Intro

On one luminous sunny day in February, a gondola car was rising between Mammoth Mountain’s mid-station and its summit at 11,053 feet, but none of the five men inside were taking in the view. Instead, they were deep in discussion about children, specifically, about whether and when to have them and what their impact might be on one’s recreational life. In the car were two dads, two expecting or hoping to be expecting, and one younger, single guy who happened to be in the car when we clambered aboard and was clearly in no hurry to be a father.

It’s natural, after you’ve spent years being single, to wonder how marriage will affect your me time, and it’s understandable, after you’ve spent most of your life not being a parent, to speculate how it’s going to change if you become one. When my son was a toddler, I spent three weeks working in Greenland, and when I returned home he’d developed and changed so