The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir

by Samantha Power

I asked Cass to write Declan’s name and birth date on the official form. A few months later, after I waited several hours at the Washington, DC, birth registry for Declan’s birth certificate, I received one for “PECLAN POWER SUNSTEIN.” As soon as I saw the typo, I knocked on the glass window and asked for the spelling to be corrected. But the clerk told me that such an alteration would require a trip to the “amendments office.” I was beside myself. “Ma’am,” I said, “I promise you I didn’t call my son Peclan and then change my mind. My husband just has horrible handwriting.” The clerk repeated directions to the amendments office and slid the glass window shut. After waiting another hour, I received the corrected birth certificate, which still noted that Peclan Power Sunstein was born April 24th, and then, beside his “birth name,” in inch-high black type, the office had added the stamp, “AMENDED,” and his “new” name, Declan Power Sunstein. The experience now seems trivial, but at the time it sent me into an exasperated rage at my husband. “You had one job!” I told him. “And now, for the rest of his life, Declan will have to explain to people why his parents named him Peclan!” When Rían was born, Cass promised I could count on him. “I learn well,” he said. Yet when I returned to the same birth registry to collect our daughter’s birth certificate, it read “RTAN POWER SUNSTEIN.” Her birth certificate, like Declan’s, now has an inch-high “AMENDED” stamp, indicating that, after a...

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