Excuse me while I explode: my mother, myself, my anger / E.S. Maduro -- Getting the milk for free / Veronica Chambers -- Crossing to safety / Jen Marshall -- Moving in, moving out, moving on / Sarah Miller -- Papa don't preach / Kerry Herlihy -- Memoirs of an ex-bride: looking back, looking ahead / Daphne Merkin -- I do, not: why I won't marry / Catherine Newman -- Killing the Puritan within / Kate Christensen -- Houseguest hell: my home is not your home / Chitra Divakaruni -- A man in the heart / Hazel McClay -- Why I hate that my mother was right (well, about most things): turning into Elizabeth Taylor / Karen Karbo -- How we became strangers / Jill Bialosky -- Erotics 102: staying bad, staying married / Cynthia Kling -- My marriage, my affairs / Hannah Pine -- My mother's ring: caught between two families / Helen Schulman -- Attila the honey I'm home / Kristin van Ogtrop -- The myth of co-parenting: how it was supposed to be, how it was / Hope Edelman -- Daddy dearest: what happens when he does more than his half? / Laurie Abraham -- Crossing the line in the sand: how mad can mother get? / Elissa Schappell -- Maternal bitch / Susan Squire -- The origin, procreation, and hopes of an angry feminist / Natalie Angier -- Married at 46: the agony and the ecstasy / Nancy Wartik -- The fat lady sings / Natalie Kusz -- The middle way: learning to balance family and work / Ellen Gilchrist -- What independence has come to mean to me: the pain of solitude, the pleasure of self-knowledge / Vivian Gornick -- The perfect equality of our separate chosen paths: becoming a mother, or not / Pam Houston.