For generations of adoptions, the birth mother was an anonymous woman who relinquished her infant and then receded into the shadows. That is so not Hava Leichtman. By Liza Mundy SLIGHTLY MORE THAN FOUR YEARS AGO, on November 15, 2002, a 26-year-old woman named Hava Leichtman sat in a Michigan courtroom, still enervated, and sore,…
High Anxiety
Today’s teen girls get more A’s and go to college more often than ever before. But there’s a price: stomach-clenching, sleep-stealing stress By Liza Mundy “Drop your jaw, Nick!” Ms. Boley is saying, standing indomitable at the front of the chorus classroom. “Nick, drop your jaw!” But Nick, a fresh-faced underclassman wearing jeans and a…
…The Cat Will Play
In classic children’s literature, nothing interesting ever seems to happen until Mom’s out of the picture. Are generations of great writers trying to tell us something? By Liza Mundy At my daughter’s elementary school, the administration makes it a point of pride never to use a word when an acronym will do. Hence the period…