Baby Nubbins

A few months ago, we heard this story on This American Life while driving to church. I guess This American Life is not the most reverant of things to listen to on the way to church, but we had it on. I was only partially listening in the beginning but the story eventually had me pretty riveted. It's a true story, told by an actress about her part time job at FAO Schwartz one summer in NYC. She was paid to act as a "nanny" at a "baby" hospital where little girls came in to adopt expensive lifelike baby dolls. The story starts out strangely funny as she talks about Baby Nubbins, who she calls the factory reject monster baby. About half way through, the story takes an unexpected turn. It's not exactly a happy ending, not exactly sad. Well ok, somewhat sad, pretty uncomfortable, but really just makes you think about issues of color.

I want to be careful and sensitive in posting it. I surely don't mean it as a political or moral statement. I hope it doesn't come across that way. I thought it would be appropriate to share with my adoption friends realizing some of us might be facing challenges that we probably can't imagine right now. And some of you with kids home probably already are.

If you decide to listen, it's worth the 16 minutes. The link takes you to an entire episode of This American Life which contains 3 different stories. This particular story starts at 40:00 minutes so you need to drag the arrow on the time bar several times to get to 40:00.

To listen click
http://audio.thisamericanlife.org/player/CPRadio_player.php?podcast=http://www.thisamericanlife.org/xmlfeeds/347.xml&proxyloc=http://audio.thisamericanlife.org/player/customproxy.php

I'd be interested to know what you think after listening.