I wouldn't know a photo of "Britney Spears" if I saw one. But I'm left wondering what positions the women were in in the births the writer HAS seen. I gave birth to my first son on my hands and knees at home, and pushing that kid out was a mountaintop experience--awesome. My second son was breech, so I went to a hospital. Declined a C-section, and gave birth vaginally to a 9-pounder who came butt first with his legs crossed.

I worked like a draft horse, but the only PAIN involved was when the ob-gyn made me climb on the frigging gurney so they could take the baby's heartbeat in between contractions. If I'd had to deliver on my back on that thing, I would have opted for the C-section. My spine was beyond misery when they asked me to be in a position that has a baby working against gravity to be born. (The nurses finally figured out that they could take the heartbeat by holding the monitor against my stomach while I stood on the floor and leaned over the bed. Hallelujah.) The implication that giving birth in a fashion other than the "traditional" delivery bed scenario drives me nuts. Especially in a column that's ostensibly "woman-focused."

A thoughtful article, by a funny guy, who seems like a really nice person.

My experience, after the same kind of angsting, and after deciding to have kids, is that on a bad-to-good scale of 0 to 10, being a parent is all 1s and 9s. Before kids, my life was a nice steady 7. Parenthood is fantastic and awful. Kids make you a better person, bring out your worst impulses, give you a foot in the future, let you reexperience childhood, connect you to a fundamental (truly, primal) human experience, and drain all your energy.

Thanks for such a great piece of writing, and good luck with whatever you decide.

When I came to Mexico from Maine, I breezed through so easily I thought: it's depressing to be viewed as that harmless. Six-month tourist visa, no problem. Want to stay longer? Go back to the border, do a U-turn, and enjoy Mexico for a few months more.

My Spanish teacher here, a middle class Mexican woman married to a guy from the U.S., described the visa process for Mexicans wanting to enter the United States:

You make a call to an expensive 900 number, to make an appointment at the nearest U.S. consulate, a 3-hr drive away. (Not long ago, the policy was no appointments, first come, first served, and people lined up in the middle of the night.) Anyway, you go to your appointment and present the huge pile of documents demonstrating that you have family/home/job to return to in Mexico--and the paperwork you have so laboriously collected doesn't mean anything, if the interviewer's opinion is that you have designs of staying or working in the States. Because the interviewer's subjective assessment of you is the arbitrary element in the process, and the last word. The interviewers have seen it all, and have an almost psychic sense of which people are tourists and which are "undesirables."

Any Mexican with any sense knows it's pointless to apply for a visa if they're just hoping to do manual labor that U.S. workers don't want to do. But sending dollars back to a peso economy is so empowering that people literally kill themselves to do it: that's where the coyotes come in.

The hypocrisy is beyond belief: if undocumented workers all got deported, the American economy would crash and burn, because Americans have such a sense of privilege and entitlement about what kind of work they will do.

Open the fucking border.

To LW: Guardianship is not the same as a will. Bequeathing your estate is an easy choice; guardianship is really tough. You could get your lawyer to draft a separate document, and update it as you need to. Everybody's life will be changing all the time--your sister, your friends. You can't anticipate any of that future, or what it would mean for your kids--you can only make the choice that feels most appropriate at the moment. And adjust it as life unfolds. But the "blood" argument doesn't hold up--it seems like at any given moment you should choose people who will raise your kids in an environment that you would want for them. Won't your family be there for them anyway?

"A state rep. introduced the bill after hearing from a mother who paid for an extra $75 ticket for her nursing infant so she could attend a show with the tot."

This is weird--I guess the idea was that if she bought a ticket, it didn't matter how disruptive the child was? What bugs me is the idea that money can buy anything.

When I was a nursing mother (twice), I didn't expect to have to pay anything to bring in my nursing infant, who was in a sling or in my lap. But I also figured it was my obligation as a considerate human being to leave immediately if the baby was bothering other people. So I didn't go anywhere that I couldn't afford to forfeit the ticket price. Paid $6 for a movie, and hoped the baby would fall asleep nursing so I could enjoy the film. Sometimes that worked--hooray. But if the baby started fussing, I moved toward the door, watched the movie from the back, and hoped for the best. If the baby didn't stop fussing, that meant I had to leave. Tough noogies about the six bucks.

I was really desperate to get out and do stuff when I had a nursing baby who couldn't be left with a babysitter, so I understand the impulse, but I would never expect other people to put up with my problems--even if I could afford to buy the place off.