But apart from such excessive and unprecedented difficulties, there are, and probably always will be, difficulties for the young man who desires to provide everything that can benefit his wife. Not long ago in the newspapers, a budget of the cost of the baby in an ordinary lower middle class home was given, and there was an item: “Dentist’s bill for the mother, twenty pounds.” A wise comment was made on this that, alas, it is by no means an unusual, indeed it is a usual experience that the coming child adversely affects the mother’s teeth, and both for the health of the baby and the mother they should be attended to. Possibly, even her very life may depend on her teeth being thoroughly free from decay after the birth. A heavy dentist’s bill is too often an unexpected anxiety to the young husband, so that the teeth are neglected. Neglected teeth either weaken, or may actually result in the death of the mother from their decay, causing internal poisoning, to which she is peculiarly liable after bearing a child. Then too, there are unexpected and heavy expenses which are unforeseen through a variety of circumstances, such, for instance, as the uncertainty of the date of the birth. Those who go to nursing homes, as many are now doing owing to housing and service difficulties, experience this trial more acutely than others. They expect and plan, perhaps, for the birth within a given week, and the baby may delay two or three or even more weeks beyond the calculated time. Young couples, scarcely able to afford the heavy expenses of a good nursing home, who yet had saved sufficient to allow the wife three weeks there, may have their plans quite dislocated by a delay of three weeks in the infant’s appearance, resulting in the mother unexpectedly having to remain double the length of time for which they had saved the money for the nursing home. The young father is then faced by the sordid difficulty of finding the necessary money, and unless he is gifted in such a way as to make extra earning a possibility, is under a condition of strain. Just when all his free energy and time should be devoted to companionship with his wife and infant, he has to spend extra hours working at high pressure in order to meet unexpected expenses. The young father-to-be who wishes to maintain the right and beautiful atmosphere around his coming child should inform himself of all certain and likely contingencies of expense, and should make due provision for these before the great act of calling into being one for whom he is primarily responsible. To a healthy man, also, there may be a period of chastening experience in sharing daily life with one who is out of health. Though the prospective mother _ought_ not to be in any way invalided, yet, alas, as things are, too often she is, and only an unselfish man will fail to resent the personal sacrifice which he endures as a result.