Mostly, I do a good job of ignoring celebrity “news.” I have been, for instance, only vaguely aware (and therefore vaguely appalled) that some people actually seem to care about some sort of scoring controversy on a dance competition show that involves the daughter of the former governor of Alaska.
But today, curiosity got the better of me, when I saw this item on Twitter:
Kelly Preston and John Travolta Welcome a Son http://bit.ly/g4ypDG (via @CelebCircuit) /via @CBSNews
Right away, I thought to myself that the sentence, “Kelly Preston and John Travolta welcome a son…” would continue, in the longer-than-Twitter format of a Web page, “… home from Afghanistan for Thanksgiving,” or some such.
Surely they didn’t… oh yes, they did:
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) John Travolta and Kelly Preston’s baby Benjamin has arrived.
A publicist says the couple’s son was born Tuesday at an undisclosed Florida hospital. The baby weighed 8 lbs., 3 oz.
“John, Kelly and their daughter Ella Bleu are ecstatic and very happy about the newest member of the family,” the family said in astatement. “Both mother and baby are healthy and doing beautifully.”…
All right, then, surely they had this child via surrogate. Or he’s adopted. But no, apparently not.
Set aside the creepiness of a “replacement baby” so soon after their nearly-grown son died (another piece of celebrity news that made it through my defenses). John Travolta is… like… my age. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t actually high school-age when he made “Welcome Back, Kotter.”
And his wife — even though she’s a lovely, youthful-looking woman; don’t get me wrong here — probably isn’t all that much younger, if she was the mother of the boy who died.
Yep: She’s 48.
When I was her age, not only was I a grandfather, but my two sons (neither of whom was my oldest child) were 23 and 21.
There are all sorts of things I could say about wealthy celebrities thinking they can have anything they want, including their youth back, and what that implies for our society at large…
But I won’t. I’ll just say “mazel tov,” and walk away shaking my head…
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and there are all sorts of things I could say about the environmental impact of people, especially Americans, who have really large families, or the divorce statistics for people who get married really young….but it’s the holidays, so I won’t….mazel tov!
Travolta is 56…surely the state of Strom should not find it much of a big deal for a man to father a child at that age. 48 for a woman is also less of a big deal than it used to be, thanks to medical advances.
I was 46 when my son was born, and my father was also a first-time dad at exactly the same age, so I like to think it can work out well, as long as I can stay healthy and stick around long enough for him to reach adulthood. (People say to me, “oh it must make you feel young” to which I reply that chasing after a 3-year-old on the cusp of my 50th birthday actually makes me feel about 90. But I still wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.)
I think Adrienne Barbeau had babies when she was in her 50s.
Sure, but that was Adrienne Barbeau…
And Phillip, you’re like my brother. He got married in his mid-40s. His firstborn child was born on my firstborn child’s 28th birthday.
This afternoon, on NPR, I heard one of the new members of Congress — Chip Cravaack of Minnesota — being interviewed. He mentioned that he was “very happily retired” from both the Navy AND the airline where he had been a pilot.
Then, I could have sworn I heard him say his children were ages 6 and 9…
My little brother and his wife just had their first last week. (They’ve adopted 3 previously.) They are both well into their 40s.