A few months back I wrote about a book on my “to read” pile.   It’s Andrew Solomon’s “Far From The Tree:   Parents, Children and the Search for Identity.”   I have it from the library just now and, as it is around 1000 pages, I don’t think I’m going to finish it.  Truth be told, I won’t even make a good start on it.  Even so, I’m moving it from “to read” to “to buy.”   That’s significant as I buy books rather sparingly, preferring to rely on the library unless I think a book is really a keeper.  This one is.

It’s funny because the first thing that struck me was the very first sentence.   It’s not surprising that I read the first sentence first, of course.  What’s funny is that’s the same thing that struck me when I read the Guardian review, but I’d completely forgotten that.   (Okay, mind like a sieve. I know.)

This time I’ll quote the first two sentences rather than just the first line.

“There is no such thing as reproduction.   When two people decide to have a baby, they engage in an act of production, and the widespread use of the word reproduction for this activity, with its implication that two people are but braiding themselves together, is at best a euphemism to comfort prospective parents before they get in over their heads.”

[Emphasis in original.]  Solomon goes on to comment:

Having anticipated the onward march of our selfish genes, many of us are unprepared for children who present unfamiliar needs.  Parenthood abruptly catapults us into a permanent relationship with a stranger.

Solomon’s focus in the book is children who are, in important ways, not like their parents.  They may be differently-abled or they may be mentally ill or they may be lesbian, gay or transsexual.  It’s a curious list when you look at it (I’ve only given you a part of it) but there is this common thread–and it’s clearly tied to the title of the book.   These children are far from the tree.

In some ways, though, I think Solomon’s first sentences suggests an even broader assertion.  All children are some distance from the tree.  That’s why they are better viewed as  result of production rather than reproduction.   Our children are not us.  And the more we expect them to be us, the less we will be able to see who they are and what they  need from us.

A little side-note here:   Saying that “children are the result of production” certainly takes us deeper into the use of language that aligns children with property.   (Remember that we all agree that children should not be treated as property.)   After all, the way we commonly think about it, things (but not people) are produced.   By contrast, though reproduction can produce things (like Xerox copies) it is also the way we usually talk about creating children.    Thus, I can certainly see that one could argue that using “production” instead of ”reproduction” is a bad idea.    But this doesn’t diminish Solomon’s point that using the word “reproduction” here is misleading.   Unless and until we perfect cloning, children are not reproductions of their parents.  Each child–even an identical twin–is something new, unique and different.

Solomon also offers some very important thoughts on the development of identity.   In particular, he distinguishes between vertical identities and horizontal identities.  I think this typology is incredibly important.

Vertical identities are passed down from parent to child (or more broadly from generation to generation).   What struck me (though it is quite obvious once you say it) is that some but not all of these are genetically based.   What Solomon refers to as “shared cultural norms” can also compose vertical identities.  So skin color can be the core of an identity and that is clearly genetic.  But speaking a language other than that in general use gives rise to a vertical identity and that is not genetic.  Similarly, being raised in a particular religion is vertical but not genetic.    (As Solomon notes, there are also traits that are genetic but don’t give rise to identities–like myopia.)

Horizontal identities arise from traits foreign to the parents.   As above, not all traits foreign to the parents give rise to identities, but some do.    Being lesbian or gay is often a horizontal identity.  (Most lesbians/gay men have straight parents.)   So is belonging to a disability community.   (Being deaf, say.)

Of course, people have multiple identities.   We are simultaneously of a particular race, a particular gender, an ethnicity, a sexuality, a class, and so on.   I would guess that for most of us some of our identities are vertical and some are horizontal.    Solomon focusses on the horizontal ones because these are the ones that most confound out notions that are children are like us.   Horizontal identities challenge us in special ways.

So I’m moving the book from “to read” to “to buy.”  Once I’ve bought it and read it through maybe I’ll have more to say.

Anyway, last week (this is unusually timely for me) she interviewed a young woman named Sarah Polley.   Polley is an actress and filmmaker and her most recent work is a documentary called “Stories We Tell.”   (It actually just played at the Seattle International Film Festival, but I’m sorry to say I missed it.)   It’s an exploration of Polley’s own family history.   In the course of it she interviewed her siblings and her father (a Canadian actor named Michael Polley), among others, at length.   (Her mother died when she was 11, which is obviously long before the movie was made.)   What she focused on was a running joke/rumor in her family that Michael Polley was not her genetic father.   (There’s press coverage of the film in many other places on the web, should you want to read more.)

Except it turns out not to be a joke or a rumor at all.  In fact, Sarah Polley’s genetic father is another man (also interviewed in the film) with whom her mother had an affair.  And though it sounds like it was a common conversation within the family (not the affair, but the question of genetic fatherhood), no one–including Michael Polley–really knew until this film was being made.   Indeed, Sarah tells Michael Polley that he is not her genetic father in the course of the documentary.   The film explores the various reactions of the people involved.

I don’t mean to suggest that this film is some definitive word on the relative importance of the genetic relationship vs. the social one.  It’s a personal story.   For some reason there have been a lot of personal stories on the blog recently, about all manner of topics and I always find myself thinking the same things.  On the one hand, they are concrete instances of whatever it is that is being recounted.   It’s always important to pay attention to the real experiences people recount.  But on the other hand, they are necessarily anecdotal and individual.   You cannot be confident that any of them are representative.   You cannot assume that other people will have the same experiences.    Thus, I think you have to approach personal stories willing to learn but with a grain of salt.

So all that said, Polley’s story is fascinating.   (This might be a place I should add a spoiler alert, I guess, because I’m about to talk about the reactions.)   You’d expect (or at least, I expected) that this kind of revelation would rock the whole family–and particularly Michael Polley.    After all, this a family built around a false assumption (I’m close to saying “a lie,” but maybe that’s a bit too far.)   Surely the wife/mother deceived everyone by presenting the child of an affair as the child of the husband?

I’ve written here in many contexts about how important honesty is–and about the problems engendered by the failure to be honest.   The classic version of this story I carry around in my head is one where the revelation (27 years late) is damaging for most of those concerned.

But that is not this story.   In this story the revelations are not shattering.  They are revealing, of course, but what they reveal is a generosity of spirit that is quite amazing.   I wonder, though, if it is also extraordinary.

In any event, I am left thinking this is a counter-story–one that contradicts my standard narrative.   And it does make me think.  The mother here (the one person whose account we cannot have as she is long dead) chose a course I’d ordinarily condemn.  She hid the truth.   But it seems, according to the people closest to her, to the ones with the most at stake, that this was not a bad thing–not the wrong thing to do.

Of course, she wasn’t prescient.   She couldn’t foresee the future.  She didn’t know how or when the truth might come out.  And there are many ways that this story could have ended badly.   But in fact, it didn’t end badly.   Maybe, given all the circumstances as she knew them at the time, she made the best choice.   That’s rather a startling thought for me.

I’d really like to see the movie.  And if anyone else does, I’d love to know what you think.  But in the meantime, the interview has given me reason to revisit some truths I hold fairly dear.

Now you may be wondering why this has anything to do with my blog.  Bear with me.

One of the critical pieces of information FAFSA requires, of course, is the financial position of the student’s parents.   It certainly stands to reason that this is the sort of thing you’d want to know in determining whether someone was eligible for federal student aid, right?  But you all know that figuring out who counts as a ”parent” means isn’t always easy.  So FAFSA has this helpful page.   Here’s how it works now, as taken from that page:

• If your parents are living and married to each other, answer the questions about both of them.

Okay–so for married parents, count both.   Easy as pie.

• If your parents are living together and are not married but meet the criteria in your state for a common-law marriage, answer the questions about both of them. If your state does not consider them to be married, fill out the parent information as if they are divorced. (See below.)

So the student who is the child of unmarried parents is treated as the child of divorced parents, even if her or his parents are actually actually living happily together.

Then you need to know how divorced parents treated are treated, right?  (This is where we get to the ”see below.”)  So back to the information sheet:

• If your parents are divorced or separated, answer the questions about the parent with whom you lived more during the past 12 months. If this parent is remarried as of today, answer the questions on the FAFSA about that parent and the person whom your parent married (your stepparent).

Okay, so if your parents are divorced you only answer the questions about income/assets for the parent you live with more of the time.  Perhaps that makes sense.   But remember, we’re thinking about someone whose parents actually do live together–they just don’t happen to be married.  We’re just treating them as though they were divorced.  (Don’t ask me why–I have no idea.)   And if they really are happily living together, then the child spends an equal amount of time with each of them.   Now what?

Not to worry–FAFSA considered this possibility.  Once more to the information sheet:

• • If you lived the same amount of time with each divorced parent, give answers about the parent who provided more financial support during the past 12 months or during the most recent 12 months that you actually received support from a parent.

So you report only one parent.   And it isn’t necessarily the parent who has more assets/income.  It’s the one who provided more financial support.

I won’t go further into the weeds here (but perhaps you can get a sense of why the mere mention of FAFSA makes some people quake).  Suffice it to say that the operational definition of family for FAFSA is keyed to marriage.   Families where the parents are unmarried but together don’t fit in.   Clearly you are either supposed to be married or divorced.

This affects all unmarried parents–straight or lesbian/gay.   But thanks to DOMA, all lesbian and gay parents are (for federal purposes) unmarried parents.    This means that lesbian and gay families have always had to wrestle with the FAFSA forms.   The process has always relegated them (as well as unmarried but together heterosexual parents) to some weird status where they are treated as though they are divorced even though they most definitely are not.   It’s hardly affirming.

In fairness I should note that there could be financial advantages to this odd treatment.   Two married parents—report information for both.   Two unmarried parents–report information for only one.   Children of lesbian and gay parents might be found eligible to receive aid where children of married heterosexual parents with the same financial resources wouldn’t be.   Maybe there’s some sort of fairness to the trade-off.

But here’s the latest news, direct from the US Department of Education.   I’m just going to quote a bit from that press release.   Starting next year

  the Department will—for the first time—collect income and other information  from a dependent student’s legal parents regardless of the parents’ marital status or gender, if those parents live together.

The 2014-2015 Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, will provide a new option for dependent applicants to describe their parents’ marital status as “unmarried and both parents living together.” Additionally, where appropriate, the new FAFSA form will also use terms like “Parent 1 (father/mother/stepparent)” and “Parent 2 (father/mother/stepparent)” instead of gender-specific terms like “mother” and “father.”

“All students should be able to apply for federal student aid within a system that incorporates their unique family dynamics,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “These changes will allow us to more precisely calculate federal student aid eligibility based on what a student’s whole family is able to contribute and ensure taxpayer dollars are better targeted toward those students who have the most need, as well as provide an inclusive form that reflects the diversity of American families.”

I suppose for some of you this might seem like making an awfully big deal out of a small change in a few forms.    But it’s really about accepting families the way they really are and seen that way it really does matter.

Kristen Broome is the mother of a two-year-old.  Her husband is in the military and was in Afghanistan during the time this takes place.   She learned that her second cousin, Jamie Pursley, had had a miscarriage and could no longer carry a pregnancy to term.   Kristen offered to be a surrogate for Jamie and Jamie’s husband, Jacob.   Jill Knight is the photographer who followed the two women and documented the story.

This is surrogacy when it works.   It’s surely the most acceptable in all regards–the child is genetically related to both of the Pursleys and not (except as a second-cousin once removed?) to Broome.   Broome did not do this for money, but rather volunteered to help a family member.   And everyone followed through.   Which is not to say it was easy.   Or without risk.    I know we’d all like life to be easy and without risk, but there are those immortal words to remember:  You can’t always get what you want.

Anyway, a couple of things strike me here.  First, as you can see most clearly by reading Broome’s blog, a lot of what made this work is attitude.  From the beginning Broome did not think of Liam as ”her” child.   As she says

“I have been asked more times than I can count how I felt when I gave Liam away. My first response is always that I didn’t give Liam away; he was never mine to give.”

(And yes, as an aside, there’s that language again.  ”It’s not my child, it’s their child.”   It does sound like the language of ownership, but it’s the language we generally use.   I think everyone here, no matter what view they take on parentage, falls back to that language.   But even if we all do it, it’s still worth thinking about.  Maybe especially if we all do it?   I raised this in a couple of posts not so long ago and I think it’s a good topic for thought/discussion.)

Anyway, to return to the main point–everything I’ve read about surrogacy suggests that attitude matters.   I don’t mean it is the only thing that matters, but it is a critically important thing.   Clarity about what you’re doing and why is a necessary base to build on.

It’s not clear to me whether the people involved here went through any special screening to determine if they were suited for surrogacy.  My guess is (and it is just a guess) that they did not.   If that’s the case, they got lucky.  Even when surrogacy is altruistic and arranged between family or friends, it can go sideways.   Caution before commitment is always better.

As with the earlier post, I think about what the future holds.   I think most of us here agree that honesty and openness is best for kids–and since the folks here are related they’ll be staying in touch.  Someday Liam will have these pictures to look at.   And he’ll have Broome to talk to, if and when he wants to.  That’s a far different future than I imagine in the cases of out-sourced surrogacy where the surrogate lives a world away and there is not common language.

And at the risk of muddying my own topic, while I’m thinking about surrogacy, I wanted to add this into the mix.   It seems like the more we know, the more complicated the world becomes.   Here’s a recent study and some press around it.   Dr. Barbara Kisilevski.   Dr. Kisilevski and her team of researchers established that a fetus in utero learns to recognize its mother’s voice.   I don’t find this result particularly surprising, really.   But it does give me more to think about as I consider surrogacy.   The surrogate–the woman who is pregnant–has a real and substantial relationship to the child she gives birth to you.  Whatever we do about surrogacy, I think we need to acknowledge that.

And just because it’s been a while, I’ll remind you of my own view.  Because I believe in women’s autonomy, I think women ought to be allowed to be surrogates and I think they ought to be paid for their time and trouble if they so choose.   But I also think that when they give birth they ought to be recognized as legal mothers.  What that means is that the intended parents–those who contract with surrogate–must rely on the good faith of the surrogate to keep her word and let them adopt the child.   I’m fine with that–though I know many aren’t.   Putting greater power in the hands of the surrogate doesn’t really worry me, for I’m afraid that generally its the intended parents who hold most of the cards.