Baby Brangelina

Is anyone else a teensy bit distressed by the cloying media coverage of Baby Brangelina (soon to be replicated in Franklin Mint commerative doll form for three easy payments of $199.95)?

Does anyone else think the hysterical obsession around the unfortunately-named Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt smacks of "Finally! Angelina Jolie has had a REAL baby! Not just one of those trendy adopted ones".

To be fair, it is her first biological child with Brad Pitt, a stunning celebrity combination that has had magazine editors changing their panties more frequently than Madonna changes her image. So I understand the public interest. But the headlines of "First time Dad Brad" etc make me uneasy. He's adopted her other children, the equally-as-unfortunately-named Maddox and Zahara. Therefore he's their Dad. Therefore Shiloh is his third child.

But the skin-crawling feeling I get when I see these headlines and articles is that those two don't really count, that anyone can adopt, that celebrities do it all the time, and they could never measure up to the tabloid goodness that is a true-blue homegrown white all-American bub. Adopted children just aren't real.

I'm not adopted myself, but I know a few people who are. I've always liked the idea of adopting - hell, anything that saves me having to go through pregnancy, childbirth and the inevitable letting myself go. ;) It disturbs me that there could be adopted young 'uns out there picking up the wrong message from all of this. While healthy baby Shiloh is no doubt welcome, she's just another baby in an expanding family, with no more rights than Maddox and Zahara. I'm sure Brangelina themselves know this - the question is, does the media? And do the rest of us?

There are two offshoots to this topic I wish to explore further, but maybe another day. The first is why the celebrity magazines are so obsessed with couplings and babies (short answer: because it's the only thing celebrities do that most of the rest of us do as well, therefore it equates us with them in a certain way); the second is the bane of my life: bad baby names. I swear to God, it is one of the biggest crises facing the Westernised world at the current time. But more on that later.

In the meantime, I've put my five cents in on the Baby Brangelina frenzy, so surely now it will go away. Hah!

Cheers, Natalie.

P.S. I would have inserted a photo of the happy family - but hey, it's all rights protected and I just bought an apartment. I don't want to get sued!