Many women quit their jobs and have three children - hardly an economically wise decision.

What a great point. I, like most people probably, find it very hard to think clearly about children, but having had one last year I have become fascinated with the question of why people do, the stories we tell ourselves about it, the level of delusion operating, the speed with which delusion wears off ... etc etc

The more women like you and hopefully the LW find other ways to find adventure and keep things fresh the less overwhelmingly obvious the choice to have children will be.

So many people I think feel like they're in a rut and then, for lack of better ideas, decide to have children - and that takes care of the 'what should I do' question for at least twenty years, although often doesn't necessarily get anyone out of a rut.

Good on you for changing your life like that. My husband and I were also in a velvet rut and went for the quinella - moved to a picturesque town on the coast, each became self employed, bought a dream house AND had a baby. That takes care of any adventurous tendencies of mine for at least, um ... well, the next four years minimum. Possibly a life time if I can find some friends around here.

By the by, I'm meeting a lot of really fun and inspiring older women and most of them chose not to have children and find excitement and adventure elsewhere. The way they look, feel, relate, live - it's so inspiring.

If my son's idea of an illicit good time on the net was reading Salon I'd be overjoyed. For a start, it's reading, right? Secondly, if he can get his thrills here then that means he's not getting them in far worse places.

This reminds me of the debate over what children should be reading. The standards applied are hilarious when reading is seen in the context of all the other choices there are for children out there: hyper violent realistic video games, hyper violent films, hyper violent TV shows. It becomes a joke when people start criticising John Marsden books for being too 'emotionally dark'. And yet censorship of that kind is alive and well in the childrens books world.

And now that attitude comes to Salon. I think it may be a knee jerk middle class response that chooses to be blind to the truly evil influences out there and never endingly nit pick at censorship possibilities that are within the realm of our ken. It's much easier to worry about an article about Casanova than pedophile stalkers in chat rooms.

Finally, I think we have to accept that at some point our children will come searching for our 'private places'. I did - I went through my parents drawers when they were out until I found The Joy of Sex and a book called ... damn. It was all about a young man in Budapest who got it on with a different woman in every chapter.

This is why we shouldn't keep guns hidden in a shoebox in the top of the cupboard. But stumbling onto Salon wouldn't kill them.

I agree with Domini when he says it's crucial for adult places and discourse to retain their integrity. Those children will grow up and want the same.

You can definitely be a good journalist without asking uncomfortable questions. It's called letting someone hang themselves by their own petard. ie let them talk long enough, flatter them enough, and they'll reveal themselves to you. When you write about them you don't need to be mean, just accurate. The reader will cotton on.

The name of one of these magazines you could write for is Hello! I love it. People are photographed in glamorous surroundings, in a variety of outfits, and encouraged to boast and preen as much they want. The journalist is always sympethetic in his or her approach, and that just helps matters along nicely. The subject routinely makes a fool of themselves, in a very entertaining way.

My favourite photo was of Ryan um. Farrah Fawcett's guy, Love Story guy. Him. Anyway. He was boxing a punching bag on the verandah of his Malibu beach house, pulling in his stomach adn smiling at the camera in the mirror. A classic.

You could argue Hello has nothing relevanat to say about our world today, but we've always needed bufoons, court jesters, and it's even better when they look good in a sequin dress.

Laura Dern is such a GREAT actress. 'We don't live here anymore' and 'Rose Red' are the two that instantly jump to mind, but there have been plenty of other ones. Why isn't she in more and better movies though? It's a huge shame. Meanwhile I probably won't see this film. I used to be a David Lynch film, and I loved the one about the guy crossing the US on the mower, but I find people telling me their dreams drop-down-on-the-table-in-a-dead-faint boring, let alone going to a cinema to see a dream sequence film. No way. Plus, any artist who sets out with no plan, no idea, and then pieces it togehter afterwards is my definition of An Artist In Trouble. An Artist Who Has Run Out of Ideas. I don't want to see the road kill that's obviously resulted.