Letter from the Editor
February 16, 2010 by Erika Stutzman
Filed under Letters from the Editors, Perspective
“There is no remedy for love but to love more.”
— Henry David Thoreau
A good friend of mine is having a baby and confesses that she’s worried that she’s not going to be able to love this baby as much as she loves her first born.
She wants to know if I think there is something wrong with her. She wants to know how on Earth a mother — those primally programmed to be the open-armed kissy love machines since time began — could worry about loving one baby, and not the next?
I tell her I want to know how on Earth she got this far along, with her rounded belly and waddling walk, without realizing that 99.99 percent of women who give birth more than once face the same fear?
Maybe it’s our Heathcliff-and-Cathy, Angel-and-Buffy culture that seems to make us think there is one true love. A beloved pet dies, and almost every pet owner worries about getting another, lest the loss taint their affection for pet No. 2. Some of us get married — yay! true love at last — and fret about what age will do to our marital affection. And then what pets will do to our marital affection, and then what kids will do to our 
pet affection and our marital affection and I think you see where I’m going with this.
The answer, which we explore in this month’s magazine, is love. More love. And then some more. Heathcliff and Angel neglected to tell us that it truly is an exponential gift.
— Erika
erika@womensmag.com
