Lately, it feels like I can’t open any form of social media without seeing something about the incoming Kardashian babies. Every day it spanned from speculating as to whether or not one of the women was pregnant to overzealous gender announcements. People Magazine’s website even sends out a “baby newsletter” so that you can stay continually up to date on celebrity pregnancy and birth announcements.
And while I appreciate that celebrities and public figures are constitutionally allowed less freedom than typical private citizens, I think this crosses a line.
A woman’s pregnancy is not your business until she says it is.
Speculating on pregnancy is a mean business. If you’re wrong, it’s embarrassing on at least one side and you could be enforcing a negative body image; if you’re right and they don’t know, that’s messy; and most importantly, if you’re right and they aren’t ready to announce it yet, it’s probably for a reason.
For instance, somewhere between 10-25 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage. It’s not uncommon to wait as late as possible to announce a pregnancy, especially if the woman has experienced a miscarriage previously. Not to mention, the mother may not want to keep the child — and Oregon has no cut off for when a pregnancy can be aborted, so you can’t use showing as an excuse.
Not only is keeping or aborting a pregnancy a woman’s choice, sharing information about a pregnancy is her choice, too.
Putting it in the spotlight for monetary gain or “guilty pleasure” reading, when pregnancy is a private, personal matter, is heinous.
I may not be a fan of the Kardashians, but that doesn’t mean they deserve any less respect than I do. As a woman, I pray that no one speculates about my (potential/future) pregnancy — for their sake. Quite frankly, it’s a matter of human decency.
So do better, be better — I promise it’s not that hard to be an okay person.