So where have all the happy young mothers gone? Did you never really exist? Or are you afraid to speak up these days against the chorus of people insisting that young children bring far more stress and trouble than happiness? Either way, I never hear from you anymore. Over the last few years, as my…
Reading this article on Slate, reminded me how misplaced our priorities sometime seem to be — with new moms rushed home and right back into their physically and emotionally demanding lives. A week after giving birth to my youngest, a decade ago, I was back at work (though my boss at the time allowed me…
Talk about being fruitful and multiplying! A Jerusalem family has just greeted its 18th child, the Jewish Chronicle reported today. The arrival of the Hasidic baby boy brings the family total to nine sons and nine daughters, and should provide yet one more reason for the clan’s two washing machines to continue working “non-stop.” The…
Best new word of 2011 (okay, so it’s early yet): “twiblings,” a term coined by writer Melanie Thernstrom to describe her two children, a boy and a girl, who were created using Thernstrom’s husband’s sperm and eggs from one donor. The resulting embryos were implanted on the same day into two different gestational surrogates, and…
While reading Elana Sztokman’s recent Sisterhood post about her friend who had decided to have an abortion, I found myself responding very strongly. While I’ll admit that I am stubbornly pro-choice, it is not the actual decision to have the abortion that filled me with admiration for Elana’s friend — it was her decision to…
I’m sad for Elana’s friend, the one who recently had an abortion. Not because she had an abortion, but because it was such a difficult experience and because her husband doesn’t agree with her decision not to have a child. I’ll confess to having a laugh at Elana’s pre-Thanksgiving image, in which she describes motherhood…
“You’re pregnant!” That’s the response I’ve received, over and over again, when I’ve called a friend or family member to say that I have “good news” or “big news.” “No,” I tell them, “I’ve been nominated for a journalism award” or “Jeremy [my husband] won an Emmy” or “We bought an apartment.” To which the…
A friend of mine had an abortion this week. She wasn’t raped, she is not underage, and she is not experiencing a mental breakdown. She simply does not want to have children. She is not mean or cold or super-ambitious. She’s lovely and smart and funny. She just never felt the “urge.” She is 38-years…
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