Letters to the Editor
Wilson
Published Letters: 12 Editor's Choice: 4
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Just a couple of thoughts...
[Read the article: The "Daddy dilemma," one year later]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't really agree with all the letter writers that say 'just break up already'. To reduce a situation as complex as a man-woman relationship (or man-man or woman-woman, for that matter) down to a single issue is silly and in some ways almost dismissive of the questions we face. On the other hand, I can relate to the questions because my husband and I could have written this article (well, maybe I'm not as perfect as Piper - but you get the idea. ;). He wanted a baby, I didn't really. He always said we could wait until I was ready and one day I told him we'd just have to do it because I was never going to BE ready.
So we did and I have a two and a half year old boy now. Pregnancy was irritating, delivery the most terrifying experience I've ever faced, it took me nearly 8 weeks to bond with him, but now he is, most decidedly, the love of my life. Not the rose-colored lens love that people coo about, but he's just the coolest person I know. He is more inexhaustibly cheerful, excited to be alive, curious and entertaining than anyone I have ever known. I have no idea if I'll still like him when he's 15, but I have hope. And that's really what having a kid boils down to - HOPE. You have no idea what you'll end up with and you do it anyway - it's the ultimate gamble and there is the possibility of utter ruin right alongside the possibility of utter bliss.
The writer that said you can tell the truth by asking parents if they would do it again if they couldn't have THEIR kids is also oversimplifying, although the argument seems compelling. Most people I know in a happy relationship, if asked the same question "would you get married if you couldn't marry THIS person" wouldn't necessarily answer yes either - it's not the institution, it's the connection with a specific human being. And no, I wouldn't care about being mom to just any kid out there because I'm not defined by being a mom - but at this point, I wouldn't trade being mom to my son for anything in the world.
And for those curious, my husband did quit his job, did stay home with our son, we amassed some impressive debt, but now have it pretty much paid off. I did breastfeed and pumped at work and it was a pain in the A$$, and we probably won't have another one just because I don't want any competition for my little dude.
One last note... if you're not deciding on a car for a potential kid, it's going to be for something else. We plan on theoreticals all the time. Is an imagined child any sillier than planning for a boat you don't own, a job you don't have or a parent that might get sick and have to move in with you?
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Small Moments
[Read the article: Reality doesn't measure up to supermarket romance novels]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This isn't advice - just a little story.
I knew a romance novel leading man in college. He was the most gorgeous creature any of us had ever seen and was impossibly unaware of his effect on practically the entire female population of our department. For reasons unknown to me we became close friends - I was two years older than him, utterly plain, and have no clue what led him to start talking to me, but it turns out we had a lot in common and enjoyed each other's company. Because I had a boyfriend (my now husband) we stayed just friends and I had the joy of seeing him meet and fall in love with a beautiful sweet girl that I grew to be very fond of. When she began spending time at his apartment, she came up to me one morning grinning from ear to ear and told me that he had bought her a toothbrush. Her own toothbrush for when she stayed at his house. I thought it was the most romantic thing I had ever heard - makes me smile now.
My point is that it is the tiniest things that make up romance - moments so small that unless you are looking for them you almost always miss them. Years later, my husband's job took him out of town a lot. I began to get very lonely and spent a long time watching romantic movies and feeling sad that my life didn't quite seem to measure up. But then I remembered my college friend and I started paying attention. And I noticed the time he softly brushed the hair out of my face, the time I caught him looking at me when he thought I wouldn't notice, the time he fixed dinner for me or bought me a new robe made of the softest terry cloth I'd ever felt. These things, captured in print or in a movie, are what make up romance novels - and in real life they usually get missed completely. The movies never show what happens in between - the hours of just living that make up most of the time. They focus on the moments.
So I started paying attention to them too - and you know what? My life is better than the romance novels I used to read.