Partner

Dear Mom,

The other day, when your daughter-in-law was talking to us about the labor and delivery information she received, she kept saying "labor partner," because that's what it kept saying in the pamphlet. And you snorted and rolled your eyes at the pamphlet and said, "How politically correct!"

I bit my tongue. I bit it because a few months ago, you and I had a fight. You'd said that a girl marrying another girl was the same as a girl marrying a goat or a doorknob, and although usually I know that you and I have very different viewpoints and that fighting about them isn't going to change either of our minds, I didn't think a person should let that kind of comment slide even if it was made by the person's mother, and so I asked you to please say you were just exaggerating for effect and weren't truly unable to see a difference between a relationship with another human being versus a relationship with an inanimate object.

And you would not back down, and then we had one of the only fights of our entire lives, with you eventually pleading tearfully that you didn't mean you thought GAY PEOPLE wanted to marry doorknobs, and me giving up. And it took such a long time for things to be easy between us again, and in fact I still sometimes feel uncomfortable, and so I'm not planning to correct you ever again on anything to do with homosexuality, because I've discovered it doesn't end up doing anything good or positive, and all it does is lead to one of the most unpleasant situations we've ever gone through, and I don't want to do that again.

But by not correcting you, I've set up a bad loop in my head where I imagine you saying it in that sarcastic, scoffing voice, and then I rehearse a fantasy reply, and I work on my fantasy reply for half an hour and get all worked up about it and focused on it, so that when one of the children asks me to help him with his homework I snap at him because he is INTERRUPTING my IMAGINARY FIGHT with YOU. And so I will correct you here, where you never are and will never see it, but where I can type it out and feel better about it.

The pamphlets say "partner" because many women choose a mother or sister or cousin or friend as a labor partner. Maybe the father of the baby is in service overseas, or maybe he's dead, or maybe his job interferes with his ability to be there, or maybe he faints at the sight of blood, or maybe he's an invalid, or maybe he's a jerk who left her when he found out she was pregnant, or maybe he's married to someone else and so can't attend the birth, or maybe he doesn't even know he's the father, or maybe he could be any one of a number of different men she had one nighters with. The pamphlets say "partner" because a woman might not be married to the father of her baby. They say "partner" because the woman's husband might not be the biological father of the baby. They say "partner" because sometimes the woman in labor is a surrogate, and the labor partner is the woman who will be the mother of the baby.

They say "partner" because it's the only word that works for all the possible situations, and there are a LOT of possible situations. Including, yes, the situation where the woman is gay, and her labor partner is her wife or her girlfriend. Or where the woman is gay, and her labor partner is her mother or her friend, because her wife/girlfriend is in service overseas, or dead, or a fainter, or an invalid, or a jerk, or married to someone else, or WHATEVER.

So it isn't "partner" because it's "politically correct" in the sarcastic air quotes sense. It's because it's correct in the literal sense, and because it would be really awkward to have to write a list of all the possible options in every sentence: "You should also pack a snack for your husband or boyfriend or father of your baby or friend or mother or sister or cousin or other relative or wife or girlfriend or mother of your baby or lesbian life partner. Also, if your husband or boyfriend or father of your baby or friend or mother or sister or cousin or other relative or girlfriend or wife or lesbian life partner wants to join you in the birthing tub, he or she should bring a swimsuit." "Partner" is so much easier, and is also correct.

Let's save for our next imaginary discussion the term "business partner," and how that too is innocent of the OMG GAYNESS ALERT!! associations.


Love, Constance