ALL ABOUT ME :

What Price Valor? : Bravura displays of reproductive technology may shortchange the children: a review of Creating a Life by Sylvia Ann Hewlett (Caitlin Flanagan, June 2002, The Atlantic Monthly)

[T]he playwright Wendy Wasserstein's famous pregnancy seems to be the very model of what Hewlett warns against: it was preceded by seven years of medical treatment, severely compromised Wasserstein's health, and necessitated a lengthy maternal hospitalization and an extremely premature cesarean delivery. The resulting baby girl weighed less than two pounds at birth and was hospitalized for ten weeks, during which she required a blood transfusion. But these miseries are presented not as cautionary tale but as triumph: Wasserstein was "remarkable and valiant" for never giving up the fight to become pregnant. Indeed, the most obvious question that such a pursuit prompts-whether it is in a child's best interest to have a mother who will be facing the challenges and travails of old age just as her offspring is entering adolescence-is never mentioned. Why? Because this is a book from the perspective of "high-achieving women," and the main impression we get of the type is that they are going to get exactly what they want, and damn the expense or the human toll.

It has nothing to do with the kids--it's all about the mothers. She probably gave her kid one of those Icelandic names : Wendydaughter. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 18, 2002 10:02 PM