Dear C,

Funny, ‘cos the first time I met your mother-in-law, I thought she actually was hubby in a leisure suit and a tan……….Seriously though, while the Spartans may have approved of your hard-knocks school of parenting, I’m afraid I can’t. Ingenious though it may be to teach your youngest to fend for herself by pan-handling outside the metro, I can’t help but wonder how your educational consultant is going to be able to write up such skills in her application to private school. As for your elder daughter, the memory of how she hauled off and punched her big brother in the face, giving him a bloody nose, is one I will treasure forever, but do you really think she will be able to apply such life lessons during the course of an existence which, one trusts, will be spent a la Angelina Jolie, dispensing acts of charity and ordering around the help?

For my part, I cherish the innocent years of my daughters’ youth, as they skip through the sunlit meadows of childhood, blissfully ignorant of all the hunger, poverty and wretchedness in the world . By which, I mean, of course, that for unfortunate public school types like themselves, it’s probably the only time in their lives they can remain oblivious to the fact that the world is filled
with people who are far richer, better-looking, and (worst of all)
thinner than themselves.

Faithfully,

P.

P,

As it’s clear that hubby and I have far exceeded the natural limits of human tolerance and mangement capacity with four cherubs, I’m considering asking hubby to go under the knife to end his future reproductive capacity.  Although there are certainly methods I can use to avoid childbirth in the future (only some of which involve the word "no" and most of which involve menopause) I’ve realized there is a far larger worry to be considered: hubby’s unending potential for fathering children other than mine.

It’s not that hubby exhibits the classic signs of one likely to cheat, at least not on the surface.  It’s just that his well-ingrained midwestern nature, including both shame and guilt as overriding emotional components, make it less likely he would prepare for a moment in which he might encounter a willing partner.  Setting aside my dread of disease and dimemberment (his, if caught in such an act), it’s entirely possible, dearest P, that hubby could father other children well into his old age, a fact I find has more than the usual distate brought about by a Michael Douglas/Catherine Zeta Jones kind of relationship. 

Of course, one must also consider our dear family internist’s viewpoint, who recently suggested a vasectomy was a bad idea: who knew if hubby’s next wife, potentially still in high school, wants to bear his offspring as well–a matter only to be considered if the first family was, natually, tragically killed in a sudden and might I suggest, suspicious, accident.  I’ll of course follow-up later for the name of a new doctor, but I think his viewpoint gives me additional reason to act quickly: what if some of the cherubs survived and were cast aside by the step-monster in favor of her own offspring?

It is, therefore, with some urgency that I beg you to consider how I might convince hubby of my point of view.  Think of the cherubs, P, to whom I may already have denied the pleasure of abundance by their sheer numbers.  And let’s save the world from one more younger wife who gets all the benefit of the maturity we have yet to see in our spouses.

Faithfully,

C. 

C,

While I agree that you and hubby have done more than enough to re-populate the world, when it comes to my emasculating the oldballandchain, I suddenly find myself uncharacteristically reluctant to go for the snip.  Not that I am in any way condoning your internist’s point of view vis a vis preserving a man’s right to sow his seed well into his dotage, fourth wife permitting…….As a matter of fact, until recently, the obc has preferred to sleep with one eye open, lest he wake to find me looming over him with an oversize pair of pinking shears in my hand. 

Ever since the birth of your youngest, however, I find myself pining after babies the way I generally only lust after the pectorals of the hispanic youth who cuts my lawn.  Could it be that I am in fact not yet ready to hang the Out of Business sign on own my uterus?  As someone who only knows how to get pregnant by accident, not on purpose, I am not quite sure what to do with these feelings.  Do I lower the drawbridge and let the obc lay siege to my fortress, which for the past six years has remained stoutly impregnable?  Or do I add another lock to the old chastity belt and let this moment of temporary insanity pass?  The irony is, I would have to make this third pregnancy also look like an accident, since planned fatherhood is about the only thing the obc fears worse than the prospect of becoming a eunuch.

As a sometime mother of three, is it really true that three children are actually easier than two, or is this something only grandmothers tell you so they can have something to cackle over with their friends, once it’s too late?  I defer to your wisdom, as always.

Yours faithfully,

P.

P,

Returned home from exercise this a.m. to a remarkable scene: three children, a baby and a husband saluting me at the door.  I promptly saluted back and released the olders to their father’s care for transport to school and took the youngers in hand for whatever it is we spend our day doing until the au pair is available for duty. 

I am fairly certain they intended to mock my perceived desire for order and cooperation in the morning.  The plan, of course, has backfired.  I will now require such a morning line-up, especially on mornings I am fully in charge. Hubby always claimed I missed my calling as an Army General (no lesser rank to be sure!) in charge of logistics. Perhaps Iraq is less well-served b/c of my childbearing decision.  Maybe I can’t have it all but why not run my home in a way that is a perfect fit with my missed career opportunities?  After all, if momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody gonna be happy in this house.

Ten hut,

C.

Dear C (aka Il Duce),

Wish I could have witnessed the charming little scene outside your front door this morning. Next time, perhaps, you could order them to parade around the block, with a pause outside our house for a twenty-one gun salute? It may be the most effective way to wake my own children up. As for A. – saluting at fourteen months! You must definitely put that down on all her private school applications, while of course making it clear that on no account does she support any kind of military conflict, esp. those embarked upon by the Bush administration. Meanwhile, we like to take a more laissez-faire approach to child-rearing chez moi, which is why you may have seen my children attempting to dress, eat breakfast and race for the bus simultaneously this AM, while their father barked orders at them to ‘Run faster!’ But what do you expect from the kind of white trash that persists in sending their offspring to public school – not out of some ideological zeal, I hasten to add, but simply through the unfortunate marital and financial decisions they have taken in life? Guess my first mistake was signing up to the be the mother of my husband’s first family, not his second or third, which is how most people seem to be able to afford school fees here in DC.

Sieg Heil,

P.