Beyond technical advice on different parenting strategies, communicating with partners and the like, there are deep questions about the relation between a man's identity and his fatherhood that, for the time being, most men are left to contemplate alone.
He makes those that he has no business contemplating, let alone attempting, let alone making.
Lauder has been spending a lot of time with the painting since July, when it arrived, contemplating it alone for an hour at a time after the museum has closed; once, while speaking to me, he referred to the portrait with proprietary familiarity as "my woman".
This is not news to any of us but it is important for us to realize that a boundary has been crossed, a travesty that it is unimaginable for us to consider that anyone might contemplate, let alone execute, who might be seeking public office in our halls of Congress, let alone the presidency itself.
Mr Lanchester wonders how she could have contemplated, let alone endured, the rigours of such a life a second time.
And that makes the profusion of 10th-anniversary specials blanketing television throughout the weekend daunting to contemplate, let alone watch.
Education lawyers, however, said they were unaware of that law's ever being contemplated, let alone used, in the context of higher education.
But despite his obvious deflation, Mr Hayward mounted an unapologetic defence of BP's "unprecedented" response to the disaster, saying it has been a "model" of corporate responsibility that "not many other companies could have contemplated, let alone done".
South Africa's cricketers – and probably everyone else – see it as a divine obligation to make sure that they leave everything out there before defeat can be contemplated, let alone conceded.
We European democrats are in vocabulary panic mode, one that mirrors our political panic in front of an enemy we have conveniently thought of as a polymorphous monster, too ugly to contemplate, let alone understand.
As for whether Gawker will be hauled into court, Karin Pouw, a spokeswoman for the Scientologists, issued a statement that further action had not been "contemplated, let alone decided".
