Letters to the Editor
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Juno
Sorry Joan,
I usually agree with you, but this time I think you've misread the Flanagan article and the reader response to it. Many women, including very liberal liberals like me, have been waiting for someone in the print media to make the case that Flanagan has made.
I have not seen the movie--a serious flaw, I agree; however, I absolutely cringe every time I see the trailers for Juno--Chirpy,very pregnant girl walking down the school hall, boyfriend ruefully admitting he cannot grow a moustache. "Right on" or some such rot. Flanagan is right. Juno is a fairy tale. In real life one of the parents would have decided they should adopt the baby, or Juno, on seeing her baby's fingernails, would have decided she couldn't give her baby up after all.
In contrast, I am of the generation written about in the book The Girls Who Went Away. All of us who went to high school before the pill knew those girls-- the ones who got pregnant and went away to "boarding school" in mid-semester. The truth of their condition was spoken of in hushed tones in the hallways and usually we never saw them in school again. No sane person wants to return to that era. Three cheers for the fictional Juno and her resiliency and the parents and culture that support her. At the same time, all of us today know of the parents searching for children they gave away and adopted children searching for their parents. It seems that the Moses in the bulrushes theory does not work as well in the long run.
I'm not faulting the fictional Juno for not understanding that at 16 but I also am not going to fault Flanagan for pointing out that at the very least life is considerably messier than the movie Juno suggests that it is.
Pat
San Jose, CA