Hollywood’s Latest Fashion Trend: Having Lots of Babies

by Joe Guzzardi
February 21, 2011

I grew up in Hollywood during the Golden Age of Cinema’s final years, the late 1950s.

Seeing the stars and starlets walk along the Beverly Hills streets was a routine occurrence. As my parents and I strolled on Rodeo Drive, we had many chance encounters and pleasant chit-chats with Hollywood’s biggest names: Gregory Peck, Frank Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio (without, unfortunately, Marilyn Monroe). I served the glitterati as an altar boy at the Good Shepherd Church. And since I was a classmate with many of their children, I frequently visited their homes.

Although I moved from Hollywood long ago, my fascination with the industry and its personalities followed me.

Because Hollywood’s big names have a built in platform for their various causes, they have the power of persuasion over many of their fans—especially younger ones. I’m therefore alarmed by the most recent Hollywood trend—having babies, more and more babies.

A week ago I watched the Red Carpet ceremonies that preceded the 2011 Grammy Awards. The E Channel hosts, Giuliana Rancic and Kelly Osborne, gushed endlessly about “baby bumps” and giddily quizzed the pregnant actresses about their pending maternity.

According to Hollywood insiders, “baby bumps” are the new black and have replaced Hermes handbags and Louboutin heels as the essential accessories. Kate Hudson, Jewel, Alicia Keys, Amy Adams and dozens more—all pregnant and glowing! Tell me, Giuliana, is there anyone out there who isn’t pregnant?

Age isn’t a factor in childbearing either. Last year Kelly Preston, John Travolta’s 47-year-old wife, had her third child. And although he wasn’t on the Red Carpet, septuagenarian Larry King fathered his seventh just a few years ago.

The baby boom has reached across thousands of miles to Australia where 40-year-old Penny Lancaster delivered 66-year-old rock icon Rod Stewart’s eighth child. That sounds like a bad choice to me but maybe Stewart can get a song out of it.

The enlightened among us could, if the problem were not so urgent, dismiss the pregnancy craze as more Hollywood nonsense. But what about impressionable, fertile teenagers?

Even if their families don’t get basic cable, here are a few of this week’s tabloid headlines screaming at the gullible: “Kim’s In Love; ‘I Want His Baby!’” and “Kendra: We’re Having a Baby!”

To the uninitiated, the baby phenomenon is deceptively alluring. The Hollywood mothers are wealthy and well groomed. Their babies are outfitted in Little Lark, the chic place to buy tots’ t-shirts and body suits.

But teeming bank accounts don’t guarantee well-adjusted children. Britney Spears, rumored to be pregnant with her third, may have to undergo a major life style overhaul to give her 5 and 4-year-old sons a fighting chance as adults.

For the less financially fortunate, babies often represent a new start, a living, breathing opportunity to have and hold something that they can love and that will love them back.

Rarely does it work out that way. Fathers are infrequently in the picture. Of the United States’ 2009 mothers, 41 percent were unwed.

We can’t expect Hollywood to take a responsible position on overpopulation. But the problems it creates are real and irreversible.

As I look at today’s world, I see millions of fathers and mothers but only a few sensible parents. Less bubbly blather about baby bumps would help everyone.

Joe Guzzardi has written editorial columns—mostly about immigration and related social issues – since 1990. He is a senior writing fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) and his columns have frequently been syndicated in various U.S. newspapers and websites. He can be reached at [email protected]