Catherine Gigante-Brown

My husband and I agreed: raising a child with an independent spirit who made decisions for himself was a good thing.

What Stephen didn’t know –– what no one knew –– was how weak my knees grew when I pushed through the swinging doors of the ICU.

Alas, I am the lone female in a house full of men. Only two men, but they take up a lot of space.

Wrinkles or lifelines? Chunky or curvaceous? The choice is yours.

I’m sure you’ll find it a delicious and well-stocked place. There are just a few rules

Were you going to run into that cute guy John Williams on the way home? Would you see Anne Marie by the lockers and sort out what to do for the weekend? It was hit-or-miss, and that was the beauty of it. The breath-holding chance of it all. Now, our kids’ friends are as close as a keyboard stroke away. It’s too easy.

Instead of categorizing people as different colors, I proposed we might begin to think of each other as Earthtones—because our skin colors are based on hues from the earth. Just as the planet is made up of a myriad of shades, it’s still one cohesive entity. We can be thought of as one entity also.

Although America’s “lying in period” fell by the wayside in the 19th century with the disappearance of the frontier, it’s alive and well today in many cultures globally. Seclusion traditions where both mother and child recover and bond are still the norm in many cultures worldwide.

The Daily News quoted one painted lady as saying, “People come up to us sometimes and say what we do is disgusting,” she said. “But what is disgusting about the female body? They shield their kids sometimes, and I think, ‘Kids come from the female body.’”

I sat obediently in her chair atop four ancient copies of the Yellow Pages. Crossing my fingers, I prayed Catholic schoolgirl prayers.