Ann

Ann is the baby mama. When I wrote my first post and called her the "former baby mama," Jenna corrected me. There is no such thing as a former baby mama, she said. Once a baby mama, always a baby mama. And she is right. Unfortunately. So, anyway, Ann is the mother of Alex, or as she calls him, Alexahnder. I am probably losing your sympathy with my tone. After all, Steve left her for me (sort of). But she is not some innocent, wronged wife. She is an Ivy League-educated control freak who has had 2 children, conceived with different married fathers. I'm sure she was surprised when Steve stuck around, and she certainly made him pay for the privilege.

I still haven't convinced you, have I? Maybe this will. When Steve first left the house, he was communicating with her by e-mail. He had a standard closing on his e-mails that said, "Steve." She wrote back, "Whose Steve? In this household, you were always Stephen." I told him he should write, "Certainly not yours" to the question, "Whose Steve?" But let's look beyond the incompetent spelling. That bitchy comment lost more of you, didn't it? But since she likes to remind everyone how smart and well-educated she is, I figure she should proofread her e-mails.

Anyway, back to the Steve question. I thought, Maybe he used to go by Stephen. He's British---a lot of Brits go by whole names that Americans would shorten. (Of course, Ann is American.) I asked, repeatedly, because it seemed incredible to me that a woman would insist on deciding what her forty-something lover could call himself. So he showed me old name tags from sales conferences he'd attended. A couple said "Stephen," but most said "Steve." Then he showed me programs from community theater groups he'd been involved with in the UK. All listed him as "Steve Copperthwaite." So let's think about this. There are a lot of people who insist on being called one thing, usually their whole names. I have never been one of those people. I am Katherine, Kate, Mac (for McMahon). I am even Ed (Ed McMahon, Johnny Carson's old sidekick). At the bar we hung out in after work, I was likely to hear "Hi-yo!" when I walked in. For those of you under forty, that's what Ed McMahon used to yell when Johnny came out.

But I know people who might only want to be Margaret or Elizabeth. That's their prerogative. I make an effort to call everyone what they introduce themselves as. There's the second level of control: women (especially) who want their kids to be called only one thing. Back when I was little, parents called their kids things like Joey or Jonny. Now you're likely to hear "Joseph!" or "Jonathan!" at the playground. Again, this might seem a little pretentious, but you can understand it. They named the kids something they liked; they have something invested in those names. So I'm a zero on the 1 to 10 name-control scale. Women who want to be called one thing themselves are maybe a 3. Those who then start correcting people who nickname their kids are, say, a 6. But have you ever met anyone who renamed her lover/significant other and then insisted he call himself that? She is over a 10. It is especially frustrating because her name is about as short as you can make a name: Ann Dun. Maybe she has short-name complex.

You can imagine this causes problems in our relationship and in Steve's relationship with Alex, a.k.a. Alexander. And as the only non-control freak in the bunch, I am the one who pays. So Ann limits Steve's access to Alex. (She's very clever about this, making appointments, etc., so that it would be churlish of Steve to demand more access.) And Steve takes it out on me---and Tom, because Tom is here.