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Considering nothing has been confirmed yet by Kylie Jenner, Kardashian matriarch/momager Kris or Kylie’s boyfriend Travis Scott, this celeb pregnancy rumour has already for some reason been established as fact in people’s minds.
Sure we try not to believe celeb rumours spread by the likes of TMZ and The Daily Mail, but for some reason we are all lapping this one up like a bowl of salty ramen.
Notorious dress-up e-retailer, Yandy.com even went as far as releasing a super offensive Kylie Jenner-inspired 'Reality Star in the Making' Halloween costume, says Teen Vogue. I mean.
Read: Kendall Jenner's dress just blew everyone's mind at Cannes
Rumours aside, I had a horrid realisation about my own views concerning these rumours early yesterday morning. I asked my colleague “How young is she anyway?” with a hint of superiority in my tone. “She’s 20,” my colleague replied.
Okay, so I wasn't shocked. I didn't know the exact number but I was certain she was born just shy of the last millennium.
But why the age-shaming? Is 20 too young to be a mother?
I have a friend who once told me that she just wanted to have children. She wanted a husband who would be able to care for her because she wanted to stay at home and raise her children.
I'll confess that my first inclination was to dismiss this kind of life's ambition and I wondered if it's because we assume once a young woman has a child she won't aspire to much else?
Pearl Thusi had her daughter Thandolwethu when she was 20 and has a thriving career. The Grammy award-winning musician and pop icon Solange became a mom in her teens. Kylie is 20 and already running a few empires with more money and opportunities than a lot of women who have been working at their careers for decades.
So why my alarm at this alleged pregnancy news?
It's probably based on my adoption of a value system which tells women what to do and value with an accompanying timeline. We are taught to want to get married (at a certain age) and to want children (at a certain age) as we flip (chronologically) through the book of life. Life as it should be lived.
We quickly jump to identify that ‘something must be wrong’ or ‘amiss’ when things don’t happen in this order. So when someone like Kylie Jenner is even rumoured to be pregnant, we judge. Because she's so young. And unmarried. And even though I try to be an advocate for choosing your own trajectory and applaud those who do, I still tilted my nose towards the sky and age-shamed Kylie. Whether or not this pregnancy is real or a figment of someone's overactive imagination.
Carrie Bradshaw once asked, “Why are we shoulding all over ourselves?” Should you stay in a relationship because you are now 30 and should be thinking about security and having kids soon? Or should you do what feels right, right now, for you?
Women are allowed to choose to have children at 21 and opt out of a career and they are allowed to remain single for as long as they wish.
Now all that’s left to consider – will the rumoured child be called ‘Great’ as Harling Ross of Manrepeller.com jokes? Great Scott! Or will it be more along the lines of Kylie’s lippie names…Koko K? Or rather, Koko J(enner)?
