Parenting magazine gets schooled

I have a hate-hate relationship with Parenting magazine. I find their refusal to acknowledge more than one path to motherhood irritating, and their constant reminders to readers to feel not-good-enough infuriating. Every article, no matter how far removed from pregnancy the topic, includes references to pregnancy or to pre- or post-pregnancy bodies. Uh...not relevant to everyone!

Plus, the very first issue I ever picked up, when I felt like my paperwork was progressing enough to allow me to think of myself as a parent-to-be, included the debate question, "Should single women be allowed to adopt?"

I fired off a nasty letter for the un-welcome welcome. Allowed to adopt? By whom? And what's it to ya if we do?

I'm assuming the question was code for "should gays be allowed to be parents?", but in my letter to the editors, I asked if they planned future debates on who should be "allowed" to have children. Let's just go down the list: single/poor/black/Latina/gay?

I was only half-joking, but Parenting magazine apparently takes seriously the issue of who should be "allowed" to join the mommy club.

Which brings me to April's debate question. In which Parenting received a vigorous smackdown on its corresponding message board.

"Should a woman be able to use fertility treatments to get pregnant if she already has kids?"

Apparently, it never occurred to the editors that the only way some women can get pregnant is through fertility treatments. The editors, it seemed, live in a land of secondary infertility only, presumably developing after a woman has cranked out a few cherubs the "natural" way. They didn't have enough understanding of infertility (one-pathway-to-motherhood, remember?) to realize that they were asking, "Should women with primary infertility only be allowed to have one child?"

Let's hope they learned a lesson (and a mid-way post from an editor seems to indicate that the fog is lifting a smidge) from the outpouring on the discussion boards.

But really, what a bone-headed question! Can't wait to see how they handle the results box in the May issue.

Hello

I've been threatening to start an adoption blog for a while, but honestly, if I'd started before I got my referral, it would be dominated by whining about the wait. Whennnn???? Whyyyyyy???? Wahhhhhhh!!

No one needs to read that.

Now, we're waiting to travel and time is both creeping by and going too fast. I wonder how Loc's spending his days and I'm going out of my gourd with impatience to get my hands on him, and yet I've got so many things to do I'm anxious that he'll be here before he has a bed to sleep in and a pediatrician lined up.

So come along for the ride!