“You should have a baby,” a friend reported the day after giving birth, “if only to feel the great tidal wave of love that crashes through you.” I didn’t want to feel such love for someone else. I still wanted to be the object of that tidal wave. I knew better than to voice this, of course. Ashamed of such a selfish, infantile craving, I kept it secret. But I knew that so long as I begrudged a child love and attention, I would never be a good parent, and it was wise not to become one.
