Letters to the Editor

Daddy dilemma My fiancee is 70 percent against kids. The clock is ticking, and it's up to me to convince her to do something I'm not sure about either. By Larry Smith [2006-04-06]

• equivalent dilemmas?

  It occurred to me, while reading Smith's story, which I found touching, that this dilemma might actually be a man's equivalent to a woman's dilemma of trying to "have it all..." i.e., satisfaction in career, marriage, children, etc., although most men consider the career a given.

  The dilemma for a man seems to be discerning whether he cares more about keeping his wife, i.e., the girl/woman he married, or having children whose job it would be to change the girl/woman he married into their mother. Empirical evidence-- and just plain anecdotes-- says he can't have both.

  Most of the comments from husbands/fathers and other men that I have read on Salon's Broadsheet have complained-- often bitterly-- about losing their wives when they gained children. I'm not sure who complained more... those men with both wife and children, or those with only one or neither, but either way, it should give more women pause before agreeing to have children with the guys they married.

  Ironically, Smith does sound like he'd be a great father, and that any changes for him might be welcome...

  but what seems even more ironic to me now, while writing this, is the degree to which so many men complain of the changes that motherhood wreaks upon their wives, from whom motherhood usually exacts a much greater cost. Sure, having children changes absolutely everything for a couple, but not as much as a husband's or boyfriend's disapproval of the mother his wife has become does. Smith doesn't sound like that kind of guy... but he seems worried about it.

  -- Anonymust
  [Read Anonymust's other letters]
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