happy mothers' day
The best mothers' day reading?
I don't love the Seabrook piece. As a matter of fact, I hate it in some ways - the child's name is Rosalie. Rosalie. [Actually, the child's name is NOT Rosalie. It is Rose and remains Rose throughout the essay. See comments.] Ask anyone named Rosalie and they will tell you that their name is not Rose. Ask anyone named Rose and they will tell you their name is not Rosalie. The silliest, most trite response, I know, but international adoption is an issue that renders me inarticulate and angry whenever I have to think or talk about it, which is maybe every other year. International adoption, in practice, seems to violate a lot of what I think of as basic human rights and it forces me to explore the idea that I believe, after all, in basic human rights. For children, no less.
So I usually don't think about it but I was in the middle, literally, of reading an excellent novel about international adoption and/or child trafficking, set in Guatemala - The Long Night of White Chickens - when I got this week's issue of The New Yorker. Seabrook is available to subscribers only, I think.
posted by zoe p. at 4:18 PM
2 Comments:
The child's name is Rose. My mother-in-law's name was Rosalie. The child was never named Rosalie. It's one thing to be trite, it's another to be wrong.
I am sorry. It's a very emotional issue for me, and my rather short post expresses that in many ways, I guess - strong feelings clouded my reaction to the essay.
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