know… I just feel like people are celebrating families so much more than they used to. I feel like it kind of, in some ways, used to be looked down upon to have kids because it “aged you,” or “made you lame,” or “ruined some of your career prospects,” and such.
Whereas now, I feel like I’m seeing more celebrating when it comes to having families.
So, I was just curious… Is anybody else seeing/feeling this change? Or is it all just in my head?