I tell ya, a girl trying to scramble her way to motherhood can sure get whiplash these days.  There’s some great reading out there, and some frustrating reading.   My response to Alex Kuczynski’s cover story in this weekend’s NYTimes magazine (Her Body, My Baby) was pretty much summed up by this commentor’s comment:

I made the mistake — I guess you could call it that — of looking at the photos before reading the article. The surrogate mother is sitting, barefoot, on a dilapidated porch in one photo, whereas the mother and child are standing in front of a hugely expensive, well manicured home with their baby’s nurse, a black woman, in the other photo. This view tainted my reading of the article, and I couldn’t help but notice every self-conscious admittance of guilt or passing acknowledgment of class or social status. Perhaps the surrogate, as the writer tells it, is fiscally better off than her photo shows; perhaps the nurse, who was not mentioned in the article, just happens to be black. But someone, either the journalist or the photojournalist, is deceiving us.

I am trying, very hard, to be happy for the writer and her new baby — how wonderful after all the years of heartache! — but all I have in my head right now are images of how our country is so racially and socially divided. Is it always going to be this way?

On other fronts, I caught a fresh breeze blowing through the fields of the mommy wars — a call for truce — when I came across Meghan O’Rouke’s post over at XX Factor, “No More Advice for Michelle Obama.  Except This!”, in which she writes:

As Michelle herself has said, being first lady is a powerful platform. And the modern professional marriage, for better or for worse, usually requires some alternating in who gets to take the professional lead (that is, if you want your kids to get any attention). It’s too bad, sure, that there aren’t more men stepping up to support their wives—but it’s not as though that’s not happening in our political culture. (Hi there, Todd Palin!) The best way Michelle Obama can act as a role model for women right now is not by making the decision any one of us would make (because we’d all make different decisions), but by reminding us that life is fleeting, and we ought to immerse ourselves in the opportunities and joys of our own life as it exists. Not as it might exist.

And meanwhile, for some hands-on practical support for pregnant and parenting students, check out the National Women’s Law Center’s latest webinar.  Though the event has passed (it was on Weds), you can download the presentation and materials here.