So this is 2012. And reports today in Britain suggest Katy Perry, shock horror, chose her career over having a baby with Russell Brand.
First of all I find it very hard to believe having worked with Russell Brand on several TV shows, that the loveable lad would insist on Katy quitting her global music plans to have children with him. I really do.
But it does throw up the question - what right does anyone have to insist that a woman should put their partners needs to spread sperm before her own needs? This is not 1952.
Hell no, this is an era where women are climbing the career ladder much more effectively than some men. Babies or no babies.
More and more women I know are making the most of both worlds - working full time and being a mum whilst sending their MEN home to be house husbands. And I dare say the blokes are doing a decent job at it too (although their multi-tasking abilities may never be a strong point, think feeding and faxing whilst doing an online shop).
My point is this. Katy Perry has been singing since she was a child. At the age of 17 she was working hard to become a signed solo artist. She's not relied on cheap publicity or reality TV to make her fame. She's a true talented artist who made a name for herself in her own right.
Some may say she could have kids then come back to her glittering career. But this is a woman who knows what she wants and has fought tooth and nail for the success she has today. And she's clearly happy doing her own thing.
Unlike some men.
A friend recently dated a guy who was 36 - she, 24. It was all going well until the recent phone call. "I don't mind you having your career til you're 28," he says seriously. "But then I want kids."
Understandably she ended it there and then. I'd be keen to hear from men who disagree and think it is okay for women to put their careers on hold to have kids. Sure, there's an element of deciding what you'd both like from life before throwing yourself into commitment.
But I'd love to know I'm not alone thinking there's something strangely grotesque and weak about women churning out children just because a man says so....
Follow Leigh Purves on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RealLeighPurves
Katy Perry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Katy Perry And Russell Brand's Split 'Upsetting,' Fans Say
Russell Brand and Katy Perry split after 'she put fame ahead of children'
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Her Bump, Her Bump, Her Lovely Baby Bump
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Errrm, Cara Love, You May Want To Work On Those Poses
Ant's Baby Struggle
2. Katy Perry has argued strongly that no-one should (or has any right to) attempt to "speak for her" regarding her separation. This would include you, Ms Purves. If you feel an overwhelming urge to throw in your few cents' worth, it might be a good idea to check the basis for your arguments, rather than relying on early assumptions made by a lazy media in the absence of any comments from the affected parties?
Have your career. But, when you have a baby, be a Mother. There is nothing more important than having a Mom at home and a Dad for your children. Nothing replaces that sense of love and security.
I wish I'd had it, and now that I see the difference, I wish I'd done it. Being a stay at home Good Mom and Housewife is the hardest and most important job in the world.
My hat is off to all the Mom's who were smart enough and lucky enough to do that!
I find your knee-jerk response a bit reactionary and unenlightened.
Career has been made into a holy concept for feminists. They continue to struggle for the right to have their careers be recognized as important as men's. As if having a career actually was so fulfilling for men. Which is why most of them drone off to jobs they despise, drink copious amounts of alcohol, pops pills, cheat on their spouses and have been, historically, unavailable for their children.
All in the name of these holy careers.
Women are vastly superior to men in many ways. What they juggle on a daily basis, fifty men couldn't accomplish.
Their abilities to hold together communities and negotiate difficult (usually male) personalities leaves me feeling that only women should run things. Politically and economically.
However, this career thing needs some exploring.
The elevation of women's status should have lead to a remaking of enslaving economic models.
This hasn't happened.
Kate Perry's right to be indulged has no more value or importance than any male narcissist's.
And every time a woman in power behaves as poorly as her male counterpart, it does nothing to further our evolution.
Spoiled children are everywhere.
Male and female.
Of course, Russel Brand shouldn't put his needs or wants to have children before Katy Perry wants/needs to have a career, and she has EVERY RIGHT to refuse if she doesn't feel like it.
On the other hand, if Russell Brand feels like his goal of have a family aren't met by Katy Perry, he has every right to divorce her to find a better-suited partner for him. I would say exactly the same about a woman who left her husband because she wants kids and he doesn't.
If there had been more like them, we may all already have been much better off.
No one is saying that women can't do this, if that's what they want. The great thing about the modern world is that they have the option to do whatever they want. That is incomparably better than an accident of biology deciding who is/isn't to raise children/take a career break etc.
But the point is Possop, is that the world today, although less "orderly", is all the better now that men and women have choices. It is the acceptance of those diverse life choices, rather than the insistance that the chooser be punished or have choices taken away, that makes for a healthier society. Not forcing people to fit in little boxes, and therefore, become miserable and dysfunctional parents.