In case you haven’t heard, a couple of celebrities are having a baby!!!!

Complications aside, that’s what Kate Middleton’s pregnancy boils down to. The Royals over in England have long ceased meaning much politically and are now merely celebrities; attractive, wholesome celebrities. But, no surprise, the media is treating this like the biggest thing since Kate Middleton got married. Which was also meaningless, especially in the face of Pippa’s glorious rump.

I sympathize with the Duke and Duchess. Because being pregnant is a pain in the ass, but that’s nothing compared to being pregnant under the glare of the entire Western media. Which is itself nothing compared to the royal pain in the ass that is owning a child, celebrity or not.

Seriously though, severe morning sickness? Is there anything less classy than the image of the Royal Hottie painfully, aggressively vomiting? Between this and her leaked nudie photos and her dodgy sister and her dodgier brother-in-law, it’s like there’s a movement to bring the Royals down a few notches. Thankfully, a Royal pregnancy has come along just in time to thrust Kate into the saintly, unimpeachable role of mother.

Until she doesn’t do it right, or doesn’t do it as well as Diana, or doesn’t do it at least better than Britney. Then the gloves come off.

The fact is, there’s not much that’s “classy” about having a baby, especially if you soil yourself during labor. Celebrities – all rich people, really, famous or not – definitely have it easier what with their nannies and their money and their servants and, in this case, their noble blood. All of those things will allow the Middletons, or the Williamses, or whatever the Royal last name is, to avoid some of the less pleasant, more lifestyle-cramping aspects of parenting, like getting up early and changing diapers and not being able to drink because you have to get up early and change diapers. But no matter how much you’re able to circumvent the general drudgery of parenting, unless you’re totally heartless and uninterested in your kid, there’s not enough money or fame in the world to make raising a kid easy.

Having kids is a pain, pure and simple. Obviously, when it comes to mothers – rich and poor, famous and anonymous – I mean that in the most literal way possible: giving birth hurts. The pain becomes slightly more figurative when the kid arrives, but it’s still there, because having a baby is inconvenient. Again, a nanny and diapers made of money do much to reduce that inconvenience, but it’s still there.

Besides, just because you don’t oversee every aspect of your child’s care doesn’t mean you don’t love them, and much of the inconvenience of having kids is the psychological inconvenience brought about by a pesky devotion to their well-being. Suddenly you have to think about someone other than yourself; suddenly you can’t have that extra drink, there’s a kid at home. Sometimes you can’t just lay around all day watching football, or whatever they call it in England; there’s a kid around.

Once the kid becomes a toddler, it becomes both a lot more fun and a lot more difficult. Say goodbye to mere “inconvenience” and hello to hard work. Don’t get me wrong, toddlers are still inconvenient; spontaneity is dead, cleanliness is dead, going out to dinner is an endangered species, etc. But they are also difficult: difficult to tolerate, difficult to discipline, difficult to understand. Just plain difficult. And most kids are pretty generic; I can’t even imagine trying to discipline a spoiled Royal, or decipher a two-year-old’s English-accented babble. Unless your nanny is working miracles like Mary Poppins, your kid is gonna aggravate the shit out of you on the regular, especially if he gets wind of the fact that he may one day wear a crown.

So, hopefully, the Duchess will escape the hospital, and the early stages of her pregnancy, safe and sound and without further complications. Because she’s going to have plenty more complications when her child (or children) arrive(s). Thankfully, the the Royal couple seem like they have their heads on straight, and they live in a castle with tons of servants and family around for physical and psychological support, so they should be okay.

If only the celebrity-obsessed among us were as well-adjusted as Kate and William seem to be. Because sometime over the next fifty years, one of their Royal offspring will probably become King or Queen, and one of the others will be an embarrassment, and while none of it will matter even slightly in the grand scheme of things, the media will continue to over-report it like it’s the second coming of Christ, because so many of us lap it up like sheepdogs at meal time.

Hopefully, for our sake, one of those kids will have a body like Pippa’s.