What do Jane Lynch and I have in common? (I know this question has been haunting you since I started opining here a week ago.) Obviously Jane is funnier and far more talented, creative, well-off, and famous. But we do have this in common: We both became parents at an advanced age by marrying women who already had children. I wonder if her household is as consumed as mine is by the burning question: Should kids pack their own lunches?

E.J. Graff writes on social-justice and human-rights issues, particularly discrimination and violence against women and children; marriage and family policy; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lives. She is a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center and the author of What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution (Beacon Press, 1999, 2004).