Spreading confusion

(with apologies to Laura for the title)

ITEM Does the author of this piece honestly, honestly believe that kids' hanging out at Starbucks and drinking mocha Frappucinos is as bad as she makes it out to be? Obesity epidemic, addiction, eating disorders, overcommercialization, blah blah blah. (In Oakland? In Oakland, they're worrying about this?)

ITEM I tend to give the commentors over at Crooked Timber the benefit of the doubt. For one thing, I'm not an expert in many things that get discussed. But the discussion following this piece, on the difficulty of getting epidurals during labor in the Netherlands, betrayed such ignorance and misjudgement.

My goodness—pain was so not why I was interested in having (although not obsessively committed to) an unmedicated birth. I didn't want drugs for the same reason I didn't want to be induced: I was hoping to avoid a C-section, and one way to do that is to avoid unnecessary medical intervention in the early stages of labor. Nothing earth-mothery about it.

At least I learned from the original piece that one issue in Holland is the cost of intervention. I would have appreciated a nice bouquet from my insurance carrier the day after.

ITEM A few days later, Crooked Timber sent me to David Velleman's article on why people who have children using donor gametes may be doing something Very Wrong. (Because an important, or perhaps primary way to make sense out of one's own identity, according to him, is by observing and hearing about one's genetic relatives.)

Um, as someone who (a) was fathered via donor sperm the old-fashioned way (also known as "abandonment") and (b) spent several tens of thousands of dollars trying to bear the genetic child of her husband, but (c) would have switched to donor in a heartbeat if it all hadn't worked out, um, well, um.

At the end of the paper he argues that people who hate their (biological) parents illustrate his analysis nearly as well as those who love them. But I have to wonder why he never addresses the actions of the donors. Are they doing something Very Wrong, too?

Comments

[Jody]

I don't have time to read the last paper, and donor gametes didn't play a role in our ART plans, but Vindauga has written some interesting things about the issue from the point of view of an adoptive parent.

I think the whole "hearing stories from genetic relatives" angle is spurious, but the consensus coming out of the era of closed adoption seems to be that more adoptees want to know their genetic ancestry than not. Including their genetic fathers, some/many of whom were little more than donors in the genetic mothers' lives. (I don't want to stereotype about first/birth mothers -- many genetic fathers had long-term roles in genetic mother's lives before adoption placement.)

I think people versed in the literature of closed adoption are extremely anxious about the ramifications of anonymous gamete donation, given some of the obvious parallels. It's not clear that the children of donation (the first generation of whom are starting to write and speak about their experiences) feel the same way about it as their parents expected them to feel.

[Emma Jane]

Velleman does, in fact, cite the donor registry sites as evidence for his hypothesis that biological connections matter, a lot, and someone posted links to blogs written by deeply unhappy donor children to the comments on the CT entry. Velleman says, and the blogs cited back him up, that having children of their own seems to often be a turning point in how they feel about it---and we're just getting to the point where that demographic is growing fast.

I guess I worry that all of that evidence is terribly sample biased: people don't start blogs about how their family situation is in some way non-standard, and, you know, they're totally okay with it. (Nor do they start advocacy organizations!)

[Twice]

I am in a similar situation - sperm donation to my unmarried mother by my married biological father. I've never met him and know only a very little - name, Irish heritage, and general build. I know nothing about his interests, personality, medical history or chosen profession.

I found Velleman's article and argument to be narrowly focused, and I would like to assume he is trying to be provocative. For one thing, as you point out, this happens plenty of the time without the thought and planning that goes into donor sperm/eggs.

He discusses his biological heritage and how valuble it is to him to speculate about whether or not he is following in his ancesestor's footsteps. I do that too. I have wondered since I started high school if my interest in science and math and my eventual major in "physchemology" was my biological father's doing. How is this speculation less worthy than his regarding the same kind of question? Knowing the trait IS there somehow makes this a more valuable question for him than for me? A more valuable question for understanding and constructing his self-identity than the similar question is for mine? I really don't think so. My cousin (maternal side of course) became a high school physchemology teacher 11 years after I graduated from college. Do I think the question I asked almost 20 years before is therefore answered? No, because as Velleman points out himself, it is speculation as to whether or not I got this from the approximately 12.5% of my genetic material I share with my cousin, the 50% I share with my biological father or from my excellent 5th grade math teacher.

I also think likening lack of knowledge of a biological parent to a congenital handicap is a false analogy. The experience of not having my biological father is my life is different from the alternative experience of being raised by a biological mother and father. But does that make it inherently worse? Judging from my friend's parents, I'd have to say no.

I have toddler twins and my husband and I often say things like "she is just like you" and "he is sooo your son". And this is all fabulous. But does this mean I have any moral right to make judgements about how others choose to have a family? I don't think so.

Then again, I've never asked my mother for more information about my biological father, or if she would be willing to try to find him. Perhaps that is why I think the central question in Oedipus is about fate and destiny, not paternity. Is that such a handicap?

[Terrible Mother]

Hi there! Just found your blog through another site and love it. And I'm with you on the "not being able to get an epidural" faux scares. And everything else, really.

[Jody]

Well, I think Vindauga etc. are analogizing from the era of closed adoption to anonymous donation. I don't know the sampling from adoption studies, but it's more than recent donor registries and blogs. Of course, plenty of adopted children do NOT seek their birth parents. The question is, should the state or any other mechanism make it impossible for them to do so, whether they want to or not?

I occasionally find it distressing that parents who use donor gametes/embryos use similar language to that used 40 years ago by parents adopting children in closed adoptions. I'm always especially amused by the comments from folks who swear they'll simply never tell their children -- but use real e-mail addresses to post the comments.

I understand how donor gametes function differently for parents than adoption does, but I wonder how different the experience is for the children. Definitely, it is different, but how is it the same?

[luolin]

I read an article in the Nation years ago that had a similar argument to that of the Salon article, though perhaps stronger: Starbucks=the tobacco companies of the current generation of youth. It focused mostly on the addictive caffeine.

[Rivka]

Good lord. I want to kill every single person in that Crooked Timber comments section.