My expectation was that I'd be a mother of daughters. That's where my experience lay: one of three sisters, 12 years of all-girls schools. Daughters would be companionable and familiar. Little Women in the 1990s.

I didn't know a thing about boys. Yet when the time came, two baby guys showed up, and I had a lot to learn and it was great. Boys are a lot of fun. I'm generalizing here, and it's not true for all kids, but girls like to talk and the boys tended to be more action. As a mother of sons, though I was curious about their friends and teachers, I never was told who said what at school, or who was no longer a friend of so and so because of this or that. The boys spent their time after school throwing a Nerf ball back and forth over the roof, or speeding down a hill on trikes they'd long ago outgrown or crashing through the house with phony swords and firefighter hats. They're grown up, but they haven't changed so much. It's been a good life, being a mother of sons.