LOS ANGELES TIMES SUNDAY CROSSWORD PUZZLE “SHH!” By JOHN-CLARK LEVIN ACROSS 1 Dried meat snacks 9 Whitewater craft 15 Son of Abraham 20 Got emotional 21 Greek island named for a storied flier 22 Rousey who was the first American woman to win an Olympic judo medal 23 *Discerning 24 *Building manager 26 “Little Red Book” writer 27 Author Tolstoy 29 Land between hills 30 Mensa prereq 31 Big __: Red Sox nickname 34 Truckers’ loads 36 Call, old-style 37 *Performer’s period on the job 43 “A Hymn to __”: “My Fair Lady” song 46 Not attentive 47 Bauxite, to aluminum 48 Conquer a hero? 50 Chaplin accessory 51 Decked out 52 Victoria’s Secret purchase 53 *Electricity 57 Is down with 58 Smelting by-product 60 Corp. alternatives 61 Unwitting test taker 62 Longtime U.K. record label 63 Greek fabulist 65 Bilbao bear 66 Locks in a barn 67 *Apportion 72 Point after deuce 73 Sticking point? 74 Jefferson Memorial column type
11 Morning smell 75 Catch a few in “Apocalypse winks Now” 78 Handles clumsily 12 Vague threat 81 Give up 13 Emerald Isle 82 “__ la France!” 14 Egg container 83 “The History of 15 Baghdad native the Standard Oil Company” author 16 In a way, informally Tarbell 17 Thin 77-Down 84 *Follow 18 Fruity thirst86 Neighbor of Ill. quenchers 87 Obstacles to 19 Horse preceder, good teamwork when things are 88 Picnic crashers amiss? 89 Play it by __ 25 Laid low 90 Many Ph.D. 28 “Gone With the students Wind” family 91 Reminder name 93 Make out 31 Blotchy 94 *Work a side 32 Team’s #1 pitcher hustle 99 __ old age 33 Get-up-and-go 103 Poppycock 35 Sit in casks, say 104 Votes in favor 37 Secret supply 105 Rod user 38 Faith with 107 Teeny, tiny bit Sunni and Shia 108 Kind of PC port branches 110 Place for a mask 39 Pickle brand with 113 *Infatuated with, a stork mascot with “on” 40 Medusa, for one 116 Place for Amtrak 41 Neighbors of the passengers to Knicks unwind ... and 42 Latvian chess a hint to how to champ Mikhail __ interpret eight 44 Atahualpa subject puzzle answers 45 Track competition 120 Fiji neighbor 49 Mideast 121 Tenant port on the 122 Paragon of Mediterranean prestige 50 Like chicken-fried 123 Mork’s leader steak 124 Hider’s revelation 52 Washroom fixture 125 Fish with the 53 Police record largest brain 54 “Frozen” sister 55 Cause for a DOWN romaine recall 1 Originate (from) 56 Muppet who 2 Mother of Castor plays lead guitar 3 “Aladdin” parrot in the Electric 4 GI chow Mayhem 5 Yom Kippur 58 Flip-flop observer 59 The Beatles’ last 6 Despot Amin studio album 7 Fabric from Iraq 64 Rosie of “Do the 8 Graf __: WWII Right Thing” ship 66 Tiny Oreos 9 Opposite of trans 68 Place of refuge 10 Contact lens 69 Manet’s giant “Olympia,” e.g.
70 Anti-war 71 “The Imitation Game” encryption machine 76 Rescue from a shelter 77 17-Down, e.g. 78 K-12 fundraising gps. 79 “Rule, Britannia” composer Thomas 80 Pool party arsenal 81 Italian “dear” 85 Run for it 86 Sought-after Japanese beef 87 Ages and ages 90 Dressy accessory 91 “Gangnam Style” rapper 92 Sushi topping 95 “Pick me! Pick me!” 96 A jiffy 97 Repair shop offer 98 __ rasa: blank slate 100 Volunteer’s offer 101 Type of pie popular in Southern cuisine 102 Mess up 105 In the matter of 106 American-born Jordanian queen 107 Airs now 109 Area meas. about the size of a pinkie toenail 110 Part of the navel is one 111 Guinea pig lookalike 112 Affectedly cultured 114 New England sch. 115 Future Ph.D.’s test 117 McKellen who played Gandalf 118 February Va. hours 119 Flight safety org.
SORRY, WRONG NUM-NUM
I love my boyfriend. We’ve been together two years. Recently, however, we’ve been experiencing conflict over the issue of children. He wants kids; I don’t. I’ve always felt strongly about this, and he said he was fine with this when we started dating. But he’s been bringing up the subject of kids a lot lately (I suspect because he’s thinking about popping the question). The discussions have grown fraught -- to the point where he was in tears at the end of an argument. I eventually said I could be open to kids because I love him and don’t want to lose him. But can this be healthy for us long-term? — Conflicted
Though many things in life come with the opportunity to push the “back” button, once you have a kid, you have a kid. You can’t just drop ‘em off at the fire station if they turn out to be precociously criminal – already hot-wiring cars at age seven. Deciding whether to have kids is a very recent state of affairs, coinciding with the development and availability of reliable birth control (starting in the late 1950s with the Lippes Loop IUD). For most of human history, unless a woman spent her fertile years all alone on one of those New Yorker cartoon desert islands, there was a good chance she’d have not just a child but the beginnings of a litter. There’s a widespread (and mistaken!) assumption that a woman who gives birth will immediately and unconditionally bond with her baby, explains anthropologist and primatologist Sarah Hrdy. Probably because of this, many people seem to believe the only thing stopping any woman from wanting a child is having yet to bring one into existence. In fact, neither humans nor other mammals “automatically nurture each baby born,” Hrdy observes. Clinical psychologist Idun Roseth and her colleagues, reviewing research on mother-infant bonding issues, report: “Most mothers find that feelings of affection come within a week from birth. However, some mothers are still struggling with this after many months. ... A small percentage may even have hostile feelings towards their infant.” In other words, the public has an overly rosy, sentimental – and scientifically incorrect – view of what’s often referred to as the “maternal instinct.” There is no such thing – and the term “instinct” is the problem. The actual scientific definition of an instinct is an innate behavior (“factory-installed” – present at birth rather
than learned afterward) that members of a species perform automatically. An example is a baby’s crying – alerting everybody in earshot, “YO! I HAVE UNMET NEEDS!” (Nobody has to send their baby to crying school. It automatically wails its little head off when it’s wet, scared, cold, or wants a sip o’ nippy.) In contrast with automatic instinctual behavior, there’s behavior that’s learned as well as behavior that is only sometimes triggered in some members of a species. Accordingly, the misnamed “maternal instinct” would be better termed a maternal impulse or motivation. The impulse to nurture one’s infant is just one motivation that may arise in a woman. Hrdy has long emphasized that ambivalence and even rejection of an infant are other impulses a new mother may feel. (Unfortunately, the myth of instantly falling in love with one’s infant is so pervasive and strong that women who don’t experience this tend to feel there’s something wrong with them.) In reality, “maternal commitment” tends to emerge “piecemeal,” Hrdy explains, and is “chronically sensitive to external cues.” By “external cues,” she means a woman’s current context – such as whether she’s unable to adequately feed and protect her infant. War, famine, postpartum depression or even a new partner who doesn’t want another man’s child are contexts that may even trigger infanticide: a horrifying maternal impulse but a maternal impulse just the same. Thankfully, this impulse is relatively rare in our society, and many women (and men!) report “falling in love” with a child they never planned to have. Maybe...possibly...you’d become one of those “in-love” women and be wildly happy you’d had children. However, in your email, you repeatedly made it clear that you don’t want kids. You are only considering it because you love this man and don’t want to lose him – which is quite different from wanting children. You might ask friends who are parents to an infant and other young kids to let you spend a long weekend with them. Admittedly, this isn’t the same as parenting your own kids, but it might give you a sense of whether you’re actually up for the job – or whether you’re like me. Personally, though I have great respect for devoted, loving parents, if I were in charge of a thing that screams like it’s being eaten alive by a zombie, it would take about 20 minutes before there was grain alcohol in my coffee – and in someone’s sippy cup.
GOT A PROBLEM? Write to Amy Alkon at 171 Pier Ave, Ste. 280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or email her at AdviceAmy@aol.com.
©2021, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. Alkon’s latest book is “Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence.” Follow @amyalkon on Twitter or visit blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon.
OCTOBER 14, 2021 AT HOME – THE ARGONAUT’S REAL ESTATE SECTION PAGE 21
