Big Hollywood families

Usually when you think of "big Hollywood families," names like Coppola, Douglas, or Baldwin spring to mind, but it's probably no surprise that for me the definition of a big Hollywood family is slightly different -- it's a Hollywood couple with a high kid count.

Every couple of weeks when my husband (henceforth referred to by his given name, Chris, on this blog) goes off to run an urgent evening errand -- like pick up a gallon of whole milk, grab a pint of ice cream, get a packet of CC batteries -- he'll return home with a treat that trumps any carton of Ben and Jerry's: a copy of US Weekly. As with the unexpected large family that crops up on television, it's the unusual Hollywood couple who's procreated with abandon that sticks with me after I've reaffirmed that stars are just like me and Britney Spears has challenged fashion sense. A few couples (who would in normal circumstances be as interesting to me as the human interest stories in rival magazine People) always stay on my radar because of their big broods: Warren Beatty and Annette Benning (four kids), Justin (of Grey's Anatomy) and Keisha Chambers (five kids) or even Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, who pushed the envelope and had three.

And then, of course, there's Brangelina.

As star gawkers worldwide wait anxiously in our moderate-sized homes with our moderate-sized families for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt to announce the arrival of their twins -- and officially expand their multi-cultural crew of children to six -- I can't help but wonder if a high-profile couple with a big family will have any trickle down affect on kid count in America. There's lots of talk about how Brangelina is championing adoption, making it cool and Hollywood-ish to adopt from outside the US, but what about their sheer numbers? Will the size of the Jolie-Pitt family influence others (excluding those who are already influenced by religion or a lack of access to and/or knowledge of effective birth control) to make more babies?

I recognize that glamorizing big family life is dangerous in a world where reality dictates that we can't all shuttle our kids to play dates on Leer jets and stroll hand-in-hand down the red carpet with our partner while our children cuddle up for one last book with their legions of live-in nannies. Yet I still can't help wondering if there's any quantifiable impact of big families in the media on mainstream America. It's something I'm going to try and research this week.