America’s Baby Bump Obsession

It certainly is, but the pregnancies of the rich and famous seem to have a special hold on American women in particular. Is it that we are idealizing celebrity pregnancies because we only see the pretty, shiny parts—the perfectly-sized baby bump, the elaborate baby showers—and not the mood swings and morning sickness? Are we dying to see if they get fat?

MORE: Your Pregnant Body

Dara Greenwood, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Vassar College, who has researched gender and mass media as well as psychological relationships with celebrities, offered some valuable insight. “I think the fascination may be some combination of the thrill of following and idealizing the glamorous, uber-wealthy version of motherhood that is depicted in magazines mixed with the target demographic of some of these magazines—women in their 30s—being preoccupied with their own attempts and experiences with pregnancy,” she posits. “There’s a perceived sorority of common interest mixed with a feeling like we know these people.”

She also notes that Facebook basically operates like a tabloid of people we actually do know filled with baby bumps and pictures of other people’s kids, which may make us feel entitled to comment or feel worried about being “tricked”—in Beyoncé’s case—wondering why a “friend” would do that?

In some ways, our skepticism about Beyonce's bump may make sense. Greenwood points out that we're used to seeing airbrushed images and know that celebrities go to great lengths to present a certain image to the public. "Although it may seem silly to pay this much attention to the baby bump phenomenon," she says, "it is not at all silly to wonder if some of the representations we see may be less than accurate." (Like the uber-annoying celebrity moms whose baby weight just "fell right off" in less than a month after, you know, "some hikes and yoga.") Our obsession may simply be an effort, in a world of unreal media images, to pick apart what appears to be from what really is. 

It’s also hard not to be envious when celebs seem to have it all—a rock star career, money, fabulous clothes, beautiful homes, and now a baby on the way—and in some cases, we want them to stumble so they appear more fallible and human instead of perfect and celestial.

Greenwood adds, “A side effect of being bombarded with seemingly idealized versions of pregnancy may be a form of envy that craves some dirt, as in ‘It can’t possibly be as glamorous as it looks, can it?’ We want to feel okay with our own lives and maybe feel like we have more in common with celebrities than we might think.”

And maybe that was a big part of the reason for the Babyoncé speculation and backlash: It just looked too good to be true.