Gather round, little children

My niece sent me a link to a hilarious post about the failure of "bikini condoms." Evidently women just did not flock to use a latex G-string panty with a "condom pouch," which I gather is something like an empty hotdog skin, hanging down between your legs, awaiting the male member. (Such a strange term. Is there a female member? Does the clitoris count as a member or is there some kind of size requirement?)

I'm disturbed that I had no idea there was such a thing as a bikini condom. In my defence: As soon as Hugh's adoption was finalized, Keith ran off and got fixed, so scared was he that we would become one of those legendary legions of couples who adopt and then immediately get pregnant.** And since I'm not inclined toward adultery, that means it's been 17 years since I've had to think about birth control in any personal way. But still, I keep track of all kinds of things that have little direct impact on me personally--dissent in Syria, the strength of Springsteen's marriage, what's hot in the West End and on Broadway, the gender disparity in literary awards--I mean, you know, I 'm alive, alert, aware. . . but evidently not so much on the contraception front. I just hate that.

But I'm even more disturbed by "In Bed with Married Women" blogger's description of the bikini condom as "a pouch-like tube (oh yeah), a belt reminiscent of grandma's old-timey maxi pads, and cream-colored latex, which we all know is the very sexiest latex color." It's the "belt reminiscent of grandma's old-timey maxi pads" that arouses such discomfort. Because I wore that belt. And I do not feel like "grandma" or in the least bit "old-timey", tho' maybe the fact that I did not know about the bikini condom completely undercuts my argument here.

Ahh, the sanitary napkin and the belt. Gather round, little children, and let me tell you about long long ago, in the days before maxi and mini pad technology. (OK, yes, tampons did exist. . . but I was 10. I was just a little kid and my body suddenly transmogrified into this horrifying, alien thing sprouting hair in weird places and growing breasts and then gushing blood. Not until I was 17 and much more comfortable in my own skin did I relax enough to insert a tampon.) Fifth grade, then. A belt with little clips and a rectangle of cotton fiber with these tails on either end to stick in the clips. One size fits all, supposedly. . . which of course meant that rectangle jutted far in front and behind of my bottom. It moved. Not my bottom. The napkin. It moved. Ah, little children, remember that adhesive technology had not yet been invented, at least not in the realm of Ladies' Monthlies. The belt went around your waist, the pad was clipped on, and then, well, a 10-year-old kid did what 10-year-old kids do--swinging on swings, climbing the monkey bars, playing tether ball, rolling on the grass--and the pad traveled. I'd find it on my left hip, or all the way up my backside, poking out of the waistband of my skirt as I sat at my desk completing my spelling words.

So yes, little children, we have made progress. Despite the bikini condom.


**Factual note: couples who adopt are no more likely to have unplanned pregnancies than couples who don't. Really. There are stats and everything, except I can't find them. But you can trust me. I am a Reliable Source. Even if I am on the Internet.

S.M.A.

Hi, my name is Facing-50 and I'm a shitty mother. I am thinking of starting Shitty Mothers Anonymous. Want to join?

This weekend I was tired and feeling crummy and crabby and Hugh backed me into a corner (which, in my defense, is something that he does ruthlessly) and I just exploded. In public. Left him to deal with a disabled shopping cart full of groceries on the pavement and ran for the car. It was dumb, the sort of behavior that you see in a 17-year-old single mom of a cranky toddler and you think, "Tsk, tsk." But I'm so not 17. And not single. I know better. I've got a wealth, criminal really in its extent, of social and intellectual and financial and emotional resources at my fingertips. Sigh. So Hugh finally gets to the car and goes nuts. Screaming and swearing and even crying, "You left me! You left me!"

Oh God. My adopted son. My adopted baby screaming that I left him. Oh geez.

I'm still reeling, still trying to come to grips with it all, to sort my way through the questions of guilt and responsibility and sheer fucking personal stupidity.

Time for an S.M.A. meeting.

Baby Love

A couple of days ago, I found out that a friend of mine, who's older than I am, has just adopted a newborn baby. I'm happy for him and his partner. Really. So very very happy. Honestly.

Excuse me, it is possible for one to be be genuinely happy for someone while at the same time consumed with jealous rage. One is a complex being. One is capable of multi-tasking one's emotions.

One really wants a baby.

Ridiculous. One is a menopausal mother of two teenaged sons.

So--Babies? Done and dusted. Shoot, I've even done it both ways: the birth-via-my-body thing and the adoption-via-massive-bucks thing. (Tho'--full disclosure here--I didn't actually go thru with the entire birthing process. I tried. I did. 24 hours of labor before the doctors jumped in with great glee, wielded those knives, and C-sected that baby outa there.)

And I have so many friends who've been unable to have a baby either way. I've hoped with them, screamed with them, cried with them. And I've mourned with friends who have lost their babies and agonized with friends who struggle daily with the horror of watching disease devastate their kids. I know how very very lucky, blessed, rich I am. I know I've had my share, more than my share, of beautiful, healthy babies, gorgeous sons with the world wide open before them.

I know all this. But. Dammit. I. Want. A. Baby.

It's sick. I find myself in the wee hours of the morning secretly hoping one of my boys will knock up a lovely young girl who will bravely decide to have the baby but will recognize she/they can't provide the baby with all that she/they want for that baby, and so, yes, I will get the baby.

Part of it is that I just really enjoy babies. Some people like football. Or Coen Brother movies. Or Andy Warhol. Me, I like babies.

But there's also the sad and dirty fact that when I had my babies, my beautiful boys, I was fairly fucked up. To put it mildly. (Not on drugs, mind you. Never done those. OK, yes, I've done lots of drugs--for allergies and tummy disorders and headaches and vulvadynia and depression and anxiety and chronic strep throat and yeast infections. But none of the fun stuff. ) Nope, no drugs, not that much alcohol. Just, well, basically, back then I was a total wingnut. Torn apart by the demands of scholarship and teaching and motherhood and wifedom and sisterhood and friendship and daughterdom and sex and laundry and lawn care and the desire for a really good brownie. I do not regret, then, that I returned to work right after the boys came into the world. Had I stayed home with them, they'd have ended up fairly fucked-up little fellas as well. Instead, I gotta say--despite the fact that neither seems capable of shutting a cabinet door, closing a dresser drawer, hanging up a towel, or flushing a toilet; despite the march of tattoos across Owen's body; despite Hugh's Republican leanings-- my guys are all right.

And, even in the context of total wingnutdom, I enjoyed them as babies.

Most of the time.

Sometimes.

When I wasn't crying because I feared that any kid with a mom like me was doomed.

But these days, despite menopausal mania, I think it's fair to say my wingnuttiness has moderated. I'm no longer shredded by the various demands of my various roles. I've learned to say, oh, what the hell. I've accepted that I will never be a Scholar Star. And (most of the time), I'm ok with that. These days, I could and I would stay home with a baby. We'd hang out, chill in the mornings over Cheerios, nap on the sofa, watch some Baby Einstein, do some park swings, snort some formula, while Springsteen played in the background. I do know that you're supposed to flood a baby with Mozart if you want him or her to be a math wizard, but the world has plenty of quantitative geniuses. Me and the imaginary baby, we prefer quality--political passion, concern for the underdog, respect for the way words work, sound narrative sense, and thumping rock 'n' roll. So we'd scrap the Mozart and follow Scooter and the Big Man into the swamps of Jersey.

Instead, I'm heading to the mall. Gotta go buy a baby gift for my friend. Which I will send with lots of joy, much love, an abundance of good wishes, and a hearty helping of good, old-fashioned, deep dark green envy.

Give this woman an Oscar

Owen is spending the semester on an internship working with a homeless advocacy non-profit (guess that should be obvious--not a lot of profit in homeless advocacy) in Washington D.C. Urban lefty that he is, he's happy.

So I'm happy. This is the awful thing about parenthood. You have sex, you conceive (or, as in the case of our second child, you shell out thousands of dollars and you adopt), you have a baby--and that's it, you're like a video game, the kid controls the joy stick. "No one else is in charge of your happiness," my first therapist told me. Or was that a line from a Disney movie? Anyway, it's totally bogus, at least once you have kids.

So Owen called the other night. We chatted for a long time. And I was the Perfect Mom. First and most important, he called; I did not call him. And second, we chatted. I did not tell him I missed him. I did not break down sobbing and admit to him that I frequently dream of him as a baby; I did not reveal that sometimes I look into his bedroom and just stand there like a maternal zombie as I remember him giggling over Harry Potter; I did not confess that the sight of roller blades or Legos can reduce me to tears. Nope, I was the total "Hey-Buddy-I-Got-My-Life-to-Live" insouciant mom--you know: "you do your thing, I do my thing, and if by chance, we find each other, it's beautiful"--oh wait, that was the poster than hung on my closet door when I was 11. The point is, I was great. I should have won an Oscar or a Grammy or a Tony or whatever award given for the most astonishing dramatic performance on a telephone.

"Wha-a-a-at?"

9 am on a Saturday morning. Hugh is at the computer, music blaring. He likes to listen to whatever is his current favorite song over and over and over. This morning it's THUMP--THA--THA--THA--THUMP. . . with a constant refrain of "goddamn bitch."

Can't take it anymore. Demand that he change the song.

Sullen muttering. A moment of silence. Then THA-THA-THA-THUMP-dum-dum-THA-THA-THUMP-dum-dum. . . "Fuckin' nigga!" FUCKIN' NIGGA!"

I totally lose it. "HUGH!! That's it!" I shriek. "You are going to lose computer access for the entire weekend!"

He's dumbfounded. Complete innocence. Utter confusion. "Wha-a-at? I changed the song, just like you said."

I glare at my beautiful black son. "Oh right. As if Id find 'fuckin' nigga' more acceptable than 'goddamn bitch.'"

"Well, I didn't know THAT was your problem. Besides, if you'd just listen, it's a great song-- really socially responsible."

Damn, he's good.

I actually hesitate, doubting myself, for a moment. Then I regain my footing. "Not in THIS house. I will not have that word in this house."

He sighs, deeply, heavily, burdened by the weight of this crazed old lady, this lunatic white woman who dares to be his mother.

DNA

This weekend we celebrated my mom's 80th birthday with a weekend of family frivolity. "We" meant 5 of my mom's 6 surviving kids, 22 of her 24 grandchildren, all 15 of her great-grandchildren (as well as the 2 in utero), plus assorted spouses and partners. My family has always taken the "be fruitful and multiply" commandment very seriously.

Owen was one of the 2 absent grandchildren. It was an excused absence: he's bicycling across the country with a homeless advocacy group. Travel and volunteer work for a worthy cause--Mom wholeheartedly approves of both.

I missed him. Especially since I kept seeing him, various versions of him, bits and pieces of him. There he was at age 2, in the chubby cheeks and legs of my godson. And see, there, his thick and unruly blonde hair, on the head of my nephew's middle boy. And over there, there's his smile on another nephew. And my brother's face, a glimpse of the Owen yet to come.

In big family gatherings, the laws of time and space fall apart. I'm holding a baby, and it's me at 17, holding my very first niece or is it that niece at 17, holding baby Owen, or is it me again, holding my niece's first son? This stocky Tom Sawyer look-alike with freckles and a gap-toothed grin, it's my oldest nephew and yet it's his son. My second oldest brother's been dead for 37 years, but there's his walk, his stance, the way he wrinkled up his nose. All these strands, these fragments, tossed together, rearranged, updated, resurrected.

Except here is Hugh. No strands cling to him, no fragments of uncles or cousins reappear in the shape of his calves or the way he cocks his head. Cut from the biological web by adoption, Hugh stands free in his Hughness.

And yet. Love has its own biology and life in a family seems to produce its own genetic code. In Hugh's wicked sense of fun, his infectious personality and love of the outrageous, my dad comes back to life. Just like the grandpa he never knew, Hugh enjoys lobbing incendiary comments across the table and then sitting back to enjoy the fireworks. Deeper than DNA, somehow, love and life form their own thick web.

And, as it happens, my brown adopted baby fits into my extended family much better than my biological son--or me. Hugh prefers the vast houses, manicured lawns, and backyard swimming pools of suburbia; Hugh longs for an SUV; Hugh has a need for order and absolute rules that my family's political and religious conservatism fulfills. Desperate to hunt and fish and tinker with machines, Hugh suffocates in our book-lined house. But here, in the western suburbs of Chicago, Republicanville, the Land Beyond O'Hare, here Hugh comes into his own.

With his own family.

Teenager in Menopause, Part 2

I had my kids in my 30s, and I've never regretted that.

'Til now.

I thought it was a good idea to make sure I was at least somewhat sorted out and settled before trying to sort out and settle a couple of Little People. (Obviously I entertained such thoughts before I actually had any Little People. Once you have them, you realize you have no chance whatsoever of sorting out and/or settling them. You just hope to keep them alive until they can do their own sorting and settling.)

All that worked, as much as anything actually works when you're dealing with actual, still-living Little People, 'til now.

The problem is, I've entered menopause at the same time that Hugh has embarked on Being a Teenager. So the house pulsates with hormones, doors slam, cabinets rattle, the walls endeavor to contain the shrieks and accusations and utter rage--and then Hugh returns home from school. And the hormones and the slamming and the rattling and the shrieking and accusing and raging all multiply to the Hugh-nth degree.

We feed off each other. We feed on each other.

I know what I should be. What I'm supposed to be. What he needs me to be. The impregnable fortress to which he can retreat when he's defeated. The island of calm on which he can rest when he's exhausted. The laughter that reassures him when no one else gets the joke. The boundaries when all the fences seem to be broken and all the lines are muddled.

But I'm not. I am not impregnable. I am not calm. I do laugh, but it's more along the lines of maniacal cackling. I am hopelessly muddled. I can't even figure out what clothes to put on most mornings. I'm a friggin' history professor, for pete's sake. Clothing is not difficult. Docker's and a button-down shirt or long-sleeved tee-shirt, preferably with padded bra in case one gets excited (it's pathetic, but I do get excited when I lecture, not sexually, mind you, but my nipples don't seem to know the difference). This uniform has stood me in good stead for years, but now, every morning, my bedroom looks just like a, yes, a teenaged girl's room--shirts and sweaters and skirts and trousers and tights all scattered about as I frantically hunt for Something To Wear. Geez. I didn't do this when I really was a teenager. Why now? Because I'm insane, that's why.

And a teenaged boy, a genuine teenaged boy, needs a sane mother. If there's a version of What To Expect When You're Expecting for parents of teenagers (there must be by now), I'm sure it says that it is important to be sane. Probably just as important for mothering a teenager as making sure you get enough zinc when you're expecting.

And, when I was expecting, I was utterly scrupulous about taking zinc. (Well, not in Hugh's case, because he's adopted. But dammit, if I'd been pregnant with him, I would have been totally good about the zinc.) So, tomorrow, I'm seeing my doctor. I'll try HRT. Maybe it will make me a fortress or an island. Or at least a little less crazy.

[Teenager in Menopause I]

Cafe-au-lait

Fifteen years ago today I was sitting in the off-campus coffee shop grading papers when one of the coffee shop girls came over to tell me I had a phone call. (We're talking pre-cell phone era here.) It was Keith. The adoption agency had telephoned: our son had been born about an hour earlier. We met at home, packed a suitcase, picked up Owen from day care, and headed west to Texas.

Adoption was always an option for me. I had always known I wanted children, but wasn't always too sure I wanted a husband. In vitro fertilization and all that was just developing; I do remember hearing talk of sperm donors and turkey basters, but I just figured if I hit my mid-30s and was still single, I'd adopt.

So, when we tried for a second after Owen and failed, adoption was a no-brainer.

On Thanksgiving week, 1994, after a couple of years of tests and more tests and thermometers and sex on schedule and sperm in a cup and Chlomid, I began calling adoptions agencies. "Are you Catholic?" Click. "Do you have $25,000 readily accessible?" Click. "Is one of the parents over the age of 40?" Click. "Do you have a child?" Click. But finally I hooked up with an agency that specialized in "unadoptable" children.

We filled out the most agonizing form. Would you accept a blind baby? A deaf baby? A baby with AIDS? with spina bifida? With a cleft palate? A child whose been the victim of physical abuse? of sexual abuse? On and on and on it went. We had anguished discussions long into the night. But there was an easy question: Would you accept a child of another race? Duh. Yeah.

We received a phone call almost immediately:
"I just wanted to make sure about one thing here on your application form. You've checked that you'd accept a child of any race. Any race. Is that correct?"
Yes, I said.
"Let me just make sure I have this straight. You'll accept a child of any race?"
Yes, I said.
"Umm, sorry, but let me make sure: are you saying you'll take a black child?"
Yes, I said.
Long pause.
"Well, if that's really the case, I can guarantee you'll have a healthy newborn baby in three months."

But the color nonsense continued. After we hooked up with Hugh's birth mother and the adoption was set in motion, the social worker assured us that after the baby was born, we'd receive a photo, that we'd get to approve of the baby. We were confused, until she explained further. "If the baby's skin color is too dark, if you're just not comfortable with his color, then no problem, you can back out." Keith and I both had the same vision of choosing a baby with those little paint sample cards that you use to select colors for your walls: hmm, coffee, caramel, chocolate. . . ? We told her skip the photo, we'd take the baby even if he came out sporting polka dots.

On February 20, 1995, Hugh came into the world.

On February 21, 1995, we picked him up. Dark brown hair that the nurses had slicked down straight but, when we washed it a few days later, exploded into curls. Huge dark eyes. And the most gorgeous cafe au lait skin. No polka dots.

I assumed that by adopting a baby of a different race, we'd at least avoid any confusion RE the adoption itself--It would be clear from Day 1, to Hugh, and to the world, that he was adopted. I was wrong.

Here's our family: Blond, fair-skinned Me. Bald but once light brown-haired, fair-skinned Keith. Older son Owen who looks like both of us--clearly our biological child. Younger son Hugh, who's bi-racial, black (to most Americans)--clearly adopted. You'd think. And yet, here's the usual scenario: new people meet us. They look a bit perplexed. Finally, one--usually the woman--gets me or Keith aside and asks, somewhat awkwardly, "So, umm, is Hugh adopted?"

After years and years of this, I've become rather snarky. I now say, "Oh no. It's just Keith and I had a rough patch some years ago, so I had an affair with a black man and got pregnant." Then I smile brightly.