Letters to the Editor
Sandra M
Published Letters: 577 Editor's Choice: 139
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Single mothers choosing children like peanut butter: smooth, not chunky, etc.
[Read the article: Lawyers and chick lit and sperm, oh my!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Not sure what the comment about Egan's 'zoological' approach to the single motherhood story means....and I don't see the issue with detailing the economic hardships and relationship failure that tend to surround the choice of late-30 and 40-something women choosing to procreate sans committed loving partners. Most of those women are pretty pragmatic about the situational specifics, i.e. no man in their lives but a ticking uterus, erego a sperm donored child - seems to me Egan is not making any more of an issue of these realities than the women themselves.
What I found striking - and appalling - were the number of women using the sperm donor option to pick and choose characteristics of their child - thinness, straight hair, brown skin, fair skin. I mean, Jesus - we used to decry this when Nazis did it. Is it suddenly OK just because single wanna be mothers are doing it? If you follow the "I want to pick and choose traits according to the whim of my personal preference/phillosophies" to it's logical conclusion, we'll end up with a bunch of tall and thin (because you can never be too tall or too thin) children with white-to-light brown skin (but not too brown!), thick curly hair (but not too curly!), and nice Aryan features (but not too Aryan).
It made me sick to read these women chirping about sperm donor height, weight, family history of boringness, and ethnic stereotypes as if children are peanut butter. These women simply aren't mature enough to be parents. Parents don't say, before the birth of their child: I'll love this child more/better if she isn't chubby, if he isn't short, if he/she will be a successful white collar professional etc. Isn't part of the beauty of being a parent the (for the most part) immediate, unconditional, fierce, protective love that is felt for a child simply because it IS, and not because of what it is likely to develop, physically and mentally INTO? The former used to be luck of the draw (which in turn promotes acceptance of a wide variety of physical characteristics throughout the population), while the latter had more to do with a combination of parental guidance and the child's own intelligence and personality. The mothers in this article want to just skip their role as parent altogether, and engineer a child that fits some weird idea of who they, in a parallel universe, would have been and mated with had their lives somehow turned out differently than having to use borrowed sperm to fulfill the dream of motherhood.
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Why stop at 2 mommies and a daddy?
[Read the article: Polygamy loves company]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The polygamist argument "If Heather can have two mommies, she should also be able to have two mommies and a daddy" isn't much different than saying she should also be able to have all of daddy's friends, especially on poker night, as long as daddy is 'supervising'.
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An excessive vanity and need to be admired does not necessarily equal closeted gay, folks
[Read the article: If my wife dressed better, would gay guys stop hitting on me?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"We were at a gay bar and two men bought me a drink so I sat with them and you'll never, ever guess what, because even socially liberal me sitting self-congratutorily in a gay bar in my leather pants didn't see it: THEY TURNED OUT TO BE *GAY*! AND THEY WANTED ME!!"
Golly!
The problem isn't that this guy likes leather pants or ironed shirts, and the problem isn't that his wife likes drindl skirts and birkenstocks.
The problem is that LW has an insatiable desire to be admired, and preeningly engages in it, even in front of his wife, thus relegating her to the status of an insurance card. You know that card, right? The one you keep in your wallet and never ever think about until something really bad happens, and then it turns out to be really really important, that card, about the most important thing in the world, because when bad stuff happens the people who were throwing all those drinks and leather-pants-compliments and smoky hot eyes at you go 'huh, too bad' and move on with their lives and leave you lying there, gasping and afraid and unloved and unadmired and realizing that the only thing you have in the world now is that insurance card, the card that you have been, up to this point, ignoring, thinking of it as a a sort of boring necessity that you make a payment on each month (and occasionally toying with the idea of just stopping because really, you haven't needed it, it's a waste of time and money, this insurance, think of all the hot clothes you could have with that money!), never realizing that when the really bad thing finally happens to you, that insurace card is no longer forgotten at the back of your raft, it is no longer a dubious investment relative to a new pair of leather pants, it is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD, a veritable fucking life raft that will sail you out of the rough seas and onto dry land.
No wonder she's pissed.
The LW is asking the wrong question. The question is not: if my wife changes x or y, will gay men stop hitting on me? the question is: if I want gay men - or anyone, really - to stop hitting on me, then why do I invite it?
Or, put another way: I'm thinking about buying a $400 leather wallet to house my boring old insurance card....would Jack Spade design be too gay, or should I go with something from Hermes?