Today, the much-discussed surrogate baby mama article brings us this gem: "...surrogacy was a worthy, noble venture — just like the Old Testament story of Hagar, who gave birth to a son for Abraham when Sarah could not..." Yup, but let's remember how that turned out--Sarah threw Ishmael and Hagar out when she unexpectedly conceived a baby of her own. Watch out, Maxime Dudley!
Phoebe and Ladyblog think that this story is basically about the first world problems of needy rich women. I'm not sure that class is the main issue here, though she probably makes herself no friends by emphasizing that she chose her surrogate based on the woman's college education, fluency with computers, and vote for Obama. Certainly, a poor woman couldn't afford Kuczynski's IVF cycles and surrogacy, but I don't think that many people are walking away from this thinking about how unjust it is that surrogacy is not available to all. I'm puzzled by her inability to articulate why she was so set on having a baby except to say that she didn't just want a biological child, she really, really wanted one. So that justifies any means of procuring one, right?
And, at that moment, having a biologically related child felt necessary. What began as wistful longing in my 20s had blistered into a mad desire that seemed to defy logic...I couldn’t argue myself out of my desire.Her wealth works here to helpfully delude her into believing there are no limitations on her desires that can't be overcome with enough money, whereas poorer people might have to accept their infertility and settle for adoption or childlessness. But the problem seems to be this childish view that anything that other people have is by right something she should be able to have, too. It might be true that the desire for children runs deeper than other desires, but there are many deep desires that will never be realized by many people--finding love, having a happy marriage, watching your children grow up into good people, etc.--and it's not clear that society owes you these things just because you want them very much, which might be what's so off-putting about Kuczynski's attitude towards her surrogate pregnancy.
6 comments:
Hm. My assessment of the article as first-worldism was mainly a result of seeing how it (but mostly the photos) was received in the comments. Readers seemed to think of it as less about fertility, gender, bioethics, or anything else it was ostensibly about than a case of a rich woman being insufficiently ashamed of her wealth. If the article was in fact about class, my sense was this had less to do with readers wishing they too could afford to hire surrogates than with also-privileged readers thinking, aha, there's this one woman, and she makes me look (relatively) down-to-earth.
I agree with your take re: means, ends. But I think the problem is less that Kuczynski thinks society owes her a biological baby than her (implied) belief that perfect strangers will celebrate her getting what she wants. So once more, it's the overshare. Once questionable personal decisions become subject to widespread debate, they start to look worse than questionable.
What the hell is up with that picture of her with the baby's nurse? Was it taken over 100 years ago, on a plantation in Georgia?
Phoebe: Ladyblog suggests all her writing is of this type, but I haven't read any except this essay.
Alex: Yes.
What strikes me is the lack of editing. Why do you need 7,584 words to say "We had a baby by a surrogate mother"?
Forgive me for being the anal-retentive former newspaper adviser, but I think you meant classical allusion. (Your Freudian slip is showing.)
oh, true. copy-editing fail.
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