I have read every one of the more than 600 responses to Emmie, the young woman — 22, single, unexpectedly pregnant and about to start a prestigious, difficult graduate program — who wrote asking for readers’ advice on what she should do. Emmie tells me she has read every word, too.
Spending two days scrolling through those responses, I have been struck by two things. First is the complexity of the decision to become a parent. So many of your comments were about your own decision trees — about what you needed to feel ready, about whether you can ever completely feel ready, about how markedly different this choice is for men and for women, about balancing your own needs and those of a baby who still exists mostly in the abstract. About health insurance, and child care, and support systems, and the role of race and money, and of educational dreams and fears of infertility, and the complications of adoption, and the relief and regret of abortion.
For days I have been pondering several comments in particular:
Nancy wrote: “In my opinion, the question ‘when does life begin’ can be answered most closely with the answer ‘when it is intended.’ ”
RogerR wrote: “I think the young woman’s very moving e-mail is testament to the difficult decision-making all women go through in their lives relative to unplanned pregnancy. No woman makes a callous, unthinking ‘choice.’ ”
StarryNightFish wrote: “…the world is still set up to assume the ‘normal’ worker or student is a man. If the world accepted that normal people are women and get pregnant at times that the world may not think are the best times, we would have paid maternity leave, quality affordable day care, etc. It’s not fair that due to the lack of these things, so much of one’s life is ‘the wrong time’ to be pregnant.”
And, in an echo of StarryNightFish, Hugh wrote: “What does it say about the future of our modern culture based upon ‘economic progress’ when, as we can see in Emmie’s agonized choice, when the choice to reproduce is such a burden upon one’s ability to survive and prosper?”
I have also been reminded while moderating the torrent of comments of the power of the Internet. I worried when I posted Emmie’s e-mail that it could bring out the worst in readers. Instead it brought out the best. Your answers were compassionate and wise. You differed in what you thought she should do, but you all began with the assumption that she was doing her best to make the decision that was right for her. Out of more than 600 comments, I deleted only four, because of language or blatant incivility. So what you see is an accurate representation of what was sent. And it is breathtaking.
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http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/thoughts-from-and-about-emmie/
