Parker's Pregnancy Gets Bad Rap

Posted Mar 13, 2009 1:30AM By Kevin Blackistone (RSS feed)

Filed Under: NBA

It is a good thing for Roger Federer that he isn't a woman. Or maybe it is too bad that Candace Parker is. After all, they are in the same boat, but in very different classes of travel. Federer is in first, while Parker appears to be in stowage.

The ship both are sailing on is the Love Boat. Federer announced happily on his Web site Thursday that he is about to become a father. Parker is pictured on the cover of ESPN the Magazine scheduled for release on Friday in full bloom – pregnant.

Federer is not married. Parker is -- now.

But Parker wasn't hitched to her basketball-playing boyfriend, Shelden Williams, until last November, when the pair made news by eloping. A month later, Parker announced she was with child. The baby is due in May, which means Parker was about three months pregnant when she and Williams ran away to get hitched.

The initial news of Parker's blessing wasn't warmly embraced by all, including, oddly enough, by Parker's female boss, L.A. Sparks' owner Kathy Goodman.

"My first reaction," Goodman told the Los Angeles Times, sounding like Phyllis Schlafly, "was to just shake my head. We're inured to this by now so I guess I thought, 'Oh, yeah, she's having a baby. Yeah, of course.' "

Goodman was recalling her disappointment years earlier when the first star of the Sparks, Lisa Leslie, announced her pregnancy during the offseason and missed the regular campaign.

Some other crickets, however, chirped their disappointment in Parker more specifically -- she got pregnant out of wedlock, at just 22 years old and selfishly knowing full well that her team, if not the WNBA, needed her, last year's Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year.

And you thought those fifties' family sitcoms, where men ruled and women knew their place, were relics of the past.

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Federer, in the immediate wake of his good fortune with girlfriend Mirka Vavrinec, is being celebrated and congratulated for being at the threshold of parenthood. "Federer to be a dad," most headlines heralded Thursday.

It wasn't unlike the reaction to the news that the Donny Osmond of the NFL, Tom Brady, was about to become a father with a former girlfriend after having found a new one. Or the blowback to the news late last year that Lance Armstrong, who has one son and twins with his ex-wife Kristin Richards, was about to become a father again with his latest squeeze, girlfriend Anna Hansen, who Armstrong found working at his charity.

Parker hasn't been so lucky. Only guys can have all this fun.

Los Angeles Times' columnist Diane Pucin reported Thursday:

Gary Belsky, [ESPN the Magazine] editor in chief, said the [Parker cover] story had been planned and photos shot just before Parker's pregnancy became public -- or noticeable.

"We don't do a lot of female athletes on the cover," Belsky said. "Candace has made it more interesting. She's got Adidas, McDonald's and Gatorade as sponsors; that's a pretty strong big three. But it's still tough to put a woman on the cover for us."

I wonder if a guy who, like Parker, in one year led his alma mater to a second consecutive national title, was national player of the year, an Academic All-America, the first pick of the pro draft, the rookie of the year and league MVP in the pros -- and, oh yeah, helped his team win an Olympic gold medal --- would have trouble getting on the cover of a national sports magazine? Would he have to be pregnant too? (Of course, that would be a story!)

Pucin's story continued with Belsky:

"But ESPN is participating in women's sports month in March, so we thought this would be a good way. But when we found out she was pregnant we had to call and say, 'We can't run these pictures in March.' "

So photo editor Catriona Ni Aolain reconceived the photo and spoke to Parker. "She was a little nervous," Ni Aolain said. "She wanted to know we wouldn't make fun of her in any way."

So ESPN the Magazine emblazoned a smiling Parker on its cover in a white dress cradling her tummy like a basketball next to this headline: "How Big Can Candace Parker Get?"

How crass are we still?

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)

3-13-2009 @ 9:10AM

glamazon27 said...

When I saw the cover yesterday, I thought boy Candace looks beautiful. Glows just like an expectant mom is expected to. And I quietly praised ESPN The Magazine. I sometimes live under a rock and had no idea she was pregnant until then. But I can't believe that people would call her selfish for deciding to become a mother when she has a job. I guess that what happens when you let women out of the kitchen to have careers.

3-14-2009 @ 10:10PM

priscilla said...

She doesn't just have a job, she is an athlete, an athlete that can't perform.

3-14-2009 @ 10:23PM

candy alkaabi said...

pricilla and you would rather her have an abortion an dwork on becomeing abetter player? this is what all the others are implying!! they all think o fyou ran athelete you must abort all babies you get preg with while you are in peak performance!! besides shes 22 she is still young!!

3-15-2009 @ 1:37AM

Barsha said...

how right you are, but I bet she would be "selfish" if she terminated the pregnancy too. she can't win this one. :-\

3-13-2009 @ 12:10PM

the truth said...

Congrats to Candace Parker and Shelden Williams. I only wish is that Salah Palin's daughter and boyfriend would have exhibited such character.

3-13-2009 @ 2:25PM

lougagner said...

Why? Who cares what complete strangers do if it doesn't effect you.

3-16-2009 @ 2:53PM

MICHELLE said...

what character? She got pregnant by one man and then married another. THAT is the only real problem.

3-16-2009 @ 4:52PM

Wendy Dean said...

MICHELLE....Who are you speaking of?....Candace married her fiance, who was her longtime boyfriend and WHO IS ALSO THE FATHER OF HER BABY. I see no problem here. This young lady went to college (3.35 GPA); has a career; probably has more money than you. I am sure that she wasn't planning to start a family this soon, but LIFE happens...Stop being the moral police... Congrats Candace, wishing you all the best.

3-13-2009 @ 12:26PM

John Butler said...

How did sheldon williams get her?....i'm jealous...naw but congrats to them

3-13-2009 @ 9:21PM

who_the said...

I'm happy for Parker and Williams. I am also disgusted at the selfish, sexist attitude exhibited by fans, owners and sportswriters alike.

It's entirely within the purview of any private citizen to decide when personal endeavors outweigh professional obligations. Likewise, it is the right of any employer (within the terms of the law or one's employment contract, if one exists) to terminate or discipline employees who, for whatever reason, can not fulfill their professional duties.

People, even athletes, are not slaves or indentured servants. To deny Parker (or anyone) the right to reproduce and extend their families is an unfair and unreasonable intrusion into her private life.

And don't argue that Parker should just "wait" to have a baby; millions of women who "waited" to have a baby for "career" reasons now find themselves undergoing fertility treatment or adopting because they placed professional priorities ahead of personal goals.

3-14-2009 @ 10:20PM

jekylzcat said...

I agree, they may have celebrated her if she was pushing forty and popping out octuplets as a single mom, but a young sucessful and finacially stable woman in a family enviorment having a kid? GOD NO! NOT THAT! Let the corporates decide when she can have kid, it really shows the measure of her boss in how she was treated she'd be better off without them.

3-15-2009 @ 10:56AM

willie said...

Blackistone, thanks for the article on Parker, but wasn't it YOU, the day after the women's national championship, in the "showdown" segment of Around the Horn that said Candace was about to "disappear"? Now she's in commercials, on billboards at my mall, and in your face on the cover of this magazine.

3-14-2009 @ 1:50AM

jpweg5 said...

Who cares, it's the WNBA. Nobody watches them. A good boys high school team could beat any of them!

3-14-2009 @ 9:37PM

Tim Valenzuela said...

Absolutely not! The women have shown that they can balance life and have a job, too. This shows the double standard that we still live in when it comes to men and women. It also shows how some people have and always will be arrogant, obnoxious, and closed-minded. I hate all these types of characteristics to begin with and will never respect anyone who shows them.

3-14-2009 @ 8:41PM

floydchristopher said...

This article is spot on. It's shameful small and hypocritical minds like Kathy Goodman's hold such sway in sports.

I don't think I've seen a woman look as beautiful and happy on the cover of a sports magazine as Candace Parker does.

3-14-2009 @ 8:42PM

Stephanie said...

AOL is truly becoming tabloid news with their headline of "Athlete Criticized for Pregnancy - Matters Made Worse by 'Crass' Cover?" What is crass about this cover? Candace Parker is stunning! Congrats! The people who are complaining are thinking of $$$, they are just pissed because she did not 'time' the pregnancy to their schedules! Get over it.

3-14-2009 @ 8:59PM

Sweet!

3-14-2009 @ 9:03PM

mfg0505 said...

I do not know why it is anyones business either for these two people or Palin and Johnston they live a life and life that has surprises...no one has the right to pass judgement on anyone else...any working woman can become pregnate and the boss has to live with it...this is the law and only right. get off the band wagon...there are far more important things in this time then the fact that someone got pregnate...unmarried or not. GET REAL PEOPLE...the c--- that is put on tv and the movies and it is expected that it will not have a effect on the children ....

3-14-2009 @ 9:11PM

SparkyD said...

If you're going to comment on pregnancy, please learn how to spell the word. It is spelled p-r-e-g-n-a-n-t. By the way, I am delighted that Levi Johnston dumped Bristol Palin. I wish the State of Alaska would do the same thing to her mother.