Since I wrote about my decision to open up my daughter's international adoption three years ago, I've received quite a few letters and calls from parents wanting to do the same. But I always am careful to tell parents to fully consider what they may find. Often people have the fantasy of bonding with their child's birth mother, developing this beautiful relationship that makes their child feel whole.
But often the reality falls far short of the romantic ideal. The reasons why birth parents abroad make "adoption plans" are often very similar to the circumstances that lead kids into the foster care system in the US: extreme poverty, along with the twin ills of mental illness, addiction, and criminal activity. On top of that, sometimes families discover the truly nightmareish scenario that the adoption was illegitimate.
So I read Elizabeth Larsen's account of opening her own Guatemala adoption hesitantly. But her story was nuanced and touched on the heart-breaking reality and ethical quandaries behind international adoptions. Take a look. Stumble It!

First, disclosure: Jessica Snyder Sachs is a friend. But even if she weren't, I'd be writing about her new book, Good Germs, Bad Germs. Jessica, a science and health writer, spent a few years researching and writing about antibiotic resistance, a new health crisis that has been making headlines recently with the epidemic increase in staph infections.
Some scary facts: More people may die from staph infections than from HIV. Hospitals are rife with antibiotic-resistant infections. And, many of those products--dish washing liquids, hand wipes, etc--that advertise themselves as antibacterial cleansers will actually lower your resistance to infections. I learned this from hearing Jessica speak at her book party and also from reading her new book.
The positive here: Jessica does outline some positive research developments that will strengthen our immune systems and move us away from this dangerous overuse of antibiotics. Stumble It!

I'd sworn off blogging in order to meet deadlines, but then this morning, I read yet another story extolling the benefits of late-in-life fatherhood. The piece, on ABC News' web site, focuses on pols, from Senator Chris Dodd (see photo above) to Senator Fred Thompson, who had children after age 50...or 60, and quotes them approvingly on the impact fatherhood has had on their careers. For example:

Thompson, who has often said he has been "blessed later in life," told ABC News that his two children are "a large part of why I'm running for president of the United States."

Okay, maybe Thompson really did become wiser and more willing to serve his country (versus his career) after having kids. Maybe it's cynical of me to wonder whether he isn't using his photogenic kids as props (while squirreling away his much older children from an earlier marriage...presumably to an age appropriate mate. Had to say that.)

But, it just is striking how the media treats older mothers so differently. They're often depicted as exhausted, or as women grabbing at their last gasp of fertility (unless they're celebrities, in which case we're supposed to marvel at how young they look.) In fact, it was precisely such negative stereotypes that prompted Elizabeth Gregory, an academic, to write
her book, Ready.

At a press luncheon I attended a few months earlier, Gregory spoke frankly about wanting to write the book so as to counter some of the negative imagery surrounding older moms. (She is one herself). I just read the galleys of the book. It's not a scintillating read and is far from impartial or scientific. I also disagree with some of her rosier assessments about how the workplace is changing to accommodate mothers, but it does underscore that many older mothers feel that being older has had some real benefits.

Stumble It!