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Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

Crossing over
In her new novel, Jayne Anne Phillips, the princess of literary darkness, plumbs the emotional netherlands of motherhood.
By Beth Kephart
[04/28/00]

The virtual bitch slap
A new game, Sissyfight 2000, lets me be the playground bully I never was.
By Amy Silverman
[04/27/00]

The other side of the closet
After 10 years and two children, my husband told me he is gay.
By Janet Nicolazzo
[04/26/00]

Sleeping with the enemy
While I'm planning security for the IMF demonstrations, my husband is getting thrown in jail. He better not ask me for bail.
By Lisa Guide
[04/24/00]

Born to pop pills
I have a well-chosen capsule for every occasion.
By Elissa Schappell
[04/20/00]

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I deluge Rachel and Monica with a monologue of my methane lineage, while my wife cringes.

"My mother is an amazing trumpeter, despite drinking Beano for 40 years and avoiding all legumes. And my 101-year-old grandmother can still blow up her skirts. I'm from a loud clan of wind passers; our butt barking is descended from the Mennonite branch of the family tree."

Read Also Confessions of a lesbian sperm donor By Hank Pellissier My seeds are sprouting in two wombs Hank Pellissier, giver of sperm, is about to receive. Last heard from while contemplating insemination, he's now got a girl coming with the wife and a boy on the way with the lesbian gal pal. By Hank Pellissier

"Enough," snaps Carol.

I shut up, but for the remainder of the visit my chest puffs up whenever a squeak razzes out of a newborn anus.

Carol and Monica sit together like war veterans now to competitively compare the gruesome details of their labor. Although Tallulah was supposed to have been born first, on Christmas Day, with Nathan following on New Year's, their nativities were reversed when the dainty 6 pound, 5 ounce boy cannoned out 12 days ahead of schedule, while the huge 9 pound, 7 ounce girl hibernated for an additional 17 days in an impossibly jammed posterior position. But was Monica's "natural" delivery less painful?

"Nathan's square head lacerated my vagina," the slim-hipped lesbian boasts. "Three doctors spent two hours sewing me up; I needed 65 stitches. Gallons of blood all over the room."

"Same here," Carol retorts.

"I still haven't bonded," Monica confides. "I have to get over my own experience first."

"Ditto."

Rachel and I sit quietly and listen. I feel close to her because we've been through the same totally helpless feelings that all nonpregnant spouses endure. We know this, but we don't want to talk about it. All we want to do is play with our kids. I grab Tallulah, who is napping sullenly; Rachel cradles Nathan in her warm, sweaty arms. We hover the half-siblings around each other for a long time, hoping they'll intuit the shared DNA. No magic occurs. They snore, fuss and adamantly ignore each other.

"Let's rub their faces together," suggests Rachel. "Let's make 'em kiss."

"Isn't that illegal?" I worry.

Eventually, we trade tots. I hold Nathan, the fruit of my seed, in my arms. I stare at his face. With a shock, I realize that I don't feel anything. No bonding whatsoever. I try, but there's nothing. I don't know him. I just met him. I love my daughter whom I carried tenderly to the nursery when she was five minutes old, my daughter whom I have changed the diapers of and worried about and fed formula to while my drugged and blood-drained wife recovered after her worse-than-routine surgery. I love my daughter, who does indeed resemble the woman I love, but Nathan? Sure, he seems great, but my heart is monogamous with love for Tallulah, not him.

Nurture -- not nature -- enslaves my sympathies.

After 10 minutes of groans, gasps and damp explosions, it's determined that the two tots need their diapers changed. Rachel and I decide to maintain our switch for this chore; we'll enjoy the experience of washing opposite genitalia. I rip off Nathan's diapers.

"Watch out," cackles Rachel. "He can pee all over you with his cute little penis."

I stare at his organ, embarrassed. Sure, it's far more like mine than Tallulah's, but I've grown used to hers; his seems odd and obscene. Anger rises in me when I see the scar from the bris (circumcision) that sliced off his foreskin. "I wouldn't have done that to you!" I mutter internally. "Dammit. I'm sorry."

Next page | I resent the sissifying of Nathan in a girlish rite