Yes, there are children in Ayn Rand novels (but there should be one more)

I knew about the whole "there are no children in Ayn Rand novels" criticism long before I began reading Atlas Shrugged; I don't know where I picked it up, just like I don't know when I first learned that Anna Karenina throws herself in front of a train (years before I ever read Tolstoy) and Henry Bemis steps on his own glasses (ditto).

That's why I was surprised to find plenty of children in both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Nearly every point-of-view character gets a chapter devoted to the way they thought and acted as a child – and before you say "well, that doesn't count because those children are unrealistic," let me refer you to a sample diary entry I wrote shortly after my fourteenth birthday:

Another rehearsal on [new musical by local playwright/composer]. I got a tiny solo; not because [playwright] wanted [character] to have a solo, but because he wanted Nicole to have a solo! [Actor 1] and [actor 2] also have solos. [Director], in her notes, said that I was the loudest and best of the three, but that we all could work more.

We also began choreography. The children's part is very simple.

[Actor 3] and [actor 4] (my only connection to "The King and I" happiness) were not there, but [Actor 3] was on Band Tour. Where was [actor 4]?

During notes, [director] said that we were the most talented group of children she had ever worked with. [Playwright's wife] said I was very good and spoke clearly and she enjoyed watching me work. What [actor 5] said (see "The King and I," closing night) is really making me think, and bugging me. Why did she pick me? Is it because of that Saturday in the theater? Is it because of my acting ability? It was like we were friends, but could never talk (she was onstage all the time).

I really enjoy notes. Criticism helps me improve. Plus, once in a while I do something good!

This is a random sample; they're all like this, and nearly all of them are directly about my attempts to improve as a writer, musician, and performer. The reference to what an actor said to me after a previous performance – that which "is really making me think, and bugging me" – is a story I tell in more detail in The Biographies of Ordinary People, but the gist is that she told me at the end of the production that it had been a pleasure working with me. It was still uppermost in my mind because she specifically sought me out to tell me this; it wasn't a generic thing she was saying to every child in the cast. More important, I realize as an adult, is the sentence that followed: "It was like we were friends, but could never talk."

So yes, there are children in Ayn Rand novels.

However, there are no parents of children. There are a handful of characters whose children have grown up, including Hank Rearden's mother, Dagny Taggart's mother, Peter Keating's mother, and of course Guy Francon, Dominique's father. With the exception of the nameless woman we see in Galt's Gulch, I have yet to spot a parent who is still in the process of raising a child.

It makes sense that Dagny doesn't have children; she is devoting her entire mental capacity to the railroad. It makes sense that Howard Roark doesn't have children; he is devoting his entire mental capacity to architecture. Dominique Francon doesn't have children because she is still learning to value herself. Peter and Catherine might have had children if they had chosen to marry.

But Hank –

and this may be one of the more serious errors in Atlas Shrugged –

Hank should have had a child. Not because he necessarily wanted to, but because Lillian Rearden should have understood that this was the one way to ensure they would remain connected for life.

Imagine, for a moment, how Atlas Shrugged could have benefited from the inclusion of a Rearden child. A six-year-old, since they've only been married for eight years, and since we're all familiar with the adage about "give me the boy for seven years and I will show you the man."

Hank might allow Lillian and his mother to raise the child. He might feel obligated to give them that privilege, since "they have so little else." He might feel manipulated into removing his influence, since "mother knows best." He might also have thought that creating Rearden Metal was more important than caring for a very young child, since many people are capable of providing childcare but only he is capable of this particular invention.

This would mean that Hank would have had to make several (additional) heroic decisions over the course of the book: the decision to actively parent his child; the decision to remove his child from Lillian's influence; the decision to protect his child from the worst of the world around them, including the real possibility of starvation; the decision to remain in this world for eleven months of the year, away from the people who might otherwise be his closest friends, until his child was both old and rational enough to choose to take the oath.

Alternatively, the child could have been raised to be despicable, and Hank would have had to make the choice to leave his child behind – but I prefer the first scenario because it could have given both Rand and her readers the opportunity to solve for the problem of raising the next generation. (Plus, I'd rather not imply that we should abandon bratty six-year-olds simply because they haven't been taught any better.)

This isn't actually what I'm going to write about when I begin comparing Atlas Shrugged to Into the Woods – but it's worth thinking about, especially in the context of Sondheim's "Children Will Listen."

This, also, is why I hinted the other day that George Bailey was perhaps a more compelling example of a rational thinker than his fellow architect Howard Roark. Yes, Roark is a genius and Bailey is merely an intelligent man, but both men hold their own integrated souls as their highest value, choosing reality over fantasy at every turn.

It is funny, by the way, that so many people reject George Bailey's decisions the same way they reject Howard Roark's. "He should have gone to Europe," they say, "and he shouldn't have given up his honeymoon to save his business and he shouldn't have built all those small-town houses when he was capable of building skyscrapers." (I might argue that a man who could choose his honeymoon over his business would never have been capable of building anything.)

But one can see themselves in George Bailey more clearly than they can see themselves in Howard Roark; the decisions map a little more closely onto the challenges of choosing a partner and a career, and even though his housing development is not necessarily original it is functional, and even though he is not a genius he has enough mental capacity at the end of his worst day to walk up the stairs – ignoring the loose newel, which can wait until later – and care for a sick child.

And he couldn't have done any of it without Mary, who is equally heroic –

but that's all I have time for at the moment, so I will leave you to think out the rest on your own.