Every week about a thousand of you write us your thoughts on the news we have printed in TIME and on a multitude of subjects suggested by that news. Inevitably, some of these letters, selected by the editors, turn up in the Letters Department. Then, anything may happen.

One of our California readers, for instance, was moved to write us recently about a story (The Vanishing Family) in TIME'S (Feb. 17) Medicine Department reporting that one-seventh of all U.S. couples are childless and that half of this childlessness is voluntary. She said that she did not like children, was childless by choice, and looked forward to a serene old age in a childless home of her own.

TIME'S editors decided to print her letter as a minority example of one kind of U.S. thinking on this subject. Before doing so they asked TIME'S Los Angeles bureau to check the letter's authenticity. The bureau did.

The letter ran at the end of the Letters Department in TIME'S March 10 issue. We have no way of knowing how many of you read it, but from the mail we have been getting it is hard to see how many could have missed it. To date, every state but Nevada has been heard from, and letters are still coming in. Interestingly enough, the volume of replies is in almost direct proportion to TIME'S readership in each state except Nevada.

Of the 645 TIME readers who have written in so far, better than half, surprisingly enough, are men. The nature of the replies (only two have sided with our California reader) has been indicated by the three letters the editors picked to run in the April 7 issue. More interesting than their condemnation of a viewpoint, however, is what these letters reveal about TIME'S readers themselves.

The tone of most of them was thoughtful, decent and concerned. They ranged from college undergraduates anticipating families of their own to a Midwestern farmer who is head of a line of ten living children, 42 grandchildren, 48 great grandchildren. Many told their hopes and plans for having more children. Many more discussed the contribution they expected their children to make some day to their country's future. Over all they expressed a vigorous satisfaction with a family life that, despite its difficulties, they "wouldn't exchange for anything."

Here are some typical excerpts from their letters-to-the-editor:

As a mother of five who laughed, worked and played with them and who is so often humbled and embarrassed by their thoughtfulness and generosity, I feel that I did so little for so much.

I admire her for admitting her real reasons for not having children.

I've known too many women who have "abstained" for the same reason, but who always blame it on something else.

We have one child and we are planning to have more, and we like to think that perhaps if people like us have children the world will be just a little better off in the next generation.

I think that parenthood pays the highest dividends in the world.

Who can define the "life" of a mother? I only know that mischief and trouble dissolve when a muddy wild Indian of two-and-a-half comes in the kitchen door, wraps his arms around my legs, looks at me and says, in unconscious imitation of his daddy: "Hya, honey."

The consensus of these opinions is amply justified by The Public Health Service, which estimates an all-time record of 3,260,000 babies born in the U.S. last year.

Cordially,

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