S. sends her children to a day care provider, and she has a quandary: her children wake up happy and ready to go to their "school," but she doesn't share their enthusiasm.
Extended breastfeeding, the current scientific thinking goes, offers significant health benefits for the child, and probably for the mother. But what about for the father? Is what's good for the gosling and the goose, also good for the gander? And why does it matter?
Reading "Two Classes, Divided by 'I Do'" in The Times last weekend, left me troubled. If there is any obvious takeaway from this and the earlier news that for younger mothers, out-of-wedlock births are the new normal, (leading to elevated risks of falling into poverty for children), it would seem to be this: first comes love, then comes marriage, then start considering the baby carriage.
Over the last six months, I have watched my little boy become a man. His voice has dropped, the downy fluff on his legs has become coarse and he skulks about the house in some sort of hormonal haze. Last week, I discovered that he has surpassed me in height. His physical transformation is clearly underway; now it's time for him to face a psychological and intellectual coming of age.