Published: May 21, 2006

Piper Eressea Kerman and Larry Smith are to be married today in Point Reyes, Calif. Kristen Grimm, who introduced them, is to officiate, having been appointed a deputy marriage commissioner for the ceremony by San Francisco County.

Ms. Kerman, 36, is a senior associate and strategist in New York with Spitfire Strategies, a Washington-based firm that develops communications plans for nonprofit organizations promoting social change. She graduated from Smith College.

She is the daughter of Betsy Huggard of Fairhaven, Mass., and Jeffry Kerman of Ormond Beach, Fla., and the stepdaughter of Stephen Huggard. The bride's father teaches fifth grade at Ormond Beach Elementary School. Her mother is a lecturer, teaching English as a second language and computer skills classes in the workers education department of the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.

Mr. Smith, 37, works in New York as the editor of Smith: Everyone Has a Story, an online magazine that he founded. His freelance work includes a 2004 Modern Love column in The New York Times about his relationship with Ms. Kerman and their long-standing efforts at avoiding marriage. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.

He is the son of Carol and Louis Smith of Moorestown, N.J. His mother is a clinical social worker there, and his father is a founding partner of Smith, Goldstein, Magram, Berenato & Michaud, a law firm in Burlington, N.J.

are just so sickening!

First of all, if someone is reflecting on whether or not to have a child that doesn't make them 'self absorbed' yuppies. Give me a break! They were being INTERVIEWED for an article about choosing whether or not to have a child.

God forbid they should be reflective or consider their feelings about it. God forbid they should do some soul searching or discuss their reactions to other people's choices.

The fact that someone is willing to reflect on their ambivalence and what their future holds is a positive thing. Too many people just pop out kids with ANY reflection whatsoever.

Part of my job entails working at a clinic, counseling high-risk mothers-to-be. Boy, do I wish some of these women would engage in a little reflection.

We have people walking in who have positive tox screens for marijuana, cocaine and heroin. Yeah, being pregnant makes you a WHOLE lot less selfish, huh? We have one mother-to-be (with two more at home) who spends her grocery money on cigarettes and lotto tickets. I asked her why she's giving the kids at home Kool Aid instead of milk; "It's cheaper"

Yeah, being a parent just makes you so much wiser and less selfish. Uh Huh.

Excuse my cynacism but I am just sick of these holier-than-thou people who think popping out kids makes them better than the childless.

Two of the women at the clinic, who work full-time, have no children. They are two of the most dedicated people alive. Yet some folks here would classify them as 'boring' because they have no children

or even more laughable, 'selfish'

You writers with the 'selfish' comments need to get over your self-righteousness. I have seen plenty of selfish parents around.

No one should have kids if they truly don't want them. Absolutely not. On the other hand, I know very few people who felt 100% sure that they did want kids. In reality, it's purely a leap of faith. One day, you just decide "Oh what the hell!" and go for it. I speak from experience... with both of my kids actually! And currently I'm agonizing over whether to add a third: "Oh, those babies are so sweet! I have to have more! And big families are much more fun--2 just isn't enough! But, oh those sleepless nights! And oh that horrendous morning sickness! And oh that awful delivery! What to do?" Good luck to this couple. But personally, I hope they do take the leap of faith--it really is unbelievably rewarding.

I am in my fifties and never had children. My husband and I do not regret it at all.

In my twenties I was sure I would one day have a child. Then I worried all through my thirties whether I should or should not have children. And people ask and ask and ask "When are you going to have children?" After about age 36 I decided I obviously was not driven to have kids and knew I probably wasn't going to opt to be a mommy. After about age 40 I rarely thought about it.

We are very glad we don't have children even though we know plenty of people who have raised great kids who are now terrific adults. Many of our friends also never had children. No one that I know who decided not to have children is unhappy about it. And that includes a dear friend who is 95.

Life is all about choices, right? Having a child is a choice. It isn't any better or nobler than choosing not to have one.

The people who insist to those who do not want children that they should have them anyway are secretly harboring bitter resentment about the choices they made in life and simply can't wait to indulge in schadenfreude out of the hope that someone else will end up as miserable as they are. Like the old saying goes, misery loves company.

The neverending push to bear children and be parents is comparable to religious prosletyzing. If you are truly content with the choices you have made in life and are happy with your predicament, you will live and let live and allow others to discover how great something is on their own, rather than trying to cram it down their throats and insist that they need it too, lest they be incomplete, lonely, and unhappy. If you have a child because you think it will complete you, or that it will make you a better person, or that it will be guaranteed to take care of you in your old age, you are having a child for the wrong reasons and you are placing an unfair burden on a new human life - one which he or she cannot possibly be expected to uphold.

Those who are childfree congregate online because it is a way for them to connect and find one another in a society that is overwhelmingly and insistently pro-natal and pro-parent. I have to wonder about parents who relentlessly pursue the childfree in an attempt to criticize their lifestyle and convince them how wonderful parenting is and how much they adore their children. If parenting is so wonderful and you love your children so much, why don't you get off the computer and go spend some time with them? Do you prefer the company and conversation of people who don't want or like children to your own children? Now who are you trying to convince?

People should have children if they truly want them, if they have the means to properly care for them, and if they are open and honest with themselves about the future being an uncertain thing and the possibility that anything could happen. They should not have them if they expect to be able to mold them into their own little clones who will like all of the same things they like and be their best friends and fulfill their lives and make them better people and will always be around, because if that is the case, they are in for a rude awakening. They should especially not have them if they don't want them. And everyone should mind their own business.

Anyone here who has said how much they love children: If you love children so much, why would you wish them upon people who do not want them? Shouldn't a child be wanted? Isn't that a fundamental element of nurturing a child?

A lot of people here have said the husband should dump his wife and find someone who will "give him children." If that is the case, she would be better off without him.