Sonia Kruger speaks out against the stigma surrounding IVF and late parenthood
TV and Radio
Sonia Kruger: "When someone asks me a question I answer it as honestly as I can." Photo: Anu Kumar
Within a day, possibly only hours, of revealing she was pregnant, TV personality Sonia Kruger had intimate details of her personal life splashed all over newspapers and the internet in a manner that might make even an over-sharing celebrity wince.
Not that staying silent was an option. For the past fortnight, Kruger's baby bump has been evident beneath the va-va-voom outfits she wears as host of Big Brother. By the time the show wraps, her bump will be the size of a watermelon.
Nor would it be the straight-shooting Kruger's style to not be frank and honest about herself.
Friendly and unpretentious: Rosa's Kitchen was bustling with the Friday working-lunch crowd. Photo: Anu Kumar
"I've never lied," says the gregarious Kruger, who looks at least 10 years younger than her 49 years, over lunch at Rosa's Kitchen. "When someone asks me a question I answer it as honestly as I can. More importantly, it's important to me to not mislead women out there as if it was some kind of miracle baby," she says; a thinly veiled riposte to Women's Weekly magazine, which plastered the line "My Miracle Pregnancy ..." on its cover after Kruger announced her pregnancy at the end of her first trimester.
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"It's science, not a miracle," says Kruger. "Unfortunately, that (headline) is really misleading to women. Thirty years ago when IVF first came up people were very suspicious about it. Questions about ethics and morality all came up. If you look at how common it is now, people don't bat an eyelid."
A lunch time drink is off the agenda and Kruger has a plane to catch, so without hesitation we take up the waitress' suggestion of an antipasto platter (pork and fennel sausage, Mortadella, kohlrabi, bean salad, pecorino, cauliflower fritter, frittata and pickled fennel), fried calamari and stuffed sardines. The generously sized and flavoursome dishes arrive quickly. The venue is bustling with the Friday working-lunch crowd and as befits the setting the food is friendly and unpretentious.
Small antipasto, stuffed sardines and calamari with parsley salt at Rosa's Kitchen. Photo: Anu Kumar
Though TV has come a long way since the days of I Love Lucy, when the word "expectant" was considered safer than "pregnant", baby bumps are still notable for their scarcity on screen. A decade ago, baby bumps – be they real, imagined or a trick of a camera lens – were tabloid fodder. But these days, it's the IVF ordeals of TV personalities, such as comedienne Mary Coustas and reporter Leila McKinnon or at the other end of the popular culture spectrum the so-called Octomom, that seem to capture the public's attention.
For her part, Kruger is resolute about shining a light on IVF and late parenthood, if only to take away some of the stigma.
"I hate disappointing people. I'd be very disappointed (not talking frankly), I'd want to know more. Coming from that side of the fence of being the person asking the questions I also want to be as honest and open as possible unless I feel there's some danger in doing that."
The bill, please.
A large part of Kruger's appeal and popularity is her unfiltered and often cheeky spontaneity on live TV. Her first breakthrough was as Tina Sparkle in Baz Luhrmann's 1992 musical film Strictly Ballroom. But she fast discovered that dramatic roles, crying-on-command and pre-rehearsed lines weren't for her.
She learned the ropes of TV on the afternoon kid's show Wonder World, before being offered the co-hosting duties of the breakout, family-friendly competition show Dancing With The Stars.
She shone as the cheeky loose cannon to Daryl Somers' dapper host, gently ribbing contestants and lobbing inspired puns that are likely to have had the hands of network censors hovering over the mute button for many an hour.
Unbeknownst to many, Kruger had been approached a few years before Dancing With The Stars to host the then-unknown reality show that would change the face of local TV, Big Brother.
Tim Clucas, then an executive at Ten, contacted Kruger and suggested she audition. "He said, 'You don't understand, this show is going to be really big'." But Kruger wasn't convinced and didn't turn up to do the screen test. "Tim called me and he wasn't happy."
Busy with Dancing With The Stars she didn't look back, she says, but began to wonder if "the universe is trying to tell me something" when three years ago, Kruger having now decamped to Nine, the network made the surprise decision to revive the show, which Ten axed in 2008 in the face of declining audiences and a series of damaging public scandals.
"I thought long and hard about doing it," says Kruger, who was so nervous in the lead-up to the first episode "I started thinking of ways to fake my own death to get out of it".
She recalls the night early in the first season when a producer instructed her to throw to the house and talk to Michael, "the peacemaker".
"So I started thinking he's making peace, there must have been a huge fight in the house. Wow. What went down for Michael to now play the role of peacemaker?" says Kruger in her TV presenter voice. "And (the producer talking through the ear-piece) went 'pizza maker, he's making pizzas'." I burst out laughing and I'm sure the audience thought 'what is she laughing about?'.
"Now I'm a lot more comfortable with where we're going, what we're doing, who's talking in my ear, I don't have to think about any of that now."
The most significant change that Nine brought to the Big Brother format was to make it a prime-time show that would appeal to a young-adult audience, distancing it from the smutty and voyeuristic scandals for which its earlier incarnation was known.
Nonetheless, it is a show that tends to be publicly judged by people who don't watch it at the expense of its loyal followers who understand the intricacies of the Survivor-type competition – to be the last person evicted from the house and claim the $250,000 cash prize – and who relate to the dozen contestants isolated for months on end in the fish-bowl house.
The local version of the show, Kruger contends, is a real-life soap opera. "It's the romance, the drama, the conflict, all that stuff becomes compelling after a while."
To the kids at home, the contestants – invariably they're a motley bunch that includes a handful of desirable young men and women, an oddball, an extrovert with narcissistic tendencies, a mysterious dark horse, etc – are larger-than-life characters whose sequestered situation they can relate to.
"I think viewers put themselves into their situation. I know I have. If I went into the house, how would people in the outside world see me; would they like me, would they hate me?"
And while some contestants, Kruger believes, are driven by the hope of building a career in the media, the majority aren't.
"I think why so many of them go onto have radio careers is because the people who are conversationalists in the house stand out and it's a natural progression to go into radio. They don't necessarily go into a breakfast slot in Sydney or Melbourne, but they get a foot in the door if they have natural talent. It's not that way for everyone. We've had interesting people in the house – Tim Dormer (winner of the 2013 series) was a strange cat who liked to stir the pot – but that's just him. Those people have meant that we don't just get the show ponies. The average age this year is 27, in the past it was 23. It's about their life experiences."
Kruger's professional plans beyond the Big Brother finale are unclear. "I imagine that three months is the norm in terms of maternity leave," she says, before relating a characteristically wise-ass anecdote about a colleague who boasted about how awesome her network was about taking-off time after having a baby. "I'll probably get the weekend off," her friend said.
"I guess the thing is we have it a lot better than most working mums."
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/sonia-kruger-speaks-out-against-the-stigma-surrounding-ivf-and-late-parenthood-20140920-10iqad.html#ixzz3ERlK5ukZ
TV and Radio
Sonia Kruger: "When someone asks me a question I answer it as honestly as I can." Photo: Anu Kumar
Within a day, possibly only hours, of revealing she was pregnant, TV personality Sonia Kruger had intimate details of her personal life splashed all over newspapers and the internet in a manner that might make even an over-sharing celebrity wince.
Not that staying silent was an option. For the past fortnight, Kruger's baby bump has been evident beneath the va-va-voom outfits she wears as host of Big Brother. By the time the show wraps, her bump will be the size of a watermelon.
Nor would it be the straight-shooting Kruger's style to not be frank and honest about herself.
Friendly and unpretentious: Rosa's Kitchen was bustling with the Friday working-lunch crowd. Photo: Anu Kumar
"I've never lied," says the gregarious Kruger, who looks at least 10 years younger than her 49 years, over lunch at Rosa's Kitchen. "When someone asks me a question I answer it as honestly as I can. More importantly, it's important to me to not mislead women out there as if it was some kind of miracle baby," she says; a thinly veiled riposte to Women's Weekly magazine, which plastered the line "My Miracle Pregnancy ..." on its cover after Kruger announced her pregnancy at the end of her first trimester.
Advertisement
"It's science, not a miracle," says Kruger. "Unfortunately, that (headline) is really misleading to women. Thirty years ago when IVF first came up people were very suspicious about it. Questions about ethics and morality all came up. If you look at how common it is now, people don't bat an eyelid."
A lunch time drink is off the agenda and Kruger has a plane to catch, so without hesitation we take up the waitress' suggestion of an antipasto platter (pork and fennel sausage, Mortadella, kohlrabi, bean salad, pecorino, cauliflower fritter, frittata and pickled fennel), fried calamari and stuffed sardines. The generously sized and flavoursome dishes arrive quickly. The venue is bustling with the Friday working-lunch crowd and as befits the setting the food is friendly and unpretentious.
Small antipasto, stuffed sardines and calamari with parsley salt at Rosa's Kitchen. Photo: Anu Kumar
Though TV has come a long way since the days of I Love Lucy, when the word "expectant" was considered safer than "pregnant", baby bumps are still notable for their scarcity on screen. A decade ago, baby bumps – be they real, imagined or a trick of a camera lens – were tabloid fodder. But these days, it's the IVF ordeals of TV personalities, such as comedienne Mary Coustas and reporter Leila McKinnon or at the other end of the popular culture spectrum the so-called Octomom, that seem to capture the public's attention.
For her part, Kruger is resolute about shining a light on IVF and late parenthood, if only to take away some of the stigma.
"I hate disappointing people. I'd be very disappointed (not talking frankly), I'd want to know more. Coming from that side of the fence of being the person asking the questions I also want to be as honest and open as possible unless I feel there's some danger in doing that."
The bill, please.
A large part of Kruger's appeal and popularity is her unfiltered and often cheeky spontaneity on live TV. Her first breakthrough was as Tina Sparkle in Baz Luhrmann's 1992 musical film Strictly Ballroom. But she fast discovered that dramatic roles, crying-on-command and pre-rehearsed lines weren't for her.
She learned the ropes of TV on the afternoon kid's show Wonder World, before being offered the co-hosting duties of the breakout, family-friendly competition show Dancing With The Stars.
She shone as the cheeky loose cannon to Daryl Somers' dapper host, gently ribbing contestants and lobbing inspired puns that are likely to have had the hands of network censors hovering over the mute button for many an hour.
Unbeknownst to many, Kruger had been approached a few years before Dancing With The Stars to host the then-unknown reality show that would change the face of local TV, Big Brother.
Tim Clucas, then an executive at Ten, contacted Kruger and suggested she audition. "He said, 'You don't understand, this show is going to be really big'." But Kruger wasn't convinced and didn't turn up to do the screen test. "Tim called me and he wasn't happy."
Busy with Dancing With The Stars she didn't look back, she says, but began to wonder if "the universe is trying to tell me something" when three years ago, Kruger having now decamped to Nine, the network made the surprise decision to revive the show, which Ten axed in 2008 in the face of declining audiences and a series of damaging public scandals.
"I thought long and hard about doing it," says Kruger, who was so nervous in the lead-up to the first episode "I started thinking of ways to fake my own death to get out of it".
She recalls the night early in the first season when a producer instructed her to throw to the house and talk to Michael, "the peacemaker".
"So I started thinking he's making peace, there must have been a huge fight in the house. Wow. What went down for Michael to now play the role of peacemaker?" says Kruger in her TV presenter voice. "And (the producer talking through the ear-piece) went 'pizza maker, he's making pizzas'." I burst out laughing and I'm sure the audience thought 'what is she laughing about?'.
"Now I'm a lot more comfortable with where we're going, what we're doing, who's talking in my ear, I don't have to think about any of that now."
The most significant change that Nine brought to the Big Brother format was to make it a prime-time show that would appeal to a young-adult audience, distancing it from the smutty and voyeuristic scandals for which its earlier incarnation was known.
Nonetheless, it is a show that tends to be publicly judged by people who don't watch it at the expense of its loyal followers who understand the intricacies of the Survivor-type competition – to be the last person evicted from the house and claim the $250,000 cash prize – and who relate to the dozen contestants isolated for months on end in the fish-bowl house.
The local version of the show, Kruger contends, is a real-life soap opera. "It's the romance, the drama, the conflict, all that stuff becomes compelling after a while."
To the kids at home, the contestants – invariably they're a motley bunch that includes a handful of desirable young men and women, an oddball, an extrovert with narcissistic tendencies, a mysterious dark horse, etc – are larger-than-life characters whose sequestered situation they can relate to.
"I think viewers put themselves into their situation. I know I have. If I went into the house, how would people in the outside world see me; would they like me, would they hate me?"
And while some contestants, Kruger believes, are driven by the hope of building a career in the media, the majority aren't.
"I think why so many of them go onto have radio careers is because the people who are conversationalists in the house stand out and it's a natural progression to go into radio. They don't necessarily go into a breakfast slot in Sydney or Melbourne, but they get a foot in the door if they have natural talent. It's not that way for everyone. We've had interesting people in the house – Tim Dormer (winner of the 2013 series) was a strange cat who liked to stir the pot – but that's just him. Those people have meant that we don't just get the show ponies. The average age this year is 27, in the past it was 23. It's about their life experiences."
Kruger's professional plans beyond the Big Brother finale are unclear. "I imagine that three months is the norm in terms of maternity leave," she says, before relating a characteristically wise-ass anecdote about a colleague who boasted about how awesome her network was about taking-off time after having a baby. "I'll probably get the weekend off," her friend said.
"I guess the thing is we have it a lot better than most working mums."
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/sonia-kruger-speaks-out-against-the-stigma-surrounding-ivf-and-late-parenthood-20140920-10iqad.html#ixzz3ERlK5ukZ
I am just as fed up as you are. Very good post 
