Comments on: Something Sinister / The Tone is Missing

By: Stephen

Stephen — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 13:56:06 +0000

Well, people can do what they want, I suppose. What’s to stop a person from turning what should be one of the most selfless acts in the world (raising and guiding another person into maturity) into a sideshow of selfishness? Our quests for immortality really cloud our judgements sometimes.

By: Craig

Craig — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:52:13 +0000

“Serious people” do not, in my experience, spend their time policing other people’s blogs–whether the blogger is 27 or 97. Not being a serious person myself– believing that high-spirits and frivolity have just as much a place in the world as learned discourse, finds the sanctimony on display above seriously funny.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 11:14:44 +0000

Duly noted! Thank you!

By: Carl

Carl — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 05:42:41 +0000

Dan: I respectfully commend Matthew 6:5 to your attention.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:02:01 +0000

Nico:

Apropos of what David Eyrise and then David said about your comments, and your response to Eyrise: it seems the point is that your comments tend inevitably to be callow and superficial, as is appropriate for most people your age. The difference between you and most of your contemporaries, of course, is that you publish your juvenalia on the Internet and garner a certain amount of notoriety from your the act.

Read 1 Corinthians 13. Consult your older, wiser, better-read and trusted advisors. Don’t try so hard to be a taste-maker. Hunker down, Get your work done.

All this is said with affection, actually, and without a trace of rancor, as I do enjoy reading your rants. But you must know that I enjoy them the way I enjoy hearing my children do so. Growing up in public is dangerous and, ultimately, foolish.

By: frank

frank — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 21:09:30 +0000

The Public Editor’s column in this Sunday’s Times devotes half its space to the Alex article….400 outraged readers wrote in, ..(in Irish newspapers, this phenomenon goes under the heading of…..”As a mother of seven..!”..and then indignant comment follows) …. and essentially validates not only the accuracy of your desconstruction of the article, but also your correspondents’ nose for smarm and cant. And, no, happily, Alex was not happy about the photos.

By: pp

pp — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:44:58 +0000

What irked me most about Kuczynski’s tedius article and accompanying photographs was its tone, which reeked of solipsism and poor taste.

Lingering barely below the surface, methinks this woman has some serious issues of inadequacy, not only in the baby making department.

Assuming she made the sandwiches from canned tuna, I find myself wondering…did she use light or white?

By: Frank

Frank — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:36:34 +0000

I think the Times’ editors, certainly the photo editor, ‘got’ the third level of discourse in the piece, that is the superior smugness, despite the rationalizations, of the protagonista. Look at the details, the surrogate on her porch with a cracked foundation, a bemused dog…does it hear the baby kicking?..crap in the background that the photographer didn’t bother to tidy up….and then Alex on her manicured zoysia carpet in the Hamptons, her porch floor white-enameled to a shine, her nanny at attention…is she documented, d’ye think? …..mom standing smugly at the end of a rainbow arc of expensively sculpted hedge….the photos say it all….Cathy knows something that Alex never will.

By: David

David — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:57:56 +0000

That’s the problem with blogs: too many opinions and too much prattery. Stick to your day job, Nico. G’bye.

By: hester

hester — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:57:44 +0000

i was horrified by kuczynski’s narcissistic article, and i think one can easily conflate the issues of adoption and ivfs. while couples may suffer great emotional pain for being unable to produce a biological child, it is entirely reasonable to also question why adoption is viewed as an inadequate substitute.

By: David Eyrise

David Eyrise — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:33:44 +0000

You are entirely out of your depth.

Nico responds: To write/think about the news that gets popped into my mailbox once a week?

By: tim

tim — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:09:12 +0000

i remember reading that nyer article also 🙁

By: Valerie

Valerie — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:29:31 +0000

Thanks Nico. I greatly appreciate your response. And I hope in the future you’ll have the freedom to choose whatever you wish with regards to children…

By: Suma

Suma — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 02:15:08 +0000

Today I operated on a neonate with Trisomy 21 and no connection between her stomach and the rest of her intestines. I couldn’t understand why we were doing the surgery, but I have learned that it isn’t my place to question the choices of others. Her mother is going to love her more than anyone ever could, and I guess that’s all that really matters in the end.

By: Valerie

Valerie — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:11:37 +0000

Nico- I think you’re conflating a whole bunch of issues. I totally support the right of gay couples to adopt, and find it hard to countenance the situation in Arkansas and elsewhere. But I don’t think that gives me cause to criticize the choice of Alex Kuczynski to use a surrogate. I’ve had a very tough journey myself, and I’ve realized that everyone has to find their own way.

Nico responds: True, I am totally conflating. And I completely get the idea of wanting to have your own biological child. But imagine what it’s like to read the paper, as a gay, and see these two piles of people (women wanting children + children wanting moms) and then be told that you’re completely disqualified from the whole game. There is something . . . conflatable about it! But, I get wanting to have your own kid, and I can’t imagine how insanely difficult it might be (this is my other luxury, which is to never know the pains of childbirth…)