When it comes to the royals, people love to speculate about pregnancy. Just three days ago, rumors of a new Kate Middleton pregnancy were debunked. The Duchess of Cambridge just had a baby in April — only five months ago — so you'd think Royal Baby Watchers (because people who scout for royal pregnancy clues apparently have a name) would quiet down for a bit. But since Meghan Markle's wedding to Prince Harry, it's her who now bears the brunt of pregnancy speculations.
For Royal Baby Watchers, the "clues" that Meghan has a bun in the oven are sometimes as trivial as her hairstyle. Markle showed up to the Coach Core Awards at Loughborough University (where she briefly played basketball in heels) on Monday with pin-straight hair, which she hasn't sported since before her wedding. And that subtle change in her style made some news outlets wonder if she was pregnant. People had previously made a connection between Middleton changing her hair and announcing a pregnancy soon after, so publications wondered if the Duchess Of Sussex was doing the same thing. "Technically this is all just a fun internet theory and no one from the palace has confirmed this in regards to Kate or Meghan," Cosmo wrote. "It's possible it's a totally coincidental trend."
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
So then why point it out? Sure, babies are fun and cute and it's always happy news when a celeb we admire is pregnant (and happy about it). But, whether or not Meghan is pregnant right now, trying to get pregnant, or even wants to have kids is none of our business.
Celebrities have to deal with pregnancy rumors based on unsubstantiated evidence all the time, and this isn't the first time a tabloid or someone on Twitter has cried pregnant over Meghan. In the last couple of weeks alone, people have thought she was pregnant based on her wearing a flowy blue dress and a video in which Prince Harry briefly rubs her back.
Celebrities aren't the only people who have to deal with relentless questions about pregnancy and motherhood, either. Just about any person (especially straight and bi+ women) who has gotten married has had to deal with the "when are you going to have kids?" question. Our culture is used to a certain script: find love, get married, have babies. But it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes, people have kids before they get married. Sometimes, they get married and then learn that they can't have kids. Sometimes, they get married and choose not to have kids. And unless the couple in question has shared their reproductive choices with you, it's not your place to ask — or speculate.
For people who are actively trying to get pregnant, questions about when they'll have kids can be hurtful. "The truth is, you don’t really ever know what people are going through. And if a woman answers: 'We are just enjoying being newly married. We have some traveling we want to do first. I'm just focusing on my career right now'... She might really be saying, 'We are having trouble getting pregnant.' Or 'I had a miscarriage recently.' Or a whole host of deeply personal reasons that really are none of our business," Elizabeth Tenety wrote at Mother.ly. And for people who've decided they don't want kids, these questions are annoying. "What a woman wants to do with her body is up to her and her alone," a writer at Bolde reminds us.
We don't know what Meghan and Prince Harry have decided about their possible future children, and we don't have to know. So let's stop guessing if Meghan is pregnant and wait for her to tell us when and if she's ready to share.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT