Archive for the ‘Children’ tag
Sunday Mornings
This piece originally appeared at The Millions
1.
My parents spent the weekend at my house recently, and besides the standard good feelings of spending time with the people who raised me, I’ve come to look forward to these visits because they are two able-bodied adults who can help watch my kids. Once the initial greetings are shared, bags unpacked, and meals cooked, their presence in the house offers the unusual chance to sneak away to check my email unmolested and go to the bathroom without being interrupted mid-stream by a door-pounding demand for apple juice.
Purloined
“I’M NOT TOO GOOD AT THIS, SO TELL ME IF I’M BEING TOO ROUGH.” Such a comment, coming out of the mouth of a rookie shoe clerk fitting a pair of loafers or a novice tailor tugging on the lapels of a jacket, might pass unnoticed. Their imprecision, while momentarily annoying, would cause no lasting injury, for the things they are jostling with rough hands aren’t attached to you, after all. But put that statement on the lips of a woman holding your genitals and wielding an electric razor, and it takes on quite a bit more significance.
I heard it while I was laying on my back in a procedure room in Northwestern Hospital, naked from the waist down except for my socks, waiting to get a vasectomy. Desiree, the young, attractive, African-American medical assistant who would be helping the urologist that day, was already mowing away at my crotch with a beige set of clippers when she confessed her inexperience. The handout the urologist gave me during my initial appointment suggested that I shave myself the morning of the procedure to save time, but a new job and the two kids who led me to this state of affairs left little time for special grooming that day. So now Desiree was doing things to me that some men would pay good money for a woman like her to do.
Planning Parenthood
This piece originally appeared at Gapersblock
I KNOW WHY MEN ARE SO INSECURE. My uncle wore his hair long well into his forties, plays guitar in a band and still rides a motorcycle. My bachelor friends lap up the glossy machismo packaged in Maxim and The Man Show to prepare for their apparently swinging lifestyles. Every Monday morning, a former co-worker used to regale the office with tales of weekend sexual conquests, in case we doubted his manhood. I used to wonder why these guys clung to the Alpha Male Brand so tightly, but recently I stopped asking. I now know that at some point a mere 20 weeks after conception, before they even took their first breaths, someone had already made fun of their dicks.
My wife Debbie and I stood in a dark room on the 14th floor of Northwestern Hospital, watching an ultrasound monitor with her parents. The technician moved the probe around Debbie’s stomach and tapped at a keyboard. This was The Exam, the most crucial to date, as it would spot any potential problems and tell us the gender of our first child. Our eyes misted as we counted ten fingers and ten toes, checked off fully formed organs, and saw the profile of a face. But we hadn’t answered the big question. Halfway through the procedure, Debbie asked, “Can you tell the sex is yet?”