Ayelet Waldman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ayelet Waldman (born December 11, 1964) is a writer of fiction and non-fiction, born in Jerusalem, and raised in Montreal and New Jersey.
She is the author of five novels about the "part-time sleuth and full-time mother" Juliet Applebaum: Nursery Crimes (2000), The Big Nap (2001), A Playdate with Death (2002), Death Gets a Time-Out (2003), and Murder Plays House (2004). The collective title of the series is The Mommy-Track Mysteries. Waldman has also published two novels of general interest, Daughter's Keeper (2003) and Love and Other Impossible Pursuits (2006). Waldman spent three years working as a Federal Public Defender in the Central District of California, and in all her fiction she has drawn extensively on her education (Harvard Law School, Class of '91) and career as an attorney.
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[edit] Controversy over Salon.com Articles
Waldman was a columnist for Salon.com, where she wrote on women's rights, parenting, and mental illness, including her own bipolar disorder. Her essays on family issues sparked considerable controversy. She drew fire for her 2005 column, "You're Supposed to Marry the Person You Love, Mom," in which she wrote that she wished her son were gay so that he would continue to "maintain [an] inappropriately intimate relationship [with her] ... shop with [her] ... [and] redecorat[e] the family room." Readers responded that Waldman's stereotypes of gay men were "condescending, out of touch, and quite a bit insulting." Some suggested that the close relationships between gay men and their mothers that Waldman envied were actually a product of discrimination; because gay relationships are seen as illegitimate, many people consider a gay person's birth family to be his only "real" family.
A 2006 column, "Dividing the Man from his Mother," reignited the debate. While reflecting on her relationship with her mother-in-law, Waldman again expressed the wish that her son would grow up gay, so that no woman could ever come between them. She wrote that she envisioned her son's hypothetical male partner as her friend and ally, rather than as a competitor for his attention. Readers accused her of trivializing gay relationships by taking her son's hypothetical gay union less seriously than she would a heterosexual one.
[edit] "Motherlove"
Waldman's essay "Motherlove" was published in Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race and Themselves (ISBN 0-06-059879-4, edited by Kate Moses and Camille Peri), and reprinted in the New York Times under the headline "Truly, Madly, Guiltily."
The essay explores her conviction that a woman should consider her spousal relationship more important than her relationships with her children. She writes that a clear hierarchy of love is essential to a stable and healthy marriage. Waldman summarizes her ideal family dynamic: "[W]e, [husband Michael Chabon] and I, are the core of what he cherishes... the children are satellites, beloved but tangential."
Waldman posits that children who are made aware of their secondary rank in their parents' affections "are more successful, happier, live longer and have healthier lives" than those who grow up with different expectations.
After Because I Said So was published, The Oprah Winfrey Show invited Waldman to discuss her views on love, marriage, and motherhood. Other guests took issue with Waldman's "one-size-fits-all" prescription, arguing that it may be inappropriate for blended families or families in which abuse occurs.
Michael Chabon revisited the controversy in an interview appearing in the January 2006 issue of Pages. He suggested that criticism from the "slagosphere" is responsible for suppressing the publication of challenging and thought-provoking writing.
[edit] Personal data
Waldman is married to Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon, and lives with him and their four children in Berkeley, California.
[edit] External links
- Ayelet Waldman's website
- Ayelet Waldman's blog - no longer updated.
- Salon.com's Archive of Waldman's columns
[edit] Notable Columns
- "You're Supposed to Marry the Person You Love, Mom"
- "Dividing the Man from his Mother"
- "Motherlove" - reprinted from Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race and Themselves. This column has also appeared under the title "Truly, Madly, Guiltily."
