Dear Celebrities,
Y’all can’t catch a break as parents, can you? If you sell photos of your infants, you’re whoring them out, even if you give the money away to help people. If you shelter your baby from public viewing and photo ops, your kid either doesn’t exist or is reputed to be hideous. If you take a walk with your toddler and stumble, you will be judged by everyone on the planet with an opinion–and you know what they say about opinions.
Where you deliver your babies, what you name them, how you dress them, where you take them, where you leave them, where you school them, how you hold them–it’s all held up to criticism and/or ridicule.
Meanwhile, I know of lots of non-celebrity parents who are thrilled to show off their kids’ photos to anyone who will stand still and seems to have a pulse. Plus, judging by what I read on blogs, their kids are way too visible in every public place imaginable–planes, stores, restaurants, movie theaters–just about 24/7, sometimes without an intelligent adult in sight.
None of my friends and family are neglectful parents, and their children are gorgeous and well-behaved. But they worry about them. They worry about how they’re going to clothe and feed them. How they’re going to keep them in DVDs and Elmos. How they’re going to send them to college or pay their bail. (Kidding on that last one, friends and family!)
So I have a solution, Celebrities. I will photograph you with a child of appropriate age, gender, and beauty in seemingly “ambushed” photos. (It’ll be easy for you actors to look surprised and/or annoyed, right?) I’ll sell the photos to the tabloids and split the money with the real parents of the children who appear with you. It’s a total win. Your own babies’ privacy has been protected, yet you can still make a bid for sympathy at how you’re being tormented by “the press.” The public will stop swearing that you’ve given birth to the Elephant Man. The real parents of the children in your photos would then have the money for Baby Gap, orthodontia, and Yale. The worst they’ll ever have to endure is an occasional, “Hey, your little Emily sure looks like that Cruise kid!” Or, “Oops! Who got gum in your little Jason’s hair again?”
And I… I’ll be able to pay my damn power bills.
I’ll rent mine out to you, but please don’t let them get gum in their hair. J’s hair finally grew out from an attack of sticky tack. I don’t want him to go bald again yet.
Making note: No photos with Ms. Spears.