Afterbirth

Afterbirth is about what parenting is really like: full of inappropriate impulses, unbelievable frustrations, and idiotic situations. It's about how life for some parents changes for the worse after their kids are born. Or so it feels. It's about how not every threeyear- old is charming and delightful and about how sometimes when your kid is having a tantrum, you have to stifle the impulse to round-house him. And Afterbirth is funny-the participants are some of the best comic writers and performers today, turning their attention very close to home and sparing no one, particularly themselves. The thirty-five pieces include:

• Caroline Aaron on what it feels like when the kid moves out of the house ("The New Parenting Paradigm")

• Christie Mellor on why it's dangerous to tell people what you really think about being a mommy ("Yahooey")

• Joan Rater on parenting the unexpected ("Attachment Adoption")

• Neil Pollack on unforeseeable and unreasonable parental rage ("The Tennis Pro")

• Matt Weiner on trying not to parent violently like his father did ("Go Easy on the Old Man").