When Well-Adjusted Child Stars Have Kids: Adam Brody and Leighton Meester Are Ready to Parent
Blessed is this day, “for unto us a child is born; unto us a child is given.” Pardon my Messianic fervor, but news has just come down the pipe that Adam Brody, the Ultimate Jewish Boy of All Time, has just been presented with a baby daughter by his wife, Leighton Meester, who isn’t Jewish but who I always subconsciously think is, because what else could Blair Waldorf be? (The couple officially became parents in August, but they’ve held the announcement because they are very private people, as all celebrity couples are, except when they aren’t.) Their newborn’s name is Arlo Day Brody and I’m sure, in the way of all babies—especially ones who bear the genetic imprimatur of these two extremely puppy-faced, dimpled humans—that she is absolutely adorable. It’s unclear whether she will grow up to fulfill the sort of glorious destiny I have half-joking affixed to her, but one thing is for sure: her birth, with the relative sanity surrounding it, means that baby Arlo presages an entire new era for post-teen stardom.
It used to be that the journey of former child or teen stars was clear: You are adorable and beloved, you make mall appearances and show up on the cover of Teen Beat, then everyone forgets about you until you make news for robbing a convenience store to fund your meth habit. A couple of years later, maybe, you do a People magazine feature (but don’t make the cover) on how you’ve found God, and then a few years after that you’re found dead of a drug relapse (which potentially does make the cover, but only if it was a really slow news week when nobody more famous than you got pregnant or married.)