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Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

Column
Kiss for luck
My daughter's eighth-grade graduation is a ritual like none I've ever experienced.
By Sallie Tisdale
[06/17/99]

Snack time with Jesus
Christian preschool turned my 4-year-old into a fundamentalist.
By Natalie Pearson
[06/16/99]

Trading places
A first-year teacher turns the tables on an unruly student.
By Esmé Raji Codell
[06/14/99]

Tough lessons
An interview with firebrand educator Esmé Raji Codell.
By Fiona Morgan
[06/14/99]

The art of giving up men
In theory, swearing off male attention is easy, but ignoring a flirtatious smile is almost impossible.
By Kate Convissor
[06/11/99]

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Unlike any of those men, my father wasn't stand-up handsome or a fighter or an authority figure or an outlaw. He belonged to the species of men raised by women. All men come from women, but my father had been surrounded by female flesh his whole life. He never knew his own father, who'd shot himself in the head when Daddy was only 6 months old. He had one brother and three older sisters. His mother was a redheaded fireball, a judge in Coffee County, Ga. She fathered Daddy as best as she could -- even giving him a job as her clerk -- and he in turn mothered us, peeling potatoes for dinner, shucking corn, snapping beans, churning ice cream, washing our clothes, whipping our asses, carrying us in his arms. My sister called him Mama.

Daddy was also shaped by my mother, a dreamer stuck in a less-than-ideal reality -- raising four children in a small Florida town known for its mental institution. My mother was clinically miserable in fits and starts and we rode her moods the way you ride in a car that sputters and jerks along. I often wondered why my father stuck by her but I know it was because she was beautiful and passionate and she could be charming when she wanted to be. The combination of being raised in a family of women and living with my mother convinced my father that women, especially unpredictable ones, ruled the world.

In fact, I probably have my mother to thank for the close relationship I developed with my father. Some days I was so overwhelmed by the anxiety of living with her that I couldn't make it all the way to school, even though it was only a block from our house. One morning I walked along behind my brothers, lugging my red plaid book satchel, trying to be excited, but a feeling of dread kept rippling through my stomach. Then all of a sudden it was like a big torrent of water gushed out of nowhere and knocked me over, carrying me back down the hill toward our house. I ran as fast as I could back to the house, back to Mama, my feet pounding the ground so hard my knees hurt. I ran up to the big sliding glass door at the back of our house and pressed my face to the cold glass, banging and crying till my knuckles bruised.

Mama didn't take my panic very seriously. She finished what she'd been doing, then casually slid the door open and let me fall into the room. Then she called Daddy home from work to come and take me to school.

First he drove me uptown to the dime store. The door opened with a jingle of bells. He guided me to the toy section, walking across the creaking floors past Mrs. Bevis with her black cat's-eye glasses and her rows of Sugar Babies and Black Cows. He didn't say a word. I picked up a blue wooden yo-yo and he paid for it, then scooped me up in his arms and carried me to the car. He drove me to school, then we walked together down the halls, the smell of floor varnish heavy in the air. I wouldn't let him leave. He sat in a tiny wood chair across the table from me in Mrs. Ball's first-grade class, cutting flowers out of red and yellow construction paper with little kid's scissors, until Mrs. Ball whispered in his ear and he left without me even noticing.

Next page | When my father found me in bed with my girlfriend, he didn't say a word