Having A Child In The Digital Age
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Why is Amanda Hess's pregnancy story significant?
I'm Tanya Mosley. Today, I am joined by Amanda Hess. She's a journalist, cultural critic, and now author of a new memoir titled Second Life, Having a Child in the Digital Age. The book starts with a moment every expecting parent dreads, a routine ultrasound that is suddenly not routine. When Hess was 29 weeks pregnant, doctors spotted something that indicated her baby could have a rare genetic condition. What followed was a spiral of MRIs, genetic testing, consultations with specialists, and like many of us would do, a late-night dive into the internet for answers.
How do pregnancy apps and online forums influence expecting parents?
That search led her down a rabbit hole and to fertility tech, AI-powered embryo screening, conspiracy theories, YouTube birth vlogs, the performance of motherhood on Instagram, and threaded through it all, an unsettling eugenic undercurrent suggesting which children are worth having. Known for her commentary on internet culture and gender at the New York Times, Hess turns her critique inward, asking herself, what does it mean to become a parent while plugged into an algorithmic machine that sorts scores and sells versions of perfection and what's considered normal? Amanda Hess, welcome to Fresh Air.
Thank you so much for having me.
You opened this book with a moment that I mentioned, soon-to-be parents fear. That's a routine ultrasound that shows a potential abnormality. And at the time, you were seven months pregnant. What did the doctor share with you?
He told me that he saw something that he didn't like, and that phrase has really stuck with me. But what he saw was something that when I saw it, I thought was cute, which is that my son was sticking out his tongue. And that's abnormal if the baby is not just bringing the tongue back into the mouth. Although, of course, I didn't know that at the time. After several weeks of tests, when I was about eight months pregnant, we learned that my son has Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, which is an overgrowth disorder that, among other things, can cause a child to have a very enlarged tongue.
What role does technology play in modern parenting decisions?
One of the things you do in your writing that's really powerful is you integrate the ways that technology works. really infiltrates every waking moment of our lives, including this particular moment when the doctor looked at your ultrasound. And I'd like for you to read about this moment just before you receive that news from the doctor. You're on the sonogram table. You're waiting for the doctor to arrive. And as you're lying there with that goo that they put on your stomach to allow for the ultrasound wand to glide over your pregnant belly, your mind begins to race. Can I have you read that passage? Sure.
Sure. The errors I made during my pregnancy knocked at the door of my mind. I drank a glass and a half of wine on Mark's birthday before I knew I was pregnant. I swallowed a tablet of Ativan for acute anxiety after I knew. I took a long hot bath that crinkled my fingertips. I got sick with a fever and fell asleep without thinking about it. I waited until I was almost 35 years old to get pregnant.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
Why is Amanda Hess's pregnancy story significant?
1:21–2:00
2
How do pregnancy apps and online forums influence expecting parents?
2:00–3:39
3
What role does technology play in modern parenting decisions?
3:39–6:20
4
How does Amanda Hess describe her experience with medical and online information?
6:20–10:09
5
What challenges did Amanda Hess face with prenatal diagnoses?
10:09–13:40
6
How does Amanda Hess view the intersection of technology and disability?
13:40–47:49
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