Hi Lellie (if I may)

It's Delia Boylan here (now Delia Lloyd professionally)-I am Nick Boylan's younger sister from RHS.

Just wanted to say that I just listened to the Terry Gross interview and sent it on to several people in my family and old friends from Ridgewood. I live in London now so it's rare that I listen to Fresh Air anymore, but this one was a gem.

Have followed your career at a distance for several years and happy to see you thriving.

Bravo!

Delia

I heard you!

Your story was so powerful and so courageous (on Fresh Air). THANK YOU for being the fierce person you are. You are shining example to others.

I heard you also, you were great. This is kind of surreal that I can post a comment to a blog of someone I heard on the radio and thought to myself at the time "wow, this woman is pretty damn cool". I enjoyed your interview immensely, it was refreshingly honest, open, witty, emotional, and intense.

Thank you.

-J

After listening to the interview yesterday, I went out and bought the book today. Obviously all was well-timed for the Mother's Day gift push (nice agent). The book will, in fact, be a Mother's Day gift for my hyper-concerned, motherhood conspiracy blog-reading, medical website-printing-out, and generally wonderfully neurotically loving wife and mother of my children.

I predict first reaction will be the unspoken, "a book?!" But the author's engaging personality from the interview comes across very well in the few pages I read in the bookstore, and I know she'll find it entertaining and probably more re-assuring than another Sears book on vaccinations. (No, that was not seriously considered as a Mother's Day option.)

And if you're reading this, honey--don't worry, I used a gift card!

BTW, Terry Gross interview fantasies--more common than I thought!

Your interview was amazing and even though I'm not a woman or a mother, I'm definitely going to check out your book. Your comments about being committed to getting your kids outside were completely in line with what my organization, National Wildlife Federation, is trying to accomplish. I got chills listening to you articulating why unstructured outside time is so important in such an eloquent yet matter-of-fact way!

I cannot tell you how this spoke to me. I am not a mother and it doesn't look like it is in the cards for me but I understand the impossible "good mother" stereotype and THANK YOU for finally saying it. But what really got me was the comment that you made about loving your husband more than your kids.

This really hit home. My husband and I have been together a long time and got married young. Neither one of us really wanted kids. I changed my mind but he has not. I was faced with... do I love my husband more than my desire to have kids? Many women don't understand this but I do. I love and respect his feelings as much as he does mine. It is powerful to see. It pains him to know that his decision hurt me but he cannot lie and I would not ask him to.

I have had girlfriends tell me to have an accident and I cannot fathom that kind of lie.

Thanks for helping me to know that I am not alone and yes the sex is still really great. LOL

Best regards from a new fan,
SLT

The interview was amazing. I ordered your book on Amazon while I was listening. It arrived today and I read the first two chapters while my son was in karate class.

I must have you on our little podcast Manic Mommies (the Manic means crazy busy, not bipolar, although some days we feel like that).

If there's any interest on your part (when you are done with the Today Show, etc.) drop me a note. Also, we have an annual Escape we're booking speakers for and it's in Napa this year. Close to you?

The only words that I can find to adequately express to you my feelings are, "Thank you".

From the bottom of my heart...thank you for the validation, thank you for your courage, and thank you for attacking this topic with the honesty it deserves.

I am going to keep a secret cache of your book to hand out to my realistic mommy pals; more beneficial than adavan.

I heard your interview during the endless ride to collect my children from their respective daytime activities. Missed a good chunk so I went back after bedtime and listened online. Enjoyed it so much that I googled you and ended up here. I am so entertained by your wry humour and honesty.

I especially appreciated your comment that you started writing, in part, because you needed some part of your life that didn't belong to your children. I have dipped in and out of my creative life since having kids for the exact same reason and have struggled with the discipline to keep at it. You have inspired me to commit to a year-long journal project. If we don't commit to ourselves, who will?

Asha

I knew it was you the moment I heard your voice, and I was so excited that I stayed in the car and listened.
I get, in a totally different way, after going through infertility, your essay about loving your husband more than your children (or some reasonable facimile of that statment). Thanks for always being brave and being yourself.
Sarah

I heard the interview on Fresh Air and had to buy the book! I had just made the decision to go back to work full time and feeling very much so like I was being a bad mother, and that my husband had it all staying home. I'm almost done with the book and your experience helps to put mine, in this experience, and in the greater scheme of motherhood, in perspective. Thank you for writing.

I thought you were great. So funny and moving and interesting. Thank you for sharing your stories.

xoxoxo.

I found the interview very compelling, your conclusions on some things likely differ from my own, but you come by them honestly. I admire that. I admired your take on letting your children take chances, to think for themselves and have a mind of their own. It WILL be a scary world if governed by people who, as children, never learned to govern themselves. All the best to you.

Just listening now to the podcast of "Fresh Air". Wondering if the airing of the episode prompted the sex talk w/ your daughter and how that went.

Listened to your Fresh Air segment on my walk yesterday. YOU are definitely on my radar now. I LOVED it! You speak to so many of my own personal parenting issues.
I raised my kids in a suburban community fraught with paranoia. Once when a parent came to collect her 12-year-old son from my house, the kids were still in the woods. I thought she would come unglued over the fact that I didn't have her son's current position pinpointed! (they're out in the woods alone?? DANGER!)
My youngest loved to ride the neighborhood on his bike. He generally returned in about 45 min. with a report of where he'd been. Once when he was about eleven, I sent him with a map of the community and a highlighter so he could track his explorations. He was so inspired that he didn't return for over two hours. I was getting a bit panicked as dusk approached but he returned exhilarated. He had covered practically all corners of the town on his little bike, his route documented on the map.
I have many similar stories and quite frankly, I'm probably lucky the Dept. of Social Services didn't check in from time to time!
I guess my point is that neither of my sons grew up with fears, which has led them to succeed on roads less traveled as adults.

Thanks for the good work and for inspiring me!
-=Cindy

On my way to Walgreens for diapers, I heard your interview on Fresh Air. I sat in the parking lot and listened to the whole interview. It was so honest. I went straight to the bookstore and bought the book. Thanks for making me feel like a "good" mother.