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What was your reaction to Alex Kuczynski's NYT article on her experience using a surrogate mother to carry her baby? - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30Surrogate-t.html?_r=1
66 replies [ Reply | Watch | MoreAbsolutely revolting on a number of levels, beginning with the photo of her in the Hamptons with a black baby nurse. It was a study in cliches.
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ita - why did she hit us with southampton pic w nurse (and not DH) and then the surrogate on her front stoop pg and barefoot? I read it but didn't learn anything I didn't know before except Alex married a rich guy and paid someone to have her baby and is paying someone else to raise it/him. (there was so little about him almost forgot...)
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Hullo. Yes, cliches seem trite, but they are reality, hence cliches. How many of us are white & have a black nanny or baby nurse?
[ Reply | More ]I agree. I thought it was, well, revolting is a great word. It really made me ill to read it. I'm so sick of these journalists who think they are the most fascinating story of all.
[ Reply | More ]No, I don't think she thinks she's the most fascinating of all, but I think she did think that one woman's true personal story re surrogacy would make a good piece. And it did. IMO. A good writer knows when to mine their own life for material, when they've got something worth writing in their own material. NYT editors agreed w/her. Me too. Clearly, all of you, as you read it.
[ Reply | More ]I think she did the topic a disservice due to her celebrity. People may have had a diff't reaction had it been told by someone who doesn't have the baggage of already not being liked. (I think it's a fascinating topic, but the article was clinical and surprisingly dispassionate, imo.)
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I couldn't fathom why it was a front-page story. Even as their "human-interest" stories go it was boring, insipid, eye-rolling.
[ Reply | More ]Hmm. Obviously no one here has struggled with infertility. She makes it very clear that they had the means to do this when most do not. I can
[ Reply | More ]^^^I can't imagine making this choice. One reason because after 12 IVF's I hope she will be around to raise her child but who can judge someone elses choices when it comes to having a child.
[ Reply | More ]ITD!! I think many here HAVE struggled with infertility--and we know that it is at heart a very, very private struggle and while personally dramatic it is societally BORING. it simply didn't need this article. And what percentage of infertility struggles end in surrogacy? oh SO few.
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I admit that I was fascinated by the article, but was wondering why she didn't consider adopting. I didn't understand her "compulsion to create [her] own bloodline," but I haven't dealt with infertility, so perhaps I wouldn't get not having been there.
[ Reply | More ]I was only fascinated in the sense that usually the NYTM picks front-page articles that are pretty meaningful, and they leave the fluff for inside. But clearly Alex, just like former crack addict David Carr, has the pull at the mag to demand the front page.
[ Reply | More ]I found Alex's story much more interesting and readable than David Carr's. Maybe because I remember her from the Cornell waiting room (though Inever would have dared intrude on her 'privacy' by approaching her/recognized her name etc)i.e. as a fellow sufferer of infertility vs never having much patience/sympathy for addicts.
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I really wondered about her husband and therefore her. 2 marriages and 6 kids before her and almost 20 years older than her.
[ Reply | More ]What about the white water rafting and 60 mph downhill skiing, and yet she was upset that the surrogate mother was going to Vegas for a weekend.
[ Reply | More ]Look, it was an honest article. She wasn't proud of herself for feeling that way, but feel it she did and I could understand. It's about the giving up control, and how difficult that was. OF COURSE you wouldn't want your infant/fetus in Las Vegas at a craps table. Give her a break. She was skiing, but she wasn't pregnant!
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wow, no surprise here: I read the article and could just tell that all the chatter it would engender would be incredibly judgmental. I say, Congratulations, Alex, good for you! You're a mom, something you very much have longed to become. Y'know what? she's stinking rich, so what. The editors/photographers take the pictures and make their editorial comment re: class comparisons. But that's obvious: anyone paying a surrogate has money to piss away, and anyone who performs surrogacy is in need. DUH!!
[ Reply | More ]I think all you haters are truly pathetic. It was an honest article about real things. If you found it boring read something else. I happen to know a woman who has twins as a result of this method and she has expressed many of the same feelings and has said some other things that would probably shock people but feelings are feelings. Personally I found the article moving.
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I hesitate to be critical of her experiences, since the woman went through 11 IVF cycles and 4 miscarriages. That alone is awful, and I automatically have sympathy for her. I have only read about 4-5 pages of the article, so not done yet. But what pops into my mind was why there has not yet been any reference to adoption yet. Again, I sympathize with her fertility struggles, but it seems obscene to spend that kind of money for your own biological child when so many children are available for adoption.
[ Reply | More ]^^^ One more thing, I have never liked her articles. Her choice of subjects reveals her to be incredibly materialistic, and IMHO emblematic of the direction that the editors have taken The NY Times in the past 10 years: catering to the wealthy crowd, the people who have enough money to own second homes. So I always scorned her as a journalist because in my opinion, her contributions are ridiculous.
[ Reply | More ]np--I love David Gonzalez's writing in the Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/nyregion/20bronx.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/G/Gonzalez,%20David&pagewanted=all
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1) You make adoption sound as easy as going to the corner store. It is absolutely not. 2) Why does essentially a quirk of biology obligate her to take one of these "available children?" Why aren't all of us equally obligated to do so, regardless of fertility?
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I knew I would hate this article right from the cover photo. The photo is unreal -- Alex seems to be posing and saying "look! I got to get a baby, and *this woman* had to get fat for it! See my flat tummy and expensive dress? We should all hire a Pennsylvania rube to have our babies!"
[ Reply | More ]weird reaction. she's a friend of a friend so i thought i would like the article. seems like the article had so many references to her wealth, that in order for it not to be annoying, she would have had to truly explore the issue of class in more depth. she must have known what the pictures would convey.
[ Reply | More ]np: Yes. I think you hit the nail on the head. The issue of class was an underlying un-explored theme here, though she did at least acknowledge that was able to have a surrogate because of money. I actually found the article not to have been that interesting though the subject matter is. The writing was guarded and wanted to give the impression of frankness, yet it was distant and polished and didn't have the rawness that something of an amateur writer (or a less guarded professional) would have had. My issue was more with her handling of subject as a writer than the subject matter. I think surrogacy is "odd" but I also understand the desperation to have a child, so I can't think that I wouldn't try everything in my power if I couldn't have children.
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JI just don't understand why she needs a baby nurse if she didn't have a baby. The whole point of a baby nurse is to help the mother who is exhausted from going through labor.
[ Reply | More ]Usually I like her writing but it was so annoying that she could not get over the fact that she is wealthy for one second ... as in "she played on the Steinway...". She has made a caricature of her situation, which is ridiculous because many relatively normal people do surrogacy, too, not just socialites.
[ Reply | More ]Horrible. Very self-centered, rich, entitled. I adopted my child after years of painful infertility testing. There are many children and babies who need loving parents, and I found the picture at the Hamptons, etc... to be disgusting, using another woman, a poorer woman, as a slave.
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