Calling the reaction to layoffs as just a matter of "self-esteem" dismisses the real problems with a layoff based economy. For the individual worker, there are a host of practical problems - what if you lose your health insurance? what if your kids lose their health insurance? can you pay the bills? will you have to relocate? move away from your family and friends? All of these things are understandably stressful, and if you live in constant fear of having to go through it all again (and again and again), who wouldn't have problems? Not to mention the economic difficulty, for most people, of trying to constantly plan for unpredictable periods with no income. Unless you're making a large salary, that's hard to do.

But in the larger sense, what does this do to our economy as a whole? Most commentators cling to the boondoggle of "retraining". But retraining for what? Despite the hype, it seems that technical and scientific jobs are being outsourced the same as factory jobs, although not as quickly. The only thing that survives are the "hands on" jobs that you can't send away. My local paper did an article recently on retraining - computer programmers retraining as hairdressers, engineers retraining as party planners. I have a friend who used to be a biologist, and she's now giving facials. It's not that giving facials is bad - she actually makes more money than she did in science - but can an economy based on facialists and party planners survive?

I was adopted in 1970, at the tail end of this period. I’ve always known I was adopted, and even though I had a very happy life, I always knew that my happiness came at a cost. My friends always had a romantic view of adoption, but even though my parents never talked about it much, I knew the choice must have been a difficult and painful one for my birthparents. I searched for my birthmother a few years ago, but she wasn’t interested in a relationship – I’m still wondering about how it affected her, and what circumstances led her to choose adoption.

A lot of people assume that because I’m adopted, I must be pro-life. Not at all. If anything, it’s made me more certain that women should have a choice – adoption can be a wonderful choice, but not if it’s forced on someone. I’m lucky to have been adopted, and to grow up in a secure and happy family, but it’s also a burden, to know that your life was someone else’s tragedy. (Not to mention the insecurity of never knowing your medical history, something that looms larger as you get older.) Maybe open adoption can solve some of these problems – it would probably have been hard for my parents, but I think I would have been more secure and more reassured, if I’d known where I came from. And I’m adamantly convinced that prevention is the best solution of all – the anti-birth control folks just make me crazy.

I think the silence about adoption just makes it worse. People on the letter pages often praise the adoption of older children from foster care, but I can’t help wondering, wouldn’t those kids have been better off if they’d been put up for adoption at an earlier age, maybe before they suffered abuse or neglect? Of course, we shouldn’t be too quick to take kids away from their parents, but adoption is still seen as something shameful. In an earlier age, it was shameful because it meant illicit sex – today it’s shameful because it goes against our cult of perfect motherhood. Maybe a more flexible and open attitude toward adoption would help everyone in the end.

It's great that mothers are getting more involved in pushing for more "family friendly" policies. But one would hope that these mothers would want better working environments for everyone - but that's not the impression I get from reading this article. Mothers deserve better health care - but doesn't everyone deserve better health care? Mothers deserve flexible working hours - but doesn't everyone need flexible working hours? Mothers need higher wages - but doesn't everyone deserve higher wages? The impression this gives is that those of us who aren't mothers aren't worthy of decent health care, decent wages, flexible working hours.

I'd be much more willing to fight for better child care for parents and better schools for kids, if the mothers would acknowledge that the childless are worthy of decent treatment too. All too often, I'm seen as "the enemy" instead of as an ally.

Thompson says that mothers should just go to the doctor and get therapy - at least in this interview, she doesn't mention how difficult that can be. I'm not a mother, but I have been depressed, and I struggled to find a way to afford the care I needed. I made too much money to qualify for free or sliding-scale therapy, but not enough to be able to afford to pay the bill and still pay my rent(especially in my expensive area of the country). I had insurance, at least, but it had a high deductible and limited coverage for "mental health", and my employer had an uncomfortable level of access to my diagnosis. My county had a program for those who couldn't pay, but it had a waiting list of over two years.

A lot of people at Salon just say "get therapy" without realizing that this can be a luxury if you fall in the wide gap between "able to pay" and "qualifies for low-cost care". I ended up wiping out all my savings, going into debt and almost ending up in bankrupty, just for a few months of care. (Ironically, if I had gone bankrupt, I then would have qualified for help!)

I'm sure the problem applies to mothers as well, although perhaps mothers are more likely to qualify for mental health programs.