richterbjack wrote:Actually, the movie did galvanize quite a few people of that persuasion; there are more than enough articles and op-eds in national newspapers to attest to that.
You're kind of right - I guess I should have said the film
shouldn't have been galvanizing. Both sides had their main points (the need of a woman to be able to choose/life should be cherished) presented and, ultimately, celebrated in a way where everyone won.
richterbjack wrote:Maybe we're on different wavelengths here, but I don't see the role of the single working mother as particularly controversial, either. Considering that half of all marriages end in divorce now, many having produced children, it's the demographic reality. I think most people who still harbor some kind of animosity towards single mothers are considered the fringe by everyone else, and rightly so.
We are on different wavelengths. I'm not saying being a single working mother is controversial, I'm saying giving a baby to a single parent through adoption is less common than giving it to a couple of parents. It definitely still happens, but there's a lingering stigma that single moms can't do it as well as a mom and a dad.
My point was that the movie outlined the fallacy in that kind of automatic thinking. The ending struck me as extremely feminist in a very positive way as it presented a young woman who saw one other lone woman as all the baby would need to grow up happy and healthy.
A great book about a different-from-the-norm adoption is Dan Savage's
The Kid. Very educational, very funny, very resonant.
