My husband and I, 60-something Unitarians, no longer visit our children on Christmas...and they certainly have no desire to visit us! Although we raised them according to our own very liberal politics and theology, all three boys are now rabid Republicans and evangelical Christians. When we do get together, we don't talk politics or religion, only grandchildren. Our unmarried daughter retains some semblance of our influence, but she doesn't have any children. I can only hope that when the grandkids grow up, there will be another generation gap!

As somewhat of a "pioneer" in the women's movement--I was the first woman PhD hired by a prominent research institution in 1972--it pains me to realize that this war is still going on. My daughter-in-law, mother of two, is now struggling with wanting a career, but not being able to find arrangements for the children that will ease her guilty conscience.

I did give up a lot for science--my first marriage to a very traditional man went sour, making life more difficult for my kids, both emotionally and financially. I had a variety of child-care arrangments ranging from excellent to barely adequate. However, both of my children graduated debt-free from college, and are self-supporting. My daughter never married, but she finds fulfillment in her work as a psychiatric nurse. My son has a great family and a good job. I am not as close as I think I should be to them, but our relationship is better than the one I had with my own parents and stay-at-home mom. I found a much more companionable second husband, too. My first husband never remarried or even dated--not sure why. Most of all, my work gave me tremendous satisfaction, and I don't regret the choices I made. Whenever I hear the joke that you never hear former execs say they wish they had spent more time at the office, I always think that they never ask retired scientists if they wish they had spent more time in the lab! My kids were great, but I never felt as competent as a mom as I did as a scientist. Probably because I wasn't! But I didn't know until I had children that I really didn't want to be a full-time homemaker. Neither did my mother, but having no marketable skills, she had no other choice.

Women, like men, have different aptitudes and ambitions. Today's woman has so many more opportunities than those who have gone before. The advice I have given my daughter-in-law is to decide what it is that she wants most in life, and then make whatever decisions are required to make it happen. She has one big advantage--her husband, having been raised by a working mother, will support her and help her whatever she decides to do.

My first child, a boy, was stillborn after a full-term pregnancy on Christmas day, 1960. My husband and the obstetrician decided without consulting me to have the body cremated and disposed of as if he had never been. The child was not named, neither my husband nor I ever saw the body, and we were not given either a birth or a death certificate (unless my husband was given one and destroyed it).

Although I went on to have two healthy children, I always wished that I could have at least seen my first-born, if only to satisfy myself that he wasn't some sort of monster. My husband and I were eventually divorced, and although his "taking care" of this matter without asking me wasn't the main cause, it was certainly among them. Several years ago my 35 year old son told me that we should erect a marker to the baby boy on our family cemetery plot, and so I did. Amazingly, I felt much better for having done this simple thing. Acknowledging the grief rather than forgetting about it is a big improvement over the last 47 years, no matter what form it takes.

My first husband and I were divorced when our children were nine and two. There was a huge custody battle, which I won--sort of. I wasn't allowed to leave the city unless I was willing to surrender custody, and I was not--until the youngest was 13 and I remarried to a man with a job in another city. I suspect, but could never prove, that my ex was homosexual, or at least leaned that way--he was never interested in sex unless he wanted me to conceive, and after our divorced he never dated again. Still my son at 13 wanted to stay with him and see me during summer vacation, and it has worked well. I don't regret the divorce for a minute, just wish it could all have been handled better at the time.

Jane Fonda will be 70 years old this fall; I know because we are the same age. She is in better shape than I am, but she still did not act appropriately. I was uncomfortable with her performance here. She was taking sexual advantage of a younger colleague, which is not acceptable behavior anywhere.

It's okay, Gary. You will make it, at your own pace. I'll be 70 on my next birthday, and it probably took me ten years to come to terms with the thought that there are things I'll never do again, yet to realize that there are also first-time experiences that still await me. I have had a good life so far, and although I know there aren't nearly as many good years ahead of me as behind, I'm grateful for every minute. Yes, we all know that we are going to die, but it takes a while before we really believe it. Don't envy the young--eventually they too will grow old...just not right now.