He Lost Business, Home Only to Find a Treasure in Raising Son

A recent letter to Vicki Iovine (“New Mom Can Work Out a Knot in Her Marriage,” Oct. 31) told how a husband refused to care for his infant child for three hours a week while his wife went to the gym.

I’m writing to tell that man how much he is missing--and how much he will regret his loss in years to come. My wife and I have three children. When the first two were young, my business was doing well enough that we could afford a nanny. I was busy. My wife was busy. And our nanny raised our kids. Consequently, now, as they enter their teens, I’m still trying to figure out who they are.

It was different with our third child. Our business had failed. We had to dismiss the nanny, who had been very much a part of our family. We had to move into a small apartment and then a small house. My wife went to work while I was sporadically employed. A great deal of the care of our youngest one, then a toddler, fell to me.

I bathed him, dressed him, changed his diapers, fixed his bottles, prepared his meals and when the time came, I walked him to preschool and then kindergarten. One day, he turned to me and said, “Dad, I love you, because you walk me to school.”

Now, a couple years later, when he rises in the morning, it’s my lap he seeks. We sit there before work and school--I sipping my coffee and reading my paper, he groggily waking up. When he falls and hurts himself, he calls for me. When he brings home a prize from school, a happy face on a test or a 100% grade, he shows it to me first.

We lost a million-dollar house and a business that employed more than 100 people. I can replace those, and I’m working to do so now. But in return, I gained a treasure that cannot be bought, irretrievable if lost, and unattainable if time passes the moment by.

I am not advocating paying the high price I did, but surely three hours a week is not an exorbitant demand for the love of a child.

MICHAEL MacINTIRE

Glendale