Then there’s the countless adoptions of Angelina Jolie and the new births of kids named Apple, Martini, Dewdrop, Lollygag, and whatever else the Hollywood folk can deem to punish their unwitting children before they learn to speak.

But what perhaps is the biggest mockery of the celebrities and their somewhat questionable habits is one that isn’t questionable at all.  Kate Gosselin, from the first successful venture in a real life Brady Bunch family setting, Jon and Kate Plus Eight, was caught on camera spanking one of her kids by the paparazzi.  The child was blowing a whistle while her mother was on the phone and was asked to stop, but continued anyway.  Doing what parents have been doing up until recently when children began to receive more rights than educated, well-meaning adults, she disciplined the child.  There is a saying: “Spare the rod, spoil the child.”

Most children these days are spoiled beyond belief, and it’s largely due to the media’s desperation for anything that resembles news to report on.  Its almost reached the point where any discipline whatsoever is frowned upon, including timeouts and scolding.

So how are any parents supposed to discipline an unruly child these days?

It seems the answers are Sesame Street and Nickelodeon.  TV has become a more effective parent than those responsible for feeding, clothing, and providing shelter for a child.  Parents’ hands are tied behind their backs, chained to the ceiling, with a hood over their heads, suspended over flaming coals.

Psychologists will argue that spanking can cause psychological trauma.  Sorry.  Psychology as a field started when Freud decided that boys want to have sex with their mothers, known as the Oedipus complex, just prior to 1900.  As far as a medical science is concerned, psychology is theory.  Theories are guesses.  Look into history and take into consideration how long physical discipline has been in practice and then determine how detrimental to society it was when it was widely accepted as the standard of punishment for a disobedient child.

There is a limit to spanking, and that’s when it starts to become abuse.  Broken bones, lacerations, and strikes to the face are all pretty commonly understood as excessive.  There is a line between losing your temper and abusing a child, and what is considered proper discipline.

Timeout is something middle and upper class citizens created when they were either unwilling to strike a child, too lazy, feared breaking a nail or getting their hands dirty, or now the societal repercussions.  Try putting a 17-year-old in ‘timeout’ or grounding them.  It’s impossible to ground a teen in today’s world because of how much of their education is dependent on that as their sole source of contact to the outside world.  Lets face it, kids today are deprived of the things they need like parents and friends.

Kids come home to watch TV, or play World of Warcraft.  Parents are afraid to interact with their children, or are simply unwilling to.  Journalism as a whole has slid from respectable reporting to thriving on the gossip of private lives, and as the hedonists we are, we soak up every little juicy tabloid garbage story.

Kate Gosselin spanking her child is just the latest story in the ongoing cycle of tabloids opting the way of Hulu advertising: to turn our brains into a jello-like pudding.

The award for leader in unwed mothers giving birth goes to Iceland, with six in 10 births among unmarried women. Following closely behind are Sweden and Norway. About half of their births are to unwed mothers.

According to the CDC, France, Denmark and the United Kingdom also have higher percentages than the United States.

Information like this shines a whole new light on seeing a woman go through sometimes five or six men on Maury before finding the baby’s real father. Well, maybe not.

This rise in unwed mothers giving birth has been happening since 1980, with the U.S. and 13 other industrialized nations experiencing a spike, a spokeswoman for the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics said.

Some rates have doubled and even tripled in some countries, though the rate has accelerated within the last five years.

Apparently, no one knows exactly why this rise is happening, but what’s for sure is that from a social standpoint, it’s becoming more acceptable.

One doesn’t have to be an expert to see that things have changed a great deal within even the last 10 years. Women are far more independent than they used to be and younger generations don’t feel as if they have to live under the same social standards that their parents did. Makes sense to me.

Differences do exist though, in how unmarried pregnancies are viewed by different countries.

In the U.S., single mothers are often on their own and are more likely to be poor and uneducated, experts have said.

According to Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington D.C., men and women in northern Europe often live together for long periods of time without tying the knot, and these relationships are often stable. Due to declining birth rates in European countries, Haub said, people are more concerned with making healthy babies than whether or not mothers are married.

Haub predicts that the total number of births internationally will decline, something that’s already taking place in European countries because of crumbling economies. However, he expects that current trends in the percentage of unmarried mothers will continue.

If these are the highest on the list of countries with the most unwed mothers, who’s ranking low?

The CDC reported that Japan had the lowest percentage of unmarried births, with just 2 percent in 2007, a number up 1 percent from the 1980 report.

Other countries saw spiking percentages, such as Italy rising from 4 to 21 percent, Ireland from 5 to 33 percent, Canada from 13 to 30 percent, and the United Kingdom from 12 percent to 44 percent.

According to the same report, the U.S. proportion of unmarried births rose from 18 percent to 40 percent in that time frame.

With the exception of Japan, it appears most industrialized nations are on the same birthing, ahem, playing field when it comes to unmarried mothers.

What happened to the good old Beaver Cleaver days when kids grew up with both a mom and a dad? Maybe the social standard on this subject is changing, but is it changing for the better? I’ve always heard that two is better than one, but maybe that’s changing too.