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Let's not repeat mistakes from our past.
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on Apr 12, 2022
It didn't take long for hate to flood in after Britney Spears announced that she is expecting her third child.
Concerns over Spears' mental health have flooded social media, laced with stigma and misconstrued perspectives that read like a headline from 2007.
People are already declaring Britney Spears mentally unfit to become a mother again.
While many fans have been quick to celebrate Spears' news, others have been harsher.
At around 4 p.m. yesterday, April 11th, Spears took to Instagram to post a lovely stock image of a teacup with a spoon surrounded by flowers and a lengthy caption that involved food babies as well as a real, third baby.
As her story goes, when she came back from her trip from Maui she was surprised at all the weight she had gained back having lost a lot while there.
She asked her fiance, Sam Asghari, what the hell was going on, to which he allegedly replied “No you’re food pregnant silly,” and that’s when she decided to test for the real thing.
“So I got a pregnancy test … and uhhhhh well … I am having a baby,” she wrote in the caption with a little baby emoji.
Britney Spears' reproductive rights were one of many battlegrounds during her conservatorship.
During Spears’s grueling fight to end her conservatorship she alleged that her “so-called team” wouldn’t allow her to remove her intrauterine contraceptive device (IUD) to allow her the ability to conceive a child.
“I wanted to take the IUD out, so I could start trying to have another baby, but ... they don’t want me to have ... any more children,” she told a judge back in June 2021. “So basically, this conservatorship is doing me way more harm than good. I deserve to have a life.”
Now, it seems like she finally got her wish!
Despite the great news for Spears and Asghari, the rest of the world is at a standstill trying to decide how they should react.
Some are being reminded of that harrowing experience back in 2007 when Spears had her breakdown and are trying to attribute it to her pregnancy — which, in many ways might be true.
In the same Instagram post where she announces her pregnancy, she admits to struggling with perinatal depression — a form of depression that hits mothers who are carrying children.
This perinatal depression can easily turn into postpartum depression once the baby is born and can last up to a year after delivery.
Place this alongside constant paparazzi harassment, media attention, and an increasingly stressful split from her then-husband, Spears struggled to find peace as a new mom in a world hellbent on dissecting every aspect of her life.
Today, people are once again hinting that Britney Spears is unfit to become a mother but they're making a crucial mistake.
Spears was never to blame for her mental health issues, society was.
Under pop culture’s microscope, the singer was battling mental health stigmas and misogyny all while trying to find privacy for her family.
If we continue to poke and prod and judge her parenting now, we risk catapulting both ourselves and Spears back to where we were in 2007.
The times have changed, and so has Spears. You can’t wear “#FreeBritney” t-shirts and then say “but wait maybe she shouldn’t have a child,” that’s just hypocritical.
Regardless of whatever mental health struggles she might have, she has a right to get pregnant and have another child if that’s what she wants.
Spears herself seemed to be aware of possible concern regarding her mental health and fortitude, placing some reassuring words for suspecting fans.
“I obviously won’t be going out as much due to the paps getting their money shot of me like they unfortunately already have,” she wrote in the caption.
She continues, adding that women could never talk about the struggles they faced during and after pregnancy, but that since she now has the support of fellow women, she’ll be okay.
“This time I will be doing yoga every day!” she exclaims in her post.
Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Follow him on Twitter here.