Kerry, you’re right that surrogates need not be motivated by compassion alone. That’s because being a surrogate is a tough job. Never mind the social stigma they face explaining to their families and neighbors why they’re carrying someone else’s kids.

Surrogates often have to deal with multiple births, Caesarian sections and mandatory bed rest. One Arizona surrogate even carried quintuplets for one couple.

Many standard contracts require that a surrogate undergo six inseminations or three rounds of in-vitro fertilization. And she may not receive full payment unless one of these efforts results in a pregnancy. Before she even gets the job, she may have to submit to extensive psychological, drug and medical screening—while being at the mercy of notoriously sketchy agencies or inexperienced couples who try to broker contracts on their own. Even though she can earn up to $20,000, the fee may not cover unexpected expenses, for everything from maternity clothes to time off work due to pregnancy complications.

And while many surrogates say they love being pregnant, they can’t escape the toll pregnancy takes on their bodies: stretch marks, heartburn, weight gain, insomnia and hemorrhoids. (Some surrogates even go out of their way to send their intendeds pictures of their growing bellies or offer to nurse the babies after they are born.) Many employers (called “intended parents”) are obviously grateful, giving the women titles such as “Our Angel” or “Special Auntie,” inviting them to visit—or, the biggest honor, asking them to carry a sibling.

But surrogates may be disappointed when their intendeds don’t appreciate the sacrifice, regard them as hired incubators, and want as little to do with them as possible—perhaps out of fear that the women will form an emotional attachment to the children they're carrying. Surrogate message boards, such as those on the site Surromomsonline, are full of tales of alleged poor treatment by intended parents, who literally take the babies and run. One particular complaint: Not being allowed to hold the baby you carried and delivered. One surrogate wrote that the experience was so heartbreaking she’d never do it again. Then there are the frequent squabbles over medical coverage, lifestyle, or birthing protocol. Did the surrogate agree to a natural delivery? Go to pre-natal yoga? Eat enough organic produce?

A surrogate needs a lot more than compassion to be successful in this business. She needs resilience, dedication and, if she is financially compensated, the up-front understanding that she will earn every cent.

Tags: surrogates, surromomsonline

Italian Vogue is celebrating Barbie's 50th anniversary—not to mention the first anniversary of its historic all-black issue (isn't that the most gorgeous photo of Naomi Campbell you've ever seen?)—with a very cool little supplement called "The Barbie Issue," full of fashion shoots starring black Barbies. Jezebel has an excerpt; may I recommend it as a mid-afternoon pick-me-up?

As one commenter, dandelionbrowne, pointed out, one of the most striking things about the spread is the wide range of skintones, facial structures, and hair types on display. It sounds like the dolls are prototypes for a new line of Barbies; The Cut's Amy Odell quotes the following press release:

[T]he So In Style dolls ... have been designed with more authentic-looking black features, including a new facial sculpt that has fuller lips, a wider nose, more distinctive cheek bones and curlier hair.

Those sound awesome. (Read more about them in Raven L. Hill's essay in The Root.) Here's hoping Mattel expands to other races; I have some nieces who'll be needing dolls to make them feel physically inadequate—but racially accepted!—in a few years. (I kid. Kind of.)

Odell and several Jezebel readers also point out that, as much as they like "The Barbie Issue," they'd rather see more, you know, actual black people in Vogue. Fair point, though I love the idea of this supplement becoming a treasured keepsake in some little girl's toy chest.

And finally, even though I share Dodai from Jezebel's mixed feelings about the "tribal photos" (here and here), they also bring back fond memories of when my grandmother would sew little saris and lenghas for my Barbies. So I'm inclined to forgive them, just a little bit.

Tags: barbie, fashion, Race, Vogue

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There's much to rue in the story of how Henry Louis Gates Jr. (editor-in-chief of our sister site, The Root) was arrested at his house last week. Was it supposedly disorderly conduct when Gates asked to see a Cambridge cop's badge and ID? Or when he said the cop was making a mistake based on racial profiling? The charge was dropped this afternoon, lucky for the cop.

Maybe something good can come of this, though. The incident is a reminder that we don't live in a post-racial society, no matter how often the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee said so last week in grilling Judge Sonia Sotomayor. We live in a society in which race and inequality are still threaded together. Yes, often class matters as much as or more than skin color. But not always. Look at the arrest photo of Gates in his spectacles and red striped polo.

And a silver lining from Gates himself: a renewed focus for his' prodigious energies: He told the Washington Post that he "will now apply the scholarship that has been his life's work to the issue of race in the criminal justice system."

Photograph of Henry Louis Gates Jr. by HBO/Getty Images.

Tags: henry louis gates, police, racial profiling

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Jess, I don’t quite agree that the New York Times article you mention makes surrogacy out to be all sunshine and rainbows. What I’m reading is an articulation of the narrow conditions under which the modal New York Times reader will find surrogacy culturally acceptable. We’re reassured that “virtually every” woman who opts for surrogacy can’t have her own children, just as we’re reassured, multiple times, that surrogates don’t need or want the money they’re receiving. “People don’t become gestational carriers as a way of making money,” a lawyer explains. “Rather, their motives are altruistic.”

I’ve no doubt that this is what people want to hear, but what an oddly binary way of considering the motivation to express and nurture another person’s genetic information—money or altruism, transaction or gift. Human beings are more complex than this. Ask a man why he sells his genetic legacy to the local sperm bank, and he’s likely to give you more than one reason—a bit of money, the chance to help someone, the idea that his code might live on. But whether selling eggs or womb space, women seem to be faced with this stark division of motivational labor: Are you doing it for the cash (in which case you’re being exploited) or out of pure, unadulterated kindness (in which case you’re eccentric)?

An article that questioned rather than pandered to these social anxieties would be a great read. Why is it that we must be assured that a woman seeking a surrogate is infertile rather than merely disinclined to undergo the pain of childbirth? (And why is it then OK to search for a surrogate rather, than, say, adopt?) And who are we to demand that any woman who chooses to help be motivated by compassion alone?

Photograph of a pregnant woman by Digital Vision/Getty Images.

Tags: surrogacy

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A team of brave scientists from the University of Iowa has dared to attempt to end the great nature vs. nurture debate. Parents everywhere, sick of reading article after article either blaming them for bad behavior or informing them that their influence is all for naught, should gather outside the lab to sing and hold banners. Isn’t it a relief to finally see some scientists announce that "development involves a complex system in which genes and environmental factors constantly interact"?

As a biological and adoptive parent, I’d just like to say: Duh.

I’ve read headlines declaring that kids are influenced only by their peers, and parents may as well abandon them at birth on an island of wild pigs. Other studies suggest that traits like shyness are all in the genes, leaving parents with no hope of helping a reluctant kid learn to make friends. And I’ve seen, again and again, studies showing that parents have less influence over the lives of adopted children than over those of their biological kids. All of these studies make me want to throw up my hands. If it were as simple as any of that, we would have long since reduced parenting to a science and be going about our days, easily doing exactly what’s right for every kid.

We relatively new parents get sucked easily into the those articles or teaser stories for the evening news that offer what the UI team calls “clean and simple and sexy” sound-bites about research studies. The UI researchers systematically examined some of those tempting studies and found exactly what our own parents probably could have told us: that there’s probably more to the story.

Image of DNA by Jason Reed/Getty Images.

Tags: nature vs. nurture

The New York Times has an article about surrogacy in today's health section, pegged to Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick's use of a surrogate to have their just-born twins, Marion and Tabitha. Of course this does not eclipse the most famous Times piece about surrogacy—Alex Kuczynski's deliciously self-absorbed tale from last year of using a surrogate, "Her Body, My Baby." But both pieces have in common that they focus on positive tales of surrogacy.

The new piece glosses gently over the negatives ("Surrogate pregnancies don’t always blossom into lasting friendships, of course, and many people consider the process repugnant") but doesn't really talk to anyone who actually had a negative experience with surrogacy. I fear that the women who become surrogates—who are often less educated than the women paying for the womb space—and have bad experiences are not being given enough of a voice. This is something that is so physically and emotionally complicated, I imagine that for these "gestational vessels" things are not always sunshine and lollies and warm altruistic feelings.

Tags: alex kuczynski, babies, gestation, matthew broderick, sarah jessica parker, surrogacy

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Chris Brown has a thing or two to teach Mark Sanford and John Ensign about how to say you're sorry. In his taped apology to Rihanna, for punching her in February, the singer sounds forthright and sincere. He's straightforward and direct. He invokes his mother, more than once. He says he's getting help and he promises not to do it again. All the boxes checked, including remorse.

Should we believe him? For me this raises all kinds of questions about how sunny I feel about the human capacity for change. I want to think Brown can reform, control his anger, yell at women instead of smacking them around when he does get mad. But he's got some deep-seated history to contend with. According to Spin, "Brown was raised surrounded by domestic violence; his stepfather allegedly abused his mother." Brown told MTV in 2006 that watching his stepfather was "an influence in me about how to treat a woman." He also said, "I used to always feel the hate for anybody that disrespected a lady."

So which way will Brown go—toward repeating the pattern he saw as a child, or toward his gut reaction that batterers are loathsome? I'm not sure the odds are in his favor. Still, for now, you gotta root for him. And hope he has a good therapist.

Photograph of Chris Brown in court by Lori Shepler/AFP/Getty Images.

Tags: Chris Brown, domestic violence, Rihanna