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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I don't know if there is another person named Kim who posted as I have not read all the letters, but I did not make comments AT ALL on this topic or anyone about people who chose to have children. I suggest in the future you when writing your letters you at least get the author correct.
BTW, unless I did not make it clear, my last letter was directed to 'anonymous' who (mistakenly) claimed that I wrote letters in which I referred to people as 'assholes'.
Frequently, personal narratives involving physical pain or emotional frustration are whiny and self-pitying. Even more so when they have to do with relationships between women and men. Williams' honesty never lapses into blame or inflated misery. In fact, her tale of life around giving life, as it happens, is funny, believable, and touching.
Jonathan Field
NYC
The topic of this piece was rather foreign to me (as I'm lesbian, have a severe physical disability/mobility impairments, and zero to no interest or ability when it comes to childbearing). Nevertheless, the underlying issue of the piece spoke deeply to me. This essay spoke to that point in life that everyone eventually encounters, where we realize that much of our previous ideas of who we were emanated from a place of low self-esteem, of desperately needing to meet high standards to win the approval/admiration of others because that's the only time we feel good about ourselves. This is especially true of highly intelligent Type A's, who often throw themselves (ourselves) into academics or the law or medicine or, in this case, mastery of sex, in order to "be the best," to get the positive feedback from external sources that they don't feel internally.
And then the day comes when that just doesn't work as a coping device anymore, for whatever reason. Some people, the less thoughtful among us, simply throw themselves into a new pursuit -- they change lanes, but they're still on the same road. But what the author did (and what I did, when my day came) was about healing, not sex: she became aware of the reasons she felt compelled to be the best, and she made a conscious decision to get off that path once and for all. The result is inspiring -- she has found her own voice and is no longer trying to meet standards that no longer suit her. She's learned to trust her intuition, to listen to her body, to speak her truth -- and I'd be willing to bet that this shift in the way of being in the world has affected much more than her sex life.
Some people resist such a difficult transition and prefer to live their lives with their heads in the sand; I'd guess that it's many of these that are posting such harsh criticism of this piece. Clearly it pushes people's buttons, which is what good writing should do. And I would submit that this piece is good not only because of its quirkiness and humor dealing with what seems to be a very painful and nearly universal topic, but also because it uses that experience to illuminate one that is truly universal: personal growth and acceptance, and the depth of character we achieve when we finally embrace our own power.
"I was *not* referring to the need to have your own children to take care of you in your old age, but the fact that if people don't have children, there will be no one to take care of you, even if you have all the long term care insurance, assets etc. It's one of the reasons that people who don't have children should still be concerned about child abuse, and other health and welfare issues pertaining to children. The current crop of kids are going to be who will be taking care of us in our old age--whether doctors, nurses, home health aides, the guy who mows the lawn, our accountant, etc"
Thanks for the clarification; I actually agree with you on this and would not have been so critical if I had picked up what you meant -- not that I think we need to worry about the world becoming seriously under-populated or anything like that.
The problem isn't that people who don't want children choose not to have them; that's the best possible decision they can make for all concerned. It's people who have children for stupid reasons or no reason at all and then fail to raise them properly (a very small minority of parents, I hope) that's problematic.
Well, of course. But I *pay* for Salon, because they provide an alternative voice that isn't heard anywhere else in the media. So, given that I help to keep them afloat, I would say that gives me the right to provide feedback when I think they're heading in a wrong direction. Don't get me wrong, I still thing that Salon is basically great. I love the poitical coverage, much of the arts coverage (especially the movie and book reviews), I enjoy King Kaufman and Tom Tomorrow, War Room and Broadsheet, and lots more.
I will also always stick up for the right of every woman to control her own body and her own sexuality. But what I can't stomach is a small group of over-entitled women who want to be writers, but who have nothing to say, spilling out their quasi-pornographic narratives of self-obsession in the pages of my favorite magazine. It doesn't belong here. Haven't you heard of *diaries*? You don't have to publish every last dribble from your psyche, some things are better kept to yourself. If you have to, start a blog, hopefully no-one will notice.
Kids ruin your life.
They ruin your sex life, they ruin your life financially, and they manage to suck every last bit of joy out of it for about twenty years. The only surprise is the constant vagina gazing and rueful contemplation of the fact by writer such as above. Do you think your parents were having fun?
Throw me in with the pile of twenty-somethings that is bored by the constant stream of navel gazing about kids and JT Leroy coming out of Salon's pages. And I have been reading Salon long enough to remember when they had an entire Sex section.
Give us Leftist politics, give us Revolution, give us randy articles about the randy doings of randy city folks, give us queer-dom, give us strangess and weirdness, and Ann Coulter absurdism!
Lest Salon turn into sheer windbaggery personified by Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden. Barely coherrent rants about abortion mixed in with memories of dear ole Princeton.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
