MadameNoire
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We recently told you that former Destiny’s Child member Michelle Williams decided to address a troll on social media who told her she needed to have children. While she gave a firm but respectful clapback, it’s not easy for anyone to deal with having people minding their uterus. It’s especially hard though for people in the public eye. Like Williams, Adrienne Houghton has dealt with questions about when she’s going to have children, questions that came in full force after she married Israel Houghton in 2016 and said that in 2018 she was hoping to start a family. When that didn’t happen, the inquiries increased, and Houghton admitted during a recent episode of The Real that it can all be very “hurtful.”
Speaking on Williams’s handling of the troll, Houghton talked about people who felt they were owed an explanation for what’s going on in your body based on her own experiences.
“I really think that we have this concept in our mind, and I can say this from someone who struggles with fertility, that we put this pressure on women and we almost make them feel like they’re not woman enough if they don’t have children. Or that they’re not woman enough if they don’t want children,” she said. “Then it’s a question of, ‘Well why don’t you want kids? Is something wrong with you? What’s wrong with you? You must have had a messed up childhood.’ It’s really hurtful. Just like Michelle said, you never know what someone’s journey has been. You never know their why. But sadly, social media has given people a platform to poke at others when they have no idea what the backstory may be.”
She did note that there are some who ask on social media not to be offensive but because they love babies and/or they genuinely want to see people happily married with children. However, she’s no longer addressing such questions and comments.
“I don’t even respond,” she said. “People ask me every day why I don’t have kids.”
Back in 2018, Houghton told MadameNoire that she didn’t regret initially sharing her hopes of starting a family on the show, though outside pressure came with doing so.
“I don’t regret it because, again, there is somebody that may be watching it that it may encourage. And at the same time, yes, it is crazy to hear every day that I’m pregnant when I am not pregnant,” she said at the time. “Let me tell you when it actually happens…”
“And I’m in no rush. I think it’s important to say that as well,” she added. “Yes, I’d like to extend my family, but I am in no rush. I want what God wants for me more than anything.”
