The signs are unmistakable. A guy you've known for years as an impeccable dresser shows up one day with a diaper on his shoulder. I had no idea you were supposed to diaper the father's shoulder (nice to see cloth making a comeback, though). He's haggard, puffy, worried about persistent rashes and the color of nasal discharges. His, that is, after getting no uninterrupted sleep for ninety-seven days. I'm sympathetic to a fault, but if I hear any more about crib back, I'm going to spit up. I already live in dread of dropping in and having the Betacam of the delivery screened between Sports Illustrated bloopers tapes. What are you supposed to say -- nice point-of-view?

It's not that fatherhood doesn't appeal to me, it does. But Cosby's already written the book, Ron Howard's made the movie, and Bob Greene's written the columns. Calvin Trillin has frozen his children in an amusing developmental stage about as long as he can without turning into Family Circus. It's all been done. There just doesn't seem to be any percentage in it. Naturally, I sometimes see the liquid-crystal display of my biological clock flashing, but that's just a temporary interruption of power. It passes. Besides, although I could handle fatherhood, motherhood eludes me, and Consuela isn't ready to have a child. She's afraid of the sex involved. The real stopper is that each of us is afraid the child would resemble the other and the balance of terror would be upset. Then you get into the quid pro quo of trying to redress the balance, and before you know it, nuclear-family proliferation. She and I belong to the generation that believes we are our own children. We're giving ourselves the things we never had: dance lessons, piano lessons, dirt bikes, and organized volleyball. If we ever grow up, we could turn out to be very well-rounded. People say we're selfish, but we just say "Nya-nya-nya-nya-nya-nya." In the meantime, it's a fact that schlepping one another to soccer practice can strengthen a marriage.