At this point, I am a bit confused. What is the latest Twitter firestorm about Elizabeth Bruenig, the latest New York Times talent to hit the exit door for one reason or another? I may have missed a controversy or two in recent weeks.
You see, I am still stuck on the furor that greeting that essay published (May 7) just before she left the Gray Lady, the one with that terrifying headline: “I Became a Mother at 25, and I’m not Sorry I Didn’t Wait.”
I’ve been thinking about that one ever since and, thus, I have decided to treat it as a weekend think piece. But part of me still wants to argue that there was some kind of news feature that could have been written about that whole affair.
Yes, it was another example of folks in the blue-checkmark tribe losing their cool because someone triggered the urban, coastal principalities and powers. Can you say “fecundophobia”? However, this essay was also linked to some huge trends in postmodern America, especially crashing fertility rates and declines in the number of people getting married. There was news here, of some kind.
First, here is the Bruenig overture:
If someone had asked on the day of my college graduation whether I imagined I would still be, in five years’ time, a reliable wallflower at any given party, I would have guessed so. Some things just don’t change. What I would not have predicted at the time is that five years hence I would be lurking along the fringes of a 3-year-old’s birthday party, a bewildered and bleary-eyed 27-year-old mom among a cordial flock of Tory Burch bedecked mothers in their late 30s and early 40s who had a much better idea of what they were doing than I ever have.