Letters to the Editor
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Way to go, Ann
Props on your letter. You said it very well.
My only addition is this: I've always been suspicious of any new mother or new father who looked too good too quickly. If a new mom is putting enormous amounts of energy into being a sexpot, or if a new father is putting enormous amounts of energy into being a sculpted stud, then somewhere there's a baby being sadly neglected.
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yay Ann
you speak the truth!
The fantasy life of men is quite interesting to me, how they think that their "powers" will be enough to drive women crazy, no matter how they age.
Are the men out there naive enough to think that Hugh Hefner's Playboy bunny "girlfriends" are completely satisfied by his aging, droopy body?
I bet they're running lots of "errands" out to see their personal trainers.
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what is the point of this self-indulgent pap (clever of me to use a baby word, huh? aren't I witty and clever and witty and memememememe me me me me...
no wonder men think women are such ditzes since all the self-obsessed mememe articles here are written by women and most of the interesting substantive articles are written by men.
help! I'm drowning!...........
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manboobs
need I say more?
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In a discussion I saw of domestic violence, a man withholding sex from a woman was indicated, by a professional in the field, to be a form/ sign of emotional abuse
Let's see THAT one applied accross the board! Lets face it, if a man and a woman don't REALLY REALLY like each other there is no way in hell they will ever be able to work through the fundamentally differeces between them.
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Men may get less attractive but do they lose interst in sex?
I guess no married men with kids are watching porn, getting it on the side or seeing hookers. Obviously letting yourself turn into a pig is a problem not matter who does it but if you still have a sex drive there is a least possibly a motivation to solve the problem and if you don't there isn't.
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Actually I think very few people would blame a woman getting it on the side
if the man she was with wouldn't or couldn't. Or a man, if it wasn't his fault and that's the difference. It's assumed that if a man can't get his wife to like sleeping with him it's because he's turned into a pig or an asshole. The reason this isn't more of an issue is because women get less attractive AND moe picky as they age so there isn't anyone available that they want.
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I love self-absorbed writers
I'm always amazed and a little confused at the vitriol that Salon's "Life" articles cause. Ayelet Waldman, as any regular Salon reader knows, unfailingly draws the kind of scorn and derision that one would expect from Rush Limbaugh fans but that I would not have expected in a forum like this.
Assuming that the editors of Salon are actually reading these letters, I wanted to voice my vote. I've been subscribing to Salon for over two years now. I read it religiously. But I do not read every article, because not every article interests me. In fact, I would say that I read less than half of what Salon publishes. This is OKAY. When I purchase a magazine subscription, I do not expect to read or love every article.
I go straight to the "Life" articles and Broadsheet because those are the things on Salon that interest me most. Sometimes I read the political articles (although the quality of those has declined during the time that I have subscribed, which may be attributable to my finding stories about the Iraq war and current political scandals tiresome) and sometimes I read the shallow celebrity stuff that also generates such bitterness from readers. I also read a lot of the book reviews and enjoy those immensely. Keep up the good work, Salon.
I like Ayelet Waldman okay. I don't always agree with her or understand her perspective, and I agree that she's self-absorbed and navel-gazing, but I don't think those are necessarily negative attributes.
And, finally, this story was great! Pooh on those who disagreed. I admire Ms. Williams for being brave enough to put herself out there for people to vent their misdirected anger upon. And I laughed hard and long over "surprised"'s letter listing the four most common responses of the Young and the Bitter.
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who says?
"I guess no married men with kids are watching porn, getting it on the side or seeing hookers. Obviously letting yourself turn into a pig is a problem not matter who does it but if you still have a sex drive there is a least possibly a motivation to solve the problem and if you don't there isn't."
Who says that middle-aged women don't have a sex drive? Maybe they're just as tired of staring at the same old sad sack as men are of their wives.
But because of cultural conditioning about women's role in marriage (i.e., to be the moral "standard"), women don't seek out the extracurricular activities of pornography or paying some frisky young stud to make us feel attractive.
In that sense, marriage works very well for men. They know that women are less likely to cheat on them because of the societal morals, and that lets them off the hook to pay for porn and hookers.
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Unless you're talking about Afghanistan
there's nothing stopping women but their own lack of interest and many aren't stopped.
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I'm a Salon reader too.
I liked this article, and found it a useful reflection on a common problem a lot of my friends with babies ran into. I was genuinely shocked at the amount of vitriol poured on this author's head as well as on Salon editors for choosing it as a lead story. I was even more shocked at the floodtide of bitter Salon readers who apparently hate their post-baby wives (thanks for the overshare, Anonymous, we get that you are having trouble at home) and are taking out their frustrations on an author they've never met. Get some help, people--or at least get a grip.
For the record, I'm a hard news fan also, but I think that these type of stories address things that are a large part of family life--and as such, are absolutely worth Salon eyeball time. Though I'd like to see more hard news political coverage back on Salon, is there some reason we can't have both? The tone of the other letters seems to assume a false choice between the two.
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Wow! No Mercy For Men Here!
One reader wrote:
"Give her a reason to get out of those sweats. Spring for a romantic dinner date at an expensive restaurant, the way you used to."
And what's the assumption here? That (obviously!) any problems in the marriage are a direct result of (can anyone guess?) MEN.
I only had a few points: One, that this was a truly worthwhle article because it's one of the very rare occasions where life post-child is actually discussed! Nowhere in books, music or TV does anyone every really talk about what changes both parties go through after a child.
On TV what do we see? Having a child is awesome! The most fun anyone could ever have! And everyone dresses nice, looks great and basically acts exactly as they did when they were single -- expect for a few scense where the parents are shown pouring bowels of cereal for their youngin's. Other than feeding and watering the kids and dropping them off at school everything is just the same!
So point one is that what life is REALLY like after a child is a conversation this entire country desperately needs to have -- because when you look at family friendly TV its just one big infomerical that tells us kids are generally easy and wives and husbands look and act basically the same as the did before kids.
The message is clear: nothing is going to significantly change in your partners personality, appereance or sex drive. And that what men AND women expect -- hence the article's theme? She expected life to be exactly the same post-child, but it wasn't.
So let's extend men just a little sympathy (and women too!) and acknowledge that they have come by their mistaken ideas about life post-child honestly.
My second point is that women need to develope more self-awareness that radical, permenant changes in their personality can be a huge problem in a marriage.
Again and again we've seen women writing letters that first try to dismiss all changes in appeareance, personality and sex drive as so minor they aren't worth mentioning. When it's pointed out that these changes can be (in some cases, not all) radical (radical changes in appereances, sex drive and personality) they then move in to dismiss THAT as "temporary" -- lasting a few months at the most.
And then when some readers (reluctantly) acknoweldge that some of these changes in personlaity, sex drive and apperance AREN'T temporary women again dismiss it all by flippantly saying, "Well, any man who didn't see these changes coming is an idiot! Of course he should have known she'd radically change her apperance, her personality, her sex drive and that change would last the rest of her life!"
Where is this defensiveness coming from? And more importantly, is this a fair statement? Is it fair to dismiss significant and long lasting changes in a husband or wife's sex drive, personality or apperance as meaningless and insignificant?
If either partner, husband or wife, demonstrated a radical personality shift during a marriage there generally will be conflict. If a husband suddenly lost all interest in sex, blamed it on stress, and refused to make any effort to correct the situation at his wife's urging -- everyone her can agree wholeheartedly that the man is being unresonable and that the wife has a legitimate cause for concern and complaint.
Why is it that if a woman radically changes her sex drive (for whatever reason) and refuses to see a doctor or make any efforts at her husbands urging --- why is that being defended by female readers as "natural and acceptable?" In fact, some even go so far as to blame husbands and say they are being cruel to their wives!
This country needs an honest and open conversation about what it means to have a child and what changes and responsibilites we can expect.
That conversation cannot occur if women defensively dismiss every concern that is raised.