A Dangerous Education Quotes

“The theory of entanglement is of course integral to quantum physics. It was also the inspiration for this book—in a way. Just before the pandemic, I read an article in an older (2015) issue of Science News about new research that showed that women carried genetic material in their bodies, not just from their parents but from their children—even children that they didn’t carry to full term. During pregnancy, cells slip back and forth between mother and child in a process called fetal-maternal microchimerism, and some of these cells remain in the mother even after the child is gone. They’ve found this DNA in women’s brains decades later. What this means is that mothers are chimeras—they hold in their bodies bits of their mothers and their children. Walt Whitman was on track when he said, “I contain multitudes.” While scientists have not yet determined exactly why this is so, or what the purpose may be, my own brain leaped to the fact that in my family, my mother and sisters and I, as well as my daughters, share a weird feyness—I can think of my mom and the next thing I know she’s calling me. Or I’ll have a dream about my sister and something significant has happened to her. If we all have cells from each other in our bodies, doesn’t it make sense that we are “entangled”? The idea would not leave me alone, and I began thinking of adoption, and women who are separated from their children, and from there, the idea for A Dangerous Education came slowly and painfully into shape.”
― Megan Chance, A Dangerous Education