Chrissy Teigen sat down with Extra to promote her best-selling cookbook, Cravings. Chrissy wore this open-neck white shirt and high-waisted slit skirt for the interview. I love it. I would have killed for something this sexy when I was pregnant. Chrissy and husband John Legend are expecting a baby girl soon. As is typical for Chrissy, she has been completely open throughout her pregnancy and has shared everything from her infertility struggle to her plans to hire a night nurse. In addition, Chrissy disclosed that when given the opportunity, they selected a female embryo because Chrissy really wanted John to have a daughter. Although outlets like The Huffington Post defended Chrissy’s gender selection, much of the feedback the couple got was quite negative, something Chrissy did not expect:
Chrissy is due to have a daughter with hubby John Legend this spring. She has been open about her journey to get pregnant and even revealed that she chose a female embryo, which drew some criticism. She admitted being surprised by the backlash. “To me it was just another conversation I was having, I didn’t realize that it kind of came across like we were the first people to ever do it, to chose a little girl, and obviously that’s not the case… I have so many friends that are so open about it… it didn’t seem like a big deal.”
Given Chrissy’s past Twitter battles, I am surprised she did not anticipate at least some push back from social media. However, I do get what she is saying about having talked openly with her friends about gender selction, she thought it was a broader discussion. Chrissy went on to say, “… but I understand… and anything that gets people thinking and talking, engaging in conversation or debate is good to me.” Here I agree wholeheartedly. The more public discussions we have, the more information gets to people making the same decisions.
Chrissy says she is relying heavily on her friends, like Kim Kardashian, for all aspects of pregnancy and motherhood. Having recently admitted that she doesn’t think she has ever changed a diaper, Chrissy said, “From beginning, through the IVF process, [Kim’s] been so helpful… she took us baby supply shopping… talking about every product, and I don’t know baby products.” In addition to advice, Kim is going to throw Chrissy a West Coast shower after her regally-themed New York shower. A source close to Kim said, “The one in New York was pretty low-key. This one is going to be really high-end, celebrity-studded — basically, Kim-style.” If the New York shower was low key, I cannot wait to see what Kim has in store.
Photo credit: Getty Images and WENN and FameFlynet Photos
that’s because it isn’t. It’s no one’s business either. Stop barking out your business then get pissed off when people complain
+1000
Im very sorry to hear that she’s a friend and admirer of Kim K. and will rely on her for advice about anything. Disappointing.
I don’t have a problem with gender selection, but I think it was sort of dumb of her to be surprised that people did.
Her husband is her best feature. He’s adorable.
Could you IMAGINE the conversations taking place in the baby store?
Kim: so, um, like literally, I can’t remember the name of the thing you put on the baby, but they’re like, literally the BEST! Literally. Babies like really love them.
(Calls one of her 15 nannies)
DIAPERS!!!!!!! Hahaha, they’re literally called diapers! Now let’s go find a play camera phone and some baby mirrors.
Chrissy: Mrrrmphhh non nom (she can’t talk because she’s too busy eating.)
It isn’t a big deal.
It’s really not; and I’m almost certain that if it were a free service, there would be a lot more families with fewer children. Haha.
Yeah, I think I’m missing something. What was the backlash exactly?
EDIT: Okay, scrolling further down the thread, I guess I’m seeing the backlash.
I find it hard to believe she didn’t find it a big deal since finding out the sex is one of the most exciting parts for a lot of people Whether by sonogram or when the baby’s born. The fact that it’s possible to just pick the sex and what sex they picked is going to intrigue people.
It’s a pretty standard thing with IVF, though, so I think she just didn’t realize people didn’t know that about it. I’ve had a bunch of friends do IVF and several chose gender just because the information was available and why not?
Coming from a country where gender selection is prohibited unless for medical reasons I’m surprised they didn’t expect a backlash. I’m surprised also people are so blasé about it but I guess if you can legally do it you would be.
But yep becoming increasingly over this woman.
I guess I just don’t see the big deal about it. It was inevitable to me. Once we started with IVF and other fertility treatments, which are a wonderful thing, people had to see the possibility of gender selection coming. Why would anyone care what other people choose? I mean, if they have the opportunity and have a clear preference then why would anyone create a backlash? She wanted a girl, she’s having a girl. So what? Good for her.
I can see a potential problem in the far away future where natural conception is a thing of the past, and we’re instead all opting to make super-babies with selected dna and of course gender. It could throw natures almost perfect 50-50 ratio of male to female off. But on a couple to couple basis, when a doctor is about to implant a very expensive embryo and maybe your last and only chance at motherhood, and you and your spouse truly want one gender or the other, I mean, who’s business is it but your own? Seems ok to me. You started playing God long before that step, so so be it.
There are countries where girls aren’t being born at the same rate to such an extreme that it’s causing real problems in the social fabric right now. I’ve seen news stories on towns in India where the birth rate for women is disproportionately lower. So on principle I’m against gender selection. I don’t think of Teigan as frankly that informed. I also don’t really approve of the bashing she got.
3 of my kids were IVF. I was just so grateful to be pregnant it never would have to me to gender select. Just makes me uncomfortable but like I said where I live it’s not legal so it’s not my norm.
@ originaltessa- so IVF is playing God? It’s treatment of a medical problem. Is treating cancer playing God? Because it’s the same thing, using technology to treat a medical condition. You can say you would choose not to do IVF, but it’s hard to say that until you’ve been through infertility. I suffered through infertility & am now pregnant with twins, not from IVF but from fertility Meds. Until you’ve been there you have no right to accuse someone else of “playing God”.
Although I am all for free choice, I would like to point to a little issue China is having right now, where there are just not enough females….gender selection is a slippery slope….and if and when open for everybody let’s just hope all goes well
I agree Rose and as well with Brunswickstoval. I would imagine someone who is struggling to conceive just would be grateful to have any baby at all. It makes me uncomfortable as well when people pre-select the gender as if one is better than another. A baby is a baby and every baby should be wanted. I just don’t relate to that level of pursuit and I happen to have three of the same gender so if anyone would know it would be me.
I have to admit that it made me recoil, too. I feel like it could be the first step in, as Original Tessa said, the creation of the ideal “super baby” to the exclusion of all the genetic quirks that make the human race so beautifully diverse.
It’s not a big deal.
She looks great pregnant.
And what does she do if the child isnt cool with her preselected gender?
if we leave all the transphobia aside selecting a gender obviously enforces gender roles, why else would you want a son or a daughter specifically? she even said that John would be a great father to a daughter. that just reeks of deeply ingrained gender roles and stereotypes.
I just don’t understand what is so wrong with gender roles. I am a woman. I love being a woman. My husband is a man. He loves being a man. Men and women ARE different, despite the PC crowd trying to say we must be exactly the same all the time. It’s a ridiculous argument. Yes, there is a very, very tiny percentage of the population that have gender identity issues. That does not mean that everyone should abandon their gender identity in order to make them comfortable.
I just find the entire subject tiresome. This child will almost certainly be an ordinary little girl, and there is not a thing in the world wrong with that. But, if she does happen to turn out to be transgender then I suppose her family will just deal with it, just like any other family would.
I’m sure I’ll be accused of being transphobic, but that is not the case. I actually have a trans person in my family that we have all fully accepted and love just the way she is.
It’s more that —
You are welcome to feel how you want to feel, and if you are proud in your femininity then go for it. But you don’t get to impose that viewpoint on other people, and that’s where we are currently as a society.
Men and women really aren’t that different.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/11/brains-men-and-women-aren-t-really-different-study-finds
Gender roles are bullsh*t. It doesn’t matter if you like them, you have to realize for society overall, they’re crap. And our brains are changed by experience. Obviously enforcing certain gender roles on kids from birth is going to affect their brains. It’s messed up if you think about it. So yeah, gender selection is stupid. It really shouldn’t matter and it’s too close to the fiasco that’s going on in China. When has sex selection benefitted women?
LOL chill SamiHami, no one here is attacking your right to be a woman.
I completely agree
INeedANap
Yeah, you neither
Sort of a rediculous argument your making. They seem like they are loving parents who are very excited- she has also said she wants to have multiple children and a little boy but she wanted the girl FIRST. clearly they seem they will love her no matter what- I can’t with this.
…but isn’t that the same thing that happens from the second the doctor tells you, “You’re having a – fill in the blank.” with a natural pregnancy?
I don’t believe in rigid destructive gender roles but I do think it’s unrealistic that judgements and ideas don’t occur. Everyone has expectations of their baby. Happy, healthy, girl or boy. You having ideas doesn’t mean you’re not willing to adjust. But just as quickly the doctor can warn you your baby has a disease and Down syndrome. Is a parent wrong for then making a choice about their child’s health and future?
I believe most people are willing to adjust if their child is transgender if they love the child. If they didn’t then it truly doesn’t matter whether the child was born naturally or had its gender selected.
100%, I never thought about it that way but yes…this exactly.
It’s not a big deal, and it happens every day.
Of course, that doesn’t stop the usual finger-waggy contingent of folks who think they should have a say in what goes on in someone else’s uterus, and it probably never will.
Tbh I struggle to find out why it’s a big deal either.
I mean I ‘get’ it, but so much of everything else I’ve heard from people complaining sounds like someone complaining the sky is falling.
At the end of the day I want us to have more honest and realistic discussions about our desires for children and motherhood without making science into the boogeyman. More girls tend to be selected when IVF gender is chosen in spite of all the claims it’d be the opposite. The issues of lack of respect for girls is a cultural issue that has nothing to do with this science and eliminating it will not be the bandaid that fixes those cultures.
No no noooooo. Girls tend to be chosen more often in the Western world, but overall the preference is definitely for boys when it comes to Asia and Eastern Europe. Since many of these countries have poorer populations, sex selection is not only accomplished through IVF, but also via sex-selective abortions. In fact, in India, it is illegal for the Ob/Gyn to tell the expectant parents the sex of the fetus because the practice became so common.
The issue of lack of respect for girls is a cultural issue, but certainly will not be fixed if the gender ratio in countries only becomes more and more male dominated. For second and third children, the ratio for boy-to-girl can be as high as 175:100! Most worryingly, millions of baby girls have been killed or abandoned as infants. When millions of babies are killed are abandoned, I do consider it a “sky is falling” level of genocide.
See here’s my take….do we REALLY want to ban sex-selective abortion?
On the surface we say “Of course! That’s so wrong!” but really think about it…
…You have a couple with a WANTED pregnancy. A WANTED BABY…. but only if it’s male. So you have a couple, with a wanted pregnancy, who finds out they have a perfectly healthy baby….but it’s a female. They choose to abort. It’s abhorrent.
BUT! Would you want a couple that is SO AGAINST FEMALES that they would abort a healthy one…to raise one? How do you think they would raise her? At best, they would teach her she is an inferior being and talk down to her for her entire life. It is likely she would be neglected. Her chances of being abused are very high.
Why would we want an anti-female couple to raise a daughter? However, I do understand your point as I did read a study that said that societies with LESS females are even MORE sexist. The solution will lie with education…but until then…I’m not sure I want an anti-female couple raising a daughter they will neglect and abuse and tell her she’s worthless. There’s no easy answers here.
Exactly pine tree.
That is my issue. I made the mistake vilebody of not specifying I meant Western IVF but the issue remains the same. The less choice we give to potential parents the more issues come from the system and this is true of even the Western World. Making abortion illegal doesn’t stop abortions, merely takes them underground. We have a struggling system full of kids in foster care and wards of the state that adoption hasn’t fixed. We also have people naturally choosing to have more children repeatedly in a quest for their chosen gender. That problem isn’t solved by removing sex selection.
Your point about the babies being abandoned is a serious one, but those issues are cultural. Removing gender selection doesn’t force those countries to suddenly value women. If you are willing to abandon a living child to die merely because of your gender you should never have had that child to begin with.
China’s one child policy ended up having a disastrous effect on their economy and culture and as a result was ended. Now there is a push to encourage couples to have more than one child and be kinder to the female gender. The issues that society has were not fixed by removing their choices and now at least from the ground up there is an effort being made to correct this cultural issue. Without that foundation level shift in culture nothing changes. Eliminate the science (which at least keeps living babies from suffering or dying) and you still have a world where women are treated cruely. Perhaps only when the effects become disastrous will the culture choose to advance towards self preservation and respect for women. But I do not think we can force or institutionalize it if it’s not from the idea of making a major change in all aspects of a society.
@Eternal Side Eye – normally you are so on point, but coming from a country where gender selection has actually skewed sex ratios to as few as 750 girls for every 1000 boys born, and having seen the worsening treatment of women in those areas as a result, I cannot be so ‘you do you’ about gender selection.
It’s no coincidence that the areas with the worst skewed sex ratios are also rife with violence against women, extreme rape culture (in a country where it’s already bad) and, now that the problem of ‘not enough girls to marry the boys’ is catching up, widespread mail-order brides/sex trafficking.
Thank you for responding teacakes
I have to admit there’s no perfect solution. I would love if there was a way to start from the ground up and try to instill a more balanced attitude towards women and girls but that’s a huge struggle. I feel horrible for the girls who are born to abusive situations or abandoned to die merely because they are girls. I’d love to prevent that since my biggest fear is whether limiting the science does anything to change the abuse and neglect that is already happening or would happen.
People already abandon their female children to die and abuse them even without gender selection. How do we stop that? So I don’t have an answer. The Western World’s treatment of IVF And relationship to its children is very different.
I agree with you Samihami. Not everyone is floating on the spectrum of gender. I am happily a woman in my own understanding of it and everyone has the right to be their own interpretation of man woman or whatever they want to identify as. I don’t think it’s a big deal her choosing the sex of her baby. I can’t imagine a world where IVF out does natural conception.
I can see both sides of this argument. First I want to say I don’t think she did anything wrong she has said she wants multiple children including a son she just wanted the girl first. she also struggled and really wanted a girl- personally have always wanted a daughter it’s a dream of mine when I have kids. If I need Ivf and could choose I might it’s not that I wouldn’t also love a son, I would, but I really want to ensure I have a daughter. If I knew I could have both I would but I would maybe pick the daughter first- but I have friends who would pick a son over a daughter so I’m not sure how big of a concern gender bias is in our country.
That being said this super baby thing is a legit concern, I don’t think we should be motifying embryos to create our ideal babies. I think we should leave that alone they come out how they come out genetically.
this doesn’t feel the same to me as the having an abortion if you get pregnant with a child and it’s not the gender you want and maybe I’m wrong about that.
She’s so much prettier when she looks natural, as opposed to the dark dark berry lipstick. Grates my nerves.
North American couples aren’t always choosing the same sex when gender selecting, so I don’t think we will have the same problems China and India have.
If I could have afforded ivf and gender selection I definitely would have. It’s OK to have a preference for the gender of your baby!!
You’re posting with my real first and middle name, and it’s kind of freaking me out.
But has Kim ever changed a diaper? LOL what advice can she give other than the names of a few good nannies?
With regards to gender selection, I am completely against it. I come from a culture where boys are highly preferred and I HATE it.
I cannot image the comments Kim K would have gotten for wearing that skirt with the slit while pregnant. If I’m not mistaken she did wear a skirt with a slit while pregnant and she got the usual “dirty hoe” comments. But this wannabe kardashian (bc seriously guys that’s all she is, look at how much she sucks up to Kim K and how much she name drops her) is praised. Interesting.
at least this ‘wannabe Kardashian’ is wearing a slit skirt that is flattering and the right size.
Kim got criticism for her pregnancy wardrobe because it was ill-fitting and uncomfortable, not revealing, but nice attempt at playing the slut-shaming card there.
Personally I think gender selection is kind of creepy but what everyone else does is not my business. If that’s what you want to do, it’s your choice. However, I’m honestly perplexed by those who don’t think it’s a big deal. Seems like a major decision to me! Anyway, it wouldn’t be for me but i certainly don’t have the right to tell anyone else what to do or how to live.