I worked on this story for almost a year, trying to show both sides — really, ALL sides because it’s such a complicated issue — of the story. Some readers may say, off the bat, that it’s impossible for young children to have a mental disorder. That the problem is parents or overreaching professionals or the pharmaceutical industry. Others will be appalled that the question of early onset depression can even be in doubt. Many of those readers will probably have experienced or witnessed familial depression in their own lives. I hoped to fairly represent both points of views, and the many nuanced views that lie in between.

So far, the story seems to be generating a good response, and their are lots of comments on Facebook as well as on Tara Parker-Pope’s Well blog. I’d love to hear from other readers here about what you think of the story and of the issue in general.

This is a phenomenon that I encounter frequently when I write, whether it’s an article or a book. Let’s take some of my writing about sexuality: If I write an article about a particular study, readers will ask, Why didn’t you write about this other study? If I write a book about heterosexual pornography, people ask, why didn’t you write about homosexual pornography? If I write an article about a lesbian couple’s struggle to adopt a child in West Virginia, people ask, why didn’t you write about the difficulties of gay adoption in Florida?

These are all valid questions, but the limitation of any story or book is that you can only write so much — that as journalists and authors, we have to draw the line somewhere, or we’d end up with 10,000 word articles all the time (which we, as writers, would love but readers probably wouldn’t) and with 500-page books (which we, as writers, would hate and readers would too — not that there’s anything wrong with 500 page books, but I’ll leave that to Robert Caro and Robert K. Massie).

In this case, I wrote about Ms. Dolgoff’s interest in the implications of aging (but not aging that much) on what you wear and how you look. It’s an interesting issue, and one I think Ms. Dolgoff addresses interestingly — and hilariously — in her book.

I truly had so much good material and got to learn so much about the wonderful kids’ books that people like that it was one of the hardest times I’ve had keeping a story to one page. One of the interesting discussions that didn’t make it into the final piece, but I’ll bring up here, is what makes a book YA to begin with? 

The Census Bureau does not track length of separation, but at any given moment, approximately 2.3% of American adults describe themselves as separated, and an additional 1.4% say they are married but their spouse is absent (though he may be in the military or temporarily relocated for a job, for example).

While reporting, I watched this fascinating interview of the late Susan Buffett, longtime separated wife of Warren Buffett, on Charlie Rose, which I wholly recommend.

Finally, I’m thrilled to report that the story is #5 most emailed on NYT.com, which is the first time I’ve broken the top 10. Very exciting for me, personally.

Predictably, and unfortunately, there was a lot of misreading (or nonreading?) of the article, reflected in many of the comments, which were too often ad hominem and erroneous (both in describing the studies I cited and in characterizing the article I wrote). But today a bright light shines at The Economist, where a post reports, accurately and fairly, on both the study and its conclusions. It’s a bit late to celebrate Father’s Day proper here, but I’m always glad to see stories that fairly represent the benefits of both fathers and lesbian mothers.