The very success of the modern American family - where kids get punctually to SAT-tutoring classes, the mortgage gets paid, the second-story remodel stays on budget - surely depends on spouses' not being in love.
When husbands and wives not only co-work but try to co-homemake, as post-feminist and well-intentioned as it is, out goes the clear delineation of spheres, out goes the calm of unquestioned authority, and of course, out goes the gratitude.
I am stricken with the peculiar curse of being a 21st-century woman who makes more than the man she's living with - first with a husband for 13 years and now with a new partner.
Work... family - I'm doing it all. But here's the secret I share with so many other nanny- and housekeeper-less mothers I see working the same balance: my house is trashed. It is strewn with socks and tutus.
I am shamed to realize that in my marriage, my daughters never heard their father and me fight, which also meant, perhaps, that we didn't truly communicate.
The bad news in our most cosmopolitan and vibrant cities is that many middle-class people can no longer afford to live in 'middle-class' school districts.
