With the recent release of the new Britney Spears CD "Blackout," it seems a fine time to examine how well she is doing in that other aspect of her career: pop culture icon.

After selling 83 million albums, dancing with a live snake and French-kissing Madonna on television, it seemed that Spears would symbolize a new generation of sexually provocative and self-aware female performers.

But in a little more than two years, Spears has become an altogether different kind of icon: the failed mother.

Spears fell off the wagon in so many well-documented ways — the marriages, the annulment, the head-shaving, the missing underwear, the driving without a valid license. After having two children and making numerous runs to the Taco Bell drive-through, her body was no longer in video vixen shape, but she was willing to writhe around a stripper pole and meet the public in outfits so short they revealed her nether regions. One would have been tempted to admire this body confidence had there been any indication that Spears possessed even the tiniest bit of self-awareness. But self-awareness did not seem to be part of the volatile mix.

The nadir — one hopes — has come during her custody battle with Kevin Federline. Who knows what goes on behind closed doors, but dueling paparazzi shots are stuck in the public consciousness. Spears had been photographed driving with her oldest son sitting on her lap. Federline, on the other hand, was photographed in his convertible with both boys strapped into their car seats. Thanks to Spears' behavior, the man who had been depicted as a layabout rapper-wannabe has been rehabilitated as practically a modern-day Grandpa Walton. A judge awarded custody to him.

Worse than a starlet who flakes out on interviews, more dangerous than an out-of-control celebrity who won't stop partying, sadder than an overindulged singer in need of an intervention, Spears has been declared a bad mother.

It's human nature to be captivated by wreckage, whether literal or metaphorical. At worst, schadenfreude keeps people interested in Spears. At best, people stare trying to understand what happened — trying to come to terms with how success can leave one's life turned upside down and how fame can be like an invasive disease. It's the same kind of fascination that makes stories detailing the sorrows of lottery winners so compelling. Money and fame didn't automatically buy happiness? Really? In a world of "American Idol," YouTube insta-celebrities and reality shows as career launching pads, how can this be?

Everyone should know better. History is filled with celebrities who have fallen from grace. But the arc of fame, fortune and decline used to be much longer. It took Judy Garland more than 30 years from her initial success until she spiraled out of control. It took two decades before Whitney Houston had her public unraveling. At 25, Spears has managed to implode in less than 10 years.

Spears' collapse coincides with a period of fascination with celebrities and their "baby bumps," birthing rituals, fertility treatments, nursery themes and naming practices. To paraphrase Jennifer Lopez, who may or may not be having twins with husband Marc Anthony, if the actress had been pregnant as many times as tabloids claimed, she'd be raising her own private baseball team by now.

As a culture, children have already been elevated and celebrated on the order of cherubs. The birth of a celebrity's child — followed by an airbrushed family portrait in a glossy magazine — practically ranks as the Second Coming.

With the highly publicized adoptions by Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and Madonna, children have become symbolic of a celebrity's selflessness, integrity and moral authority. And as older celebrities have babies, their children have become a symbol of their vitality. Babies are better than Botox.

And, finally, parenthood has become a competitive sport. The game does not begin with the college applications and the fight to get one's child into the Ivy League. In some corners of society, the competition begins during the pregnancy itself with mothers-to-be in a de facto contest to gain so little weight that they resemble a scarecrow who swallowed a basketball. A celebrity mother-to-be is not allowed to have swollen ankles. She is expected to drop the baby weight practically as she's walking out the hospital door. And she should not bobble her baby in public.

Spears broke all the rules. When she was pregnant with her second child, she was a famously disheveled, gum-chomping mess during a 2006 "Dateline" interview. Details about her day-to-day activities have nicked at her image like birdshot: the Taco Bell runs, the orange drinks from the gas station, the Cheetos. She has called herself "country" and in the past has claimed that some of her behavior — such as driving with her infant son on her lap — is authentic to that background. But that rings about as true as when rappers attribute bad behavior to being from "the 'hood" and suggest that they carry around illegal handguns because they're just trying to keep things "real."

Whatever her private travails, Spears' public tale of woe no longer is about a singer gone bad. Instead, it's the story of a mother's public mistakes, missteps and poor judgment. Now that motherhood has been painted with the gloss of celebrity, there is an image to uphold. Now that celebrities have made motherhood fabulous, they better be fabulous mothers. Or else.