Chrissy Teigen on the question you should never ask a woman

By Jen haupt

September 17, 2015

By Jen haupt

September 17, 2015

If you’re a woman of childbearing age, chances are someone in the recent past — a nosy relative, perhaps? – has inquired about your plans to procreate. And while usually these questions are innocently intentioned, their effects can sometimes be pretty negative, especially if you’ve heard the same questions over and over again and are to the point where you feel sort of done dancing around them.

The thing is, as women we’re kind of expected to have kids at some point even if not many people would come right out and say that super directly. And Chrissy Teigen – the stunning and refreshingly outspoken model and wife of John Legend – has some really smart and poignant things to say about this topic and line of questioning on an upcoming episode of Tyra Banks’ new show, FABLife.

“I will say, honestly, John and I are having trouble,” Teigen says candidly. “We would have kids five, six years ago if it’d happened.” Teigen goes on to say that she and Legend have seen fertility doctors, and adds that curious people should be mindful of the fact that they may ask the wrong person the kids’ question. Consider the fact that you may be asking someone who is having a hard time getting pregnant why they don’t have kids.

“I am so tired of seeing on my social media, ‘Why don’t you have kids? Why don’t you have kids?’” Banks adds in agreement during the segment. “You don’t know. You don’t know what I’m going through.”

Hear, hear. The bottom line is that it’s just never OK to question a woman about what she is doing with her body, or imply that she should be expanding her family. Regardless of whether she doesn’t want to do so, or is struggling to, the information is private – period.

Teigen and Banks aren’t alone among women in Hollywood who feel and resent the baby pressure. In an interview out of the October issue of Redbook, Gabrielle Union states, “There’s a certain amount of shame that is placed on women who have perhaps chosen a career over starting a family younger. The penance for being a career woman is barrenness. You feel like you’re wearing a scarlet letter.”

Ugh. Sad but true. Regardless of a woman’s reasoning behind not having a child yet, we could all use a lesson in appropriateness when it comes to discussing this topic. We feel you so hard, ladies, and appreciate you speaking out about this. There are lines people sometimes just don’t know shouldn’t be crossed and this is absolutely one of them, so the more we can generate discussion about it, the better.

Check out the full preview clip from Teigen’s FABLife interview, which airs this Monday, Sept. 21.