on "Fresh Air" and thought she spoke eloquently, warmly, and passionately about her family and herself. (As I've said earlier, I also "met" her via an on-line chat group for mothers who pump for their babies - this was long before I knew she was a salon writer - and thought her compassionate and kind in my exchanges with her). She's a woman I'd be happy to have a ply-date with.

As a happily married (35 years), childless by choice, straight woman I am not sure if I find the whining about frustrations of "bad" parenthood even more pitiful than the blissful blather of the dedicated mommy set. I have no patience with any argument for having more than 2 children in this day and age. I imagine the egotistical parents of 4,5 and 6 childen are also "deeply concerned about their eco-footprint" and chastise their friends and neighbors about the choices they make in cars and packaging.

Parenthood is a choice- you can stop after one child (the children do not "choose to come" you make them) or choose to have no children. Once you've made that choice you must live with it and not inflict your misery on others.

I fondly recall a visit to a friends child filled home where the mother followed my husband and myself to the car pleading "why don't you have children, you must have children" her husband wisely replied "misery loves company".

After being confined for 5 + hours on an airplane with a gaggle of Satan's little helpers, I'm all for parents doing whatever it takes to give themselves a break, as long as they get their kids to behave.

The mother directly in from of me on the plane allowed her child to whine and make demands incessently during the entire flight. She was a slave to her daughter's cries of "Mommy! I want..." Every time the mother tried to read her magazine, the kid would start up. The mother never once told her to be quite or hush.

But she was a saint compared to the other parents who allowed their children to shriek, run up and down the aisle, stand on their seats and in the aisle and talk a blue streak in loud, piercing high pitched tones. The flight attendants seemed powerless to do anything, perhaps being afraid it would only get worse.

Both sets of parents seemed well educated and affluent and probably go to great lengths to prepare their kids for the best schools, give them nutritional meals and expose them to life affirming experiences. They seem like they want the best for their kids.

At the same time, they seem to be utterly negligent when it comes to teaching their children manners and respect for the people around them. The kids simply behaved as if they were in their own living rooms.

So go ahead, have that drink. It's OK with me as long as you learn to say no to your children and even risk having them not like you for a while, because you put your foot down.

Look, there is having kids and there is raising kids. And mad props and much respect to women who bear kids but the having is the relative easy part.

Raising kids is something that a lot of people don't want to do. They farm it out to nannies, the school systems etc. But its the raising that is the part that takes the most work and if at least one of the parents isn't willing to take this job on full time AND enjoy it, then couples who have kids KNOWING that they both plan to work full time or see giving up work as somehow being robbed of something shouldn't be surprised when things don't work out as planned.

The idea that playing with your dick in cubicle all day is somehow MORE valuable or rewarding an endeavor than the task of raising an infant to competent independent adulthood is insane.

Parenting properly is a task of gigantic scope and reward. It needs to be recognized as such, instead of something that can be done with a credit card and baby einstein videos.

Despite the pendulum swing to negative hyperbole, I am enjoying the infusion of honesty into the parenting discussion - in a passively detached way. Parenting is a roll of the dice that, no matter what number comes up, changes everything. And you get what you get. Waldman, Lewis and others with their point of view help expose the greatest conceit of young parents - that they can have a great deal of control over what happens and how things turn out with their children.

This lady certainly appears to hold a grudge if she made it a point to re-print various negative letters from salon readers about her and her writing.

It makes me wonder why she ever decided to be a writer much less the lawyer which she was prior to having kids if she cannot take criticism. Seriously.

Wonder if my letter will be included in a future tome for daring to say that I find she and hubby Michael Chabon to be highly-overrated.

D-Y-S-F-U-N-C-T-I-O-N-A-L F-A-M-I-L-Y?

Oh, sorry, everyone has a dysfunctional family these days. It has absolutely nothing to do with "parenting".

in response to Waldman in Salon. They were the most vicious anonymous letters I ever saw until Deborah Dickerson started writing for Salon, and they convinced my that Salon readers are the most petty, insulting, self-congratulatory and shallow readers of any online journal, who especially could not (cannot) stand the idea that someone would write an honest, introspective first person piece and GET PAID FOR IT! I mean, posters at the Guardian can be mean, but not nearly as mean as at Salon. I even composed one that I posted for a while as a joke. It said something like, Dear (Author), Why did you bother to write this, you little twit. I am so much wiser and cooler than you, love Salon reader." I think Waldman is pretty brave to reconsider all of this, and do it with a sense of humor. I congratulate her.