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Back in the Saddle
Thanksgiving weekend isn't cold in its grave and the New York Times is hot and bothered to get everyone angry and angsty about contemporary parents, kids, parenting and lifestyles. It is amusing really, now that the holiday season has well and truly dug in its heels, that the Times feels the need to generate more bile and snark when it comes to the Domestic Sublime.
Before I had children, but when I was training the terrier, I would occasionally find myself wandering my block at an ungodly hour (5:30 or 6:00). The only people from my building I ever encountered at that time were: the fun couple just getting home from a night out (one heard quite a lot about their fun, too), the guy who always had an early flight and the Dad Whose Son Played Hockey. I told my husband then, and I mean it now: if hockey is on the menu I am not handling the transportation.
But now it seems my husband and I could start preparing our arguments regarding sport drop off because the Times published an article today which suggests people might be able to predict (a bit) what sports their children will be good at based on a DNA test. No mention is made of what to do about children who decide to pursue sports in spite of not being particularly talented, of course, but maybe this sort of test only applies to team sports and highly competitive situations not to people like me who are willing to try things (trapeze school, running) knowing that there is no future in it for her. The DNA pursuit seems utterly silly to me except as an academic exercise, but people do love tests and even more than tests, they love prophesies, so this is not the last we've heard of the Agility Predictor.
The real bit of savagery, though, comes in the New York Times Sunday Magazine's cover story, by Alex Kuczynski, which is called "My Body, Her Baby." In it Kuczynksi details her decision to enlist the services of a gestational surrogate to carry her baby. She doesn't really say much that is new or revelatory in the piece. In fact, a few too many words seem to be wasted paying token service to the enormous number of issues and complications raised by gestational surrogacy. Perhaps there is no way for a person to discuss these choices that will not put some people out, but the Times really made sure to emphasize the topic's nasty questions of economy and class, with the remarkably crass photographs that accompany the story. Does Kuczynski's surrogate, a woman named Cathy Hilling really have to be shot barefoot and pregnant on her porch while Kuczynski is so proper in her unstained skirt and sweater standing on her perfect lawn with a baby nurse at her side? Even if Hilling really prefers to be barefoot (nothing wrong with that, says the woman whose mother used to have to pull glass shards out of her feet every summer from running around shoe-free), wouldn't someone say that this creates a terrible impression?
The comments, which of course I looked at because I knew it would be a blood feast, are predictibly hostile. People hate Kucznyski, hate her priviliege, hate her choices, hate "breeders" (an appalling word), hate people who don't adopt, hate haters, hate hate hate.
So there it is. I have known enough people who have wrestled with infertility and come to hugely varying solutions that I wouldn't have much to say about Kuczynski's choices, except for the fact that she's written this crude article that seems to exist only to generate ire.
But maybe this is the point and the piece is doing a public service, giving us something other than money and politics to fight about over leftovers.
posted by Elise at 4:33 PM
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said...
12/01/2008 8:08 PM
Elise said...
12/02/2008 9:18 AM
Elise said...
Forgive me. I deleted an anonymous post by accident (while editing my own response). If you care to re-post, please have at it.
12/02/2008 9:21 AM
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