Text 4

出处：http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/09/not-on-board-with-baby.html

1---It’s no surprise that Jennifer Senior’s insightful, provocative magazine cover story, “I love My Children, I Hate My Life,” is arousing much chatter – nothing gets people talking like the suggestion that child rearing is anything less than a completely fulfilling, life-enriching experience. Rather than concluding that children make parents either happy or miserable, Senior suggests we need to redefine happiness: instead of thinking of it as something that can be measured by moment-to-moment joy, we should consider being happy as a past-tense condition. Even though the day-to-day experience of raising kids can be soul-crushingly hard, Senior writes that “the very things that in the moment dampen our moods can later be sources of intense gratification and delight.”

毋庸置疑， Jennifer Senior撰写的“我爱我的孩子，但我讨厌我的生活”是一篇挑衅的同时又有深度的杂志封面文章。该文引起了人们的广泛讨论------没有什么观点能让人们如此有兴趣去谈论，这种观点认为养孩子根本不是一个令人完全满意、生活感到充实的经历。Senior没有对“养孩子是使父母幸福还是使他们痛苦”这个问题做出定论，但建议我们需重新定义幸福：幸福不是可以用一次次开心来衡量的东西，我们应该把幸福视为过去时态。即使抚养孩子的日子漫长难熬，令人筋疲力尽，但是Senior撰文写到“正是那些一时让我们沮丧的事情带来了日后由衷的欣喜。

2---The magazine cover showing an attractive mother holding a cute baby is hardly the only Madonna-and-child image on newsstands this week. There are also stories about newly adoptive ------and newly single------ mom Sandra Bullock, as well as the usual “Jennifer Aniston is pregnant” news. Practically every week features at least one celebrity mom, or mom-to-be, smiling on the newsstands.

该杂志的封面是一位漂亮妈妈抱着一个可爱的婴儿。本周报摊上这种圣母与圣子的照片可不止Jennifer Senior的这一张。杂志上也会报道刚收养了孩子的母亲——有时是刚变成单身母亲的人——Sandra Bullock，以及那种很常见的“Jennifer Aniston怀孕了”的新闻。实际上，每周报摊上都会特别报道至少一位笑容可掬的明星妈妈、或者准妈妈。

 注：feature本来是名词特征，但这里变为动词，所以意译为“特别报道，或特别刊登”

3---In a society that so persistently celebrates procreation, is it any wonder that admitting you regret having children is equivalent to admitting you support kitten-killing? It doesn’t seem quite fair, then, to compare the regrets of parents to the regrets of the children. Unhappy parents rarely are provoked to wonder if they shouldn’t have had kids, but unhappy childless folks are bothered with the message that children are the single most important thing in the world: obviously their misery must be a direct result of the gaping, baby-size holes in their lives.

    在一个一直庆祝生育的社会中，你承认自己后悔要了孩子就相当于你承认支持虐杀宠物猫一样，这有什么可奇怪的？那么，将“为人父母者的后悔”和“无子女者的遗憾”相提并论是不公平的。（因为为人父母者的后悔是坏蛋行为，但无子女者的遗憾不是坏蛋，他们有时候是心有余而生理不足，是无可奈何的情况不能归类于坏蛋）几乎没有什么事情会促使不幸福的父母反思是否他们本来就不应该要孩子，但是那些没有孩子生活也不幸福的人却被“孩子是世上唯一最重要的东西”这样的信息所烦恼：显然，他们的痛苦肯定是因为生活缺少孩子的后果。

  注：

1. 一般字典上都把compare翻译为“比较”，但这里翻译为“相提并论”是因为compare主要强调“相似点”的比较。无子女者的遗憾不一定不要孩子，有可能是生不出孩子，其实还是有爱心，重视孩子的。

2. regret可以翻译为“后悔”和“遗憾”，但对于没有孩子的人来说，只能翻译为“遗憾”。

3. the gaping, baby-size holes的含义就是“缺少孩子”，所以这里采取意译。

4---Of course, the image of parenthood that celebrity magazines like Us Weekly and People present is hugely unrealistic, especially when the parents are single mothers like Bullock. According to several studies concluding that parents are less happy than childless couples, single parents are the least happy of all. No shock there, considering how much work it is to raise a kid without a partner to lean on; yet to hear Sandra and Britney tell it, raising a kid on their “own” (read: with round-the-clock help) is a piece of cake.

当然，在类似《美国周刊》和《人民》这样的名人杂志上刊登出的父母亲形象是很不真实的。特别是报道像Bullock这样的单身母亲时更是如此。多项研究表明，没有孩子的夫妇要比有孩子的父母更快乐，而单亲父亲或母亲是最不幸福的。不足为奇，想想看，没有帮手一个人拉扯一个孩子要做多少事情。然而，你听听Sandra 和 Britney怎么说的：自己“一个人”带孩子（注意：24小时有人帮助），只是小菜一碟而已。

5---It’s hard to imagine that many people are dumb enough to want children just because Reese and Angelina make it look so glamorous: most adults understand that a baby is not a haircut. But it’s interesting to wonder if the images we see every week of stress-free, happiness-enhancing parenthood aren’t in some small, subconscious way contributing to our own dissatisfactions with the actual experience, in the same way that a small part of us hoped getting “the Rachel” might make us look just a little bit like Jennifer Aniston.

    很难想象很多人会傻到因为看到Reese 和 Angelina有孩子后光鲜的姿态而自己想要孩子：大多数的成年人知道要孩子不像要做头（做个发型）那么简单。但想来让人觉得有趣的是：我们每周都会（在杂志上）看到幸福轻松的父母形象，这种幸福的形象是否不会无意识地增添我们实际育儿的烦恼呢？正如我们当中有些人会无意识地想变得像Rachel那样，以便自己能看起来有点像Jennifer Aniston。

    阅读背景：Rachel=瑞秋；Rachel （全名：Rachel Karen Green）六人行（《老友记》）中角色，千金大小姐，逃婚后先做咖啡店侍女，后在时尚界工作。　在第八季的23集，Rachel和Rose生了一个小千金Emma。所以文章最后一句话的真正含义是：有的人还是会因为喜欢Rachel而受影响也要孩子。

    Jennifer Aniston詹妮弗·安妮斯顿，美国著名演员，兼制片人、监制、投资人。安妮斯顿于1990年开始从影，先后拍摄过几部电视剧，直到1993年她得到NBC开拍的新剧《Friends》里Rachel的角色，从此一炮而红。

36. Jennifer Senior suggests in her article that raising a child can bring ____________.

[A]temporary delight   暂时的愉悦                               [B]enjoyment in progress不断的喜悦

[C]happiness in retrospect 回顾起来的幸福感            [D]lasting reward 持久的回报

retrospect [ˈretrəspekt]     n.           回顾

【分析】Jennifer Senior在他文章中表达主要表达的是养孩子是辛苦的，但回顾起来有幸福感。所以选C。A和B增加了temporary和in progress，D无中生有。

37. We learn from Paragraph 2 that____________.

[A]celebrity moms are a permanent source for gossip.明星妈妈永远是流言蜚语的源泉

[B]single mothers with babies deserve greater attention.单亲妈妈应该给予关注。

[C]news about pregnant celebrities is entertaining. 有关明星妈妈的新闻是娱乐大众的新闻

[D]having children is highly valued by the public. 人们觉得有孩子是很重要的。

【分析】：A的gossip无中生有，B的deserve attention也是无中生有。C：以名人的生育作为新闻其实是让大家有事情可以关心娱乐一下而已，这是表面推导，其实和第一段联系起来，就可以发现D更正确，杂志是映射人们心理的。

38. It is suggested in Paragraph 3 that childless folks____________.

[A]are constantly exposed to criticism.经常遭受批评。

[B]are largely ignored by the media. 大部分被媒体忽略了。

[C]fail to fulfill their social responsibilities. 没能实现他们的社会责任。

[D]are less likely to be satisfied with their life. 不大可能对生活满意。

【分析】：文章第三段 强调了在我们的社会中不可能不要孩子，文章没有 BC选项的内容，虽然A和D似乎都像答案，因为D选项的less likely to be satisfied类似原文unhappy，而A选项exposed to criticism类似于原文的childless folks are bothered，由于本段主要强调有人们认为孩子重要，没有孩子的人肯定会受影响，受干扰所以这里选A更合适。

39. According to Paragraph 4, the message conveyed by celebrity magazines is____________.

[A]soothing.  安慰的                        [B]ambiguous.      含糊不确定的            

[C]compensatory.  补偿性的              [D]misleading.误导的

【分析】：与第四段第一句话中的unrealistic 一词想对应的是D选项。

40. Which of the following can be inferred from the last paragraph?

[A]Having children contributes little to the glamour of celebrity moms.

   要孩子无助于明星妈妈的光彩。

[B]Celebrity moms have influenced our attitude towards child rearing.

   明星妈妈影响了我们抚养孩子的态度

[C]Having children intensifies our dissatisfaction with life.

   要孩子加强了我们对生活的不满  

[D]We sometimes neglect the happiness from child rearing.

  我们有时候忽略了养育孩子而拥有的幸福

【分析】：A错，本段主要不是讲明星妈妈；C不对，本段主要说我们养孩子和明星父母养孩子的对照，并没有强调养孩子这件事会加强强化我们对生活的不满。D不符合原文，本段强调了养孩子会对现实不满，养孩子不比做头发那么简单。没有强调有幸福。所以排除法选B