Letter:Pleasures of parenthood

Sir: Fran Abrams is right. Children are expensive and prevent one from doing your own thing (for a short time relative to one's whole life). I respect her decision not to have children.

However, while sitting outside with my two children, eating pizzas before bedtime, and listening to my nine-year-old telling a subversive and lavatorial version of the Goldilocks story to amuse her six-year-old brother, it struck me, not for the first time, that children bring an extra dimension to one's existence, and provide a very necessary foil to our overweening concerns with our careers and ourselves. If Ms Abrams doesn't want to have children then she shouldn't have any. But she is missing out.

ANNE COPLEY

Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire