I made an appointment to get my eyebrows waxed yesterday. As I was leaving the house, Husband was trying to get dinner ready for the kids and looking very exasperated. Aitch started whining that he wanted to come with Mommy, and I thought, “An eyebrow wax takes five minutes. Why not take him along? How much damage could he do?” But then I got to the salon and realized I was going to have to lie on my back with my eyes closed, unable to monitor him as he roamed freely among wires and equipment and, uh, a crock pot with hot wax.

I begged him to be good and, mostly, he was. He asked a lot of questions: “Why you doing that? Why you have a chopstick? [the paddle to spread the wax] Why you have too much hair, Mommy? Can I see it?” Nothing brings home the stupidity of adhering to patriarchal standards of beauty like having to explain them to your three-year-old.

When Aitch started to get restless, I had the brainwave of asking him to come to my side and hold my hand. Then I had an uncomfortable flash forward: This is what it will be like when I’m dying and he’s holding my hand at my hospital bedside. How cheery.

Later, he said, “Thank you for taking me to get your eyebrows cut,” and then, “When I get big, I can go too!” I tried hard to think of a way to respond to that without resorting to the knee-jerk, “Only girls do that.” I mean, the kid has some serious eyebrows. He’s probably going to need to have them waxed before he’s sixteen just so he can see well enough to pass his driving test.