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A L S O++T O D A Y

Family myths, family realities
By Stephanie Coontz
A string of lurid cases this year drew attention away from the real challenges that confront American families

The Abandoned Newborn
A poem by Sharon Olds

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T A B L E++T A L K

What is the perfect family vehicle? Join mothers who shop for cars in Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

I'll be home for sushi
By Debra Ollivier
An expatriate longs for the ersatz holiday spirit of her Los Angeles childhood
(12/22/97)

Catholic school bad girl
By Joan Walsh
Why was I the only one at my grammar school reunion who didn't remember me as a bully?
(12/19/97)

Word by word
By Anne Lamott
When everything in your life goes wrong at once, something big and lovely is about to get born
(12/18/97)

Hot flash
By Ros Davidson
Irradiating America's meat to make it safe is like destroying the village in order to save it, says an activist
(12/17/97)

Time for one thing
By Kate Moses
Getting sick
(12/16/97)

ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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HE DOESN'T WANT IT ALL

Of course, it wasn't the only reason Robert Reich stepped down as labor secretary, but it was the one he chose to spotlight -- making him the first male U.S. leader to publicly choose family over job. In an editorial in the New York Times, Reich wrote that trying to balance work and family ends up shortchanging one or both. "Teenage boys don't need you on schedule. A spouse doesn't share intimacies on command," Reich wrote. "You have to make a painful choice."

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SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT ALL

And who could argue that the new 40-year-old Cosmo chief, Bonnie Fuller, doesn't? Three children, a nanny who arrives 15 minutes after Fuller gets up in the morning, a 12-hour work day, a husband who took time off so she could return to work two days after childbirth, a tiny headset so she can work the phones while she breast-feeds. Not to mention meaningful work -- Fuller's first issue, which she delivered four days before she delivered her third child, included articles on topics such as how to make sex so good the guy will grovel. There is one thing the Cosmo Girl mom can live without, however: working mother guilt. "I think at a certain point, you have to give up on the guilt," she told the New York Times in May. The sooner the better, right Bonnie?

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EMPLOYER OF THE YEAR: THE U.S. ARMED FORCES

Women recruits bring rape charges against 11 instructors and one captain at the Army's Aberdeen Proving Grounds. Lt. Kelly Flinn, the first female B-52 bomber pilot, is run out of the Air Force for disobeying an order to end an adulterous affair, while Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, who admitted having an adulterous affair, is championed by Defense Secretary William Cohen for the post of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Congratulations to the U.S. military for once again helping the males in its ranks be all that they can be!

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WILL SOMEONE PLEASE STOP WINDING THEIR BIOLOGICAL CLOCKS?

Clint Eastwood proved he sure ain't shootin' blanks yet when he became a father -- again -- at the age of 66. But who would have thought wizened old Tony Randall, the prissy half of television's old "Odd Couple," would outshoot Dirty Harry to become a 77-year-old first-time dad -- and the nation's first celebrity test case for how an 80-year-old parent copes with the Terrible Twos?

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DAMN, I FORGOT TO HAVE CHILDREN!

A 63-year-old California woman became the world's oldest mother through in-vitro fertilization. Although she lied about her age in order to enter an artificial insemination program at the University of Southern California Medical Center (which requires that women be no older than a sprightly 55), the perennially politically correct San Francisco Chronicle leaped to her defense, claiming that criticizing her is subjecting older mothers to a double standard. "Many grandparents are doing a terrific job of raising young children," the Chronicle editorial noted -- a reassuring thought since the baby's 80-year-old grandmother is reportedly helping with the child-rearing.

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DIDN'T WE SEE THIS ON "THE X-FILES"?

If all goes well, Julie Garber, who died of leukemia last December, will become the first dead woman to have a child this summer, with the help of a surrogate mother who is carrying her embryos. The case, which one health law professor described as "way beyond the limits," raises the question: Is it morally conscionable to create orphans at birth?

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A FANTASY:
MARTHA STEWART'S MAKEOVER OF THE UNABOMBER'S CABIN

While scouting locations recently for her magazine, Martha happened across Theodore Kaczynski's 10-by-12-foot cabin at the U. S. District courthouse in Sacramento.

"As soon as I saw it, I knew it was a good thing," Stewart was reported as saying. Immediately, Stewart put her entourage of magazine lackeys and lickspittles to work on a feature layout.

"We've covered movie stars who dip old linen into tea and we've carved cucumbers into cunning little sake cups and we've featured people who do nothing but make ice cream out of flower petals," said Stewart. "A shy, philosophical math professor who retreated from the rat race to devote himself to a unique handmade product is perfectly in keeping with our editorial goals."

Stewart plans to return the shack to Lincoln, Mont., where hermit Kaczynski lived for 20 years without electricity or running water, and allegedly crafted and packaged mail bombs.

Following a complete renovation, which will include slipcovering Kaczynski's wooden sleeping pallet in warm pink-and-chocolate brown-striped dupioni silk and hanging hand-beaded amber votive sconces from wires attached to trees, Martha will feature the cabin in a story called "Cozy Candlelight Supper in the Woods." Wearing a cashmere crew neck sweater and Ralph Lauren corduroy slacks in complementary taupe tones, with chenile wristbands covering his manacles, Kaczynski will host a woodsy meal of squirrel and corned beef hash pot-au-feu, sautéed fiddle ferns with balsamic nettles and wild blackberry clafouti. Twenty-year-old port (in honor of the length of the Unabomber's residency) will be served in tiny cups made from hollowed acorns and Kaczynski himself will type out invitations to his friends and family, which will be mailed in envelopes fashioned from spruce bark.

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THE BEST ARGUMENT YET FOR SEX ED IN SCHOOLS

She was a popular teacher. He was teacher's pet. In the summer of '96, 35-year-old Mary Kay LeTourneau, a Seattle schoolteacher and mother of four, began having sex with her former student, a 13-year-old boy. It seemed, she said later, "like such an innocent thing." Asked in an interview if she really thought it was innocent to have sex with a child, LeTourneau replied, "Some adults are children." And now, thanks to LeTourneau, one more child will have to become an adult too soon.

N E X T+P A G E: Pigs in a blanket and parents of the year!

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