How often have I heard or read the trope that women in their 30s are 'desperate' to get married before their fertility and looks (and therefore, presumably, ability to 'trap a man') expire, while guys ride can afford to play the field until their 40s, then find a nice younger woman to give him a familiy. This misogynistic crap (or wish fulfillment, if you prefer) has been the basis of big- and small-screen Hollywood entertainment since time out of mind. Time to put the myth away, or at least acknowledge that younger women aren't any more interested in hooking up with an older guy shooting blanks than an older guy is interested in hooking up with a same-aged woman 'desperate' for childrlen.

Funny - though these fallacies are the basis for nearly all casting in Hollywood (where 80% of the male roles are 40+ but less than 10% of the female roles are) I've never really seen real-life people behave according to these tropes. Journalists have something to do with this lingering controversy-where-there-is-no-controversy..witness the long vestibule of silence between Newsweek's erroneous "women over 40/terroris/marriage" statistic and retraction of same...and now the endless rehashing of it, which, while admitting the error, poses no similar hyperbolic disaster scenario for men, instead choosing to continue to let the whiff of female neediness and desperation permeate the continuation of the non-story. An editor didn't want to rid the story of that whiff because the belief in female neediness and desperation sells. Stories about people who have sex with their dogs would sell, too, but somehow editors have figured out that such prurient interest shouldn't necessarily be a major driver in editorial choices for magazine content. Imagine.

She's worried that while *she* doesn't think she is the same awkward teenager of days gone by, her h.s. peers will not share that view. She worries that her husband's estimation of her will go down when he sees who she was, and how she was seen. She's worried that her estimation of her husband will go down if he doesn't imbue her with the maturity and status that she hopes her h.s. cronies will acknowledge. She's worried that she will be ashamed of her own estimation of who she is, once she sees how successful/not her former peers are.

What a lot of energy to put against measuring oneself with a ruler that no longer exists. Or, rather, a ruler that stops at 12. LW, it's 10 years later. God knows self-righteousness can be an ugly thing but a little bit of it sprinkled on your convictions is a necessity. Aren't you convinced you've done well, married well, are on the road to happiness? Buck up! Take the hubby to the reunion, drink and dance, chat with the few people you honestly want to catch up with, have a good time. And get a new yardstick.

When you have a child, isn't it your moral obligation to take responsibility for that child's physical needs as well as emotional an psychological development? Isn't this obligation equally applicable to men as well as women? The tone of this article condescending and offensive in the extreme, suggesting as it does that it is surprising and remarkable that men care for their children. Maybe it's me, but it seems kind of sexist.