Uncle John’s Presents Mom’s Bathtub Reader (21 page)

Today the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker fascinate both tournament crowds and TV fans at home. If the popularity of poker hasn’t faltered since the Civil War, neither has its reputation as a man’s game. So in 2000 it was quite an event when a thirtysomething soccer mom who was over eight months pregnant came in tenth place in the World Series of Poker. No small accomplishment. For Annie, it was just evidence that the high-stakes world of poker could be a great career choice for a mother.

Big money, job flexibility, time for her kids . . . it’s all a dream come true for Duke, who came to her unusual profession in the usual way. She had to juggle marriage and kids and she badly needed money. But some say that gaming is in the lady’s genes.

Born into the Lederer family, Annie grew up on the grounds of a preppy boarding school in New Hampshire where her father taught English. Card games and chess were family obsessions, and poker playing seems to run in the family. Annie’s older brother, Howard, dropped out of college to play chess, but he eventually moved into the world of professional gambling. Now he is also one of the world’s poker greats.

Annie stayed in school and attended Columbia University, where she was a member of its first coed class, and then
went on to graduate school to study cognitive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She was finishing up her dissertation for her PhD when she realized that she didn’t really want to spend the rest of her life in academia. With a boldness that would eventually serve her well at the poker tables, Annie proposed to her boyfriend, who said yes. The two married and went to live in Montana.

A scarcity of jobs and a need to help keep the roof over her family’s head inspired Annie to call her brother Howard and ask him to teach her to play poker. She did so well that the Duke family eventually moved to Las Vegas. Her husband, Ben, who ran his own investment business from home, agreed to take on the child-care chores when she was away at the casino . . . and the rest, as they say, is poker history.

For Annie, her “beautiful family” remains her first priority. This responsibility to her family may help keep her ego in check and make risk management a lot easier. It may be that self-control that has contributed to her great success. Very few players can win as consistently as Annie Duke does—or cope with losses as well. But win or lose, Annie considers poker the perfect job. That’s because she’s an involved, hands-on mom with a simple strategy. “If I have a sick child or a soccer game, I don’t have to play.” Sounds like the perfect work schedule for any parent!

She was even a no-show at a game where she could have taken home a six-figure pot. Why? She had decided it was more important to be at her daughter’s sixth birthday party. “I didn’t care what kind of money was at stake . . . I’m not missing that party,” she said. “You know what?
When she’s 25 and in therapy, she’s going to be talking about how I missed her sixth birthday party.”

So play is actually work for Ms. Duke, but rest assured it’s no easy gig. She relies on skill, not luck, to make her living. She has to memorize cards and calculate the odds in order to bust some bluffs and second-guess her opponents’ moves. She considers her gender an asset, as it rattles some men who are a little touchy about losing to a woman. When they’re rattled, they lose more.

She treats the game as strictly business, managing her money carefully. Annie has a separate cash stash specifically set aside for her playing stake. She never gambles her winnings on other games, unlike some poker players who will immediately gamble their winnings at the craps or roulette tables. Annie doesn’t take her work home, either. Her kids have no playing cards. Guess gambling isn’t a family affair.

Courageous insect moms risk their lives for their offspring.

Y
ou just never know where you’re gonna run across a heroic mom. The kind who would risk her own life to save her child. We’ve all heard the stories about supercharged moms able to lift cars to save their children. But would you expect to meet such a supermom in, well, a pile of dung?

The insect world isn’t known much for decent parenting. Many insects lay their eggs, hide them, and then it’s bye-bye baby. And if most insect moms see a hungry predator go after their eggs, they will, not very bravely, run, wriggle, crawl, or fly away. But among the multitude of species of insects on Earth, there are a few dedicated and even heroic moms.

Some insect moms—like those among dung beetles—can be quite devoted. Most species of dung beetle moms simply lay their eggs in underground tunnels, then take off after leaving the babies with a supply of dung for food. Others form brood balls, actually enclosing the eggs in a ball of dung, but then they, too, are off to enjoy carefree, childless days.

But for
Copris lunaris
, a special type of dung beetle, such behavior is unthinkable. The
Copris lunaris
mom carefully cares for her eggs after they’re packed in the brood ball.
She will turn the brood ball so that the egg and porous areas are at the top and not in contact with damp soil, making the ball less susceptible to fungus or parasites. She will repair the surface of the ball and smooth out irregularities—keeping her eggs in the best environment possible until they can hatch and fend for themselves.

Copris laeviceps
, a smaller dung beetle, is even busier. In addition to keeping the brood balls round and repaired, mom will defend her little dung heap (actually called the “nest chamber”) by killing the larvae of any unrelated species—because these might become a predator to her eggs.

Other insect moms can be downright fierce when protecting their brood until the babies are old enough to fend for themselves. A praying mantis mom camouflages her eggs or hatchlings and then stands guard over them. If another insect approaches, wanting to eat the praying mantis nymphs (babies) who can’t defend themselves, the formidable predator mom will attack to kill.

The European shield bug takes on any bird or insect that wants to chomp on her clutch of eggs. She will not back down, even if the confrontation means certain death. She protects the eggs by keeping them behind her shield. If a predator insect or a bird tries to eat them, she stands fast, tilting her body bravely toward her enemy.

The Brazilian tortoise beetle mom also stands up to her attackers, but in her case the whole family works together until her hatchlings are mature. The Brazilian tortoise beetle arranges her newly hatched larvae so that she can perch atop them. Then, when a predator attacks, she makes a fighting stand while the little ones back her up. They have
hooks on the end of their tails to which their feces are attached. If a predator bug tries to chomp on this family, it will get a mouthful of beetle feces instead of young and tender beetles. That can really discourage a hungry enemy (or at least ruin its appetite).

Just as with human moms, you can’t tell a courageous bug mom by her outer appearance. Even seemingly delicate creatures like the lace bug mother can turn ferocious in times of danger. A damsel bug is a deadly predator to the flimsier lace bug. But a mother lace bug will attack a damsel bug if necessary. Creating a diversion, she will fan her wings at the damsel bug to distract it from her offspring and allow her nymphs to escape.

Scientist Douglas W. Tallamy has found a reason why some insect moms could be careless and others are so full of motherly love. His theory is that fiercely protective moms are “semelparous,” meaning that they breed only once in a lifetime. So instead of laying many clutches of eggs, the semelparous moms have only one shot at having kids. The protective moms spend their time and energy defending their one clutch of eggs and making sure their offspring survive. Other insect moms breed often, which gives them plenty of time to get busy and makes protecting their young less important.

Of course, what works in the primitive insect world isn’t comparable to what works in the complex and socialized world of human beings. A human mother with an only child isn’t necessarily more protective than one with more children. Still, it is nice to know that courageous moms can be found in so many dung-gone shapes and sizes.

In a crisis, a good stepmom keeps her cool when others are losing theirs.

R
aising stepkids is never easy and any stepmom can have a bad day. But if you were married to King Henry VIII, a bad day might be your last on earth. Altogether, head-lopping Henry was married to six women: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Kathryn Howard, and Catherine Parr. Two queens he divorced (Aragon and Cleves), and two he beheaded (Boleyn and Howard). But two of the queens, Henry decided were keepers, noggins and all.

Both Jane Seymour and Catherine Parr kept their heads about them and managed not only to keep horrible Henry happy but also to nurture his abused royal brood. Without the efforts of these kindly stepmoms, the history of Merry Olde England would have been decidedly different.

Whatever else you can call Henry, “nice guy” probably doesn’t leap to mind. He wanted a son and heir and was willing to get rid of anyone who stood in the way. That included his first wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon, who gave him a daughter, Princess Mary. Henry waited for Catherine to have a boy . . . and waited some more. After
twenty-plus years of waiting, he decided to play “let’s make an heir” with a new contestant.

When he dumped his faithful wife, Henry also dissolved the English association with the Roman Catholic Church because the pope refused to let him divorce Catherine in order to marry Anne. In 1533, the king declared himself Supreme Head of the Church of England. Then the king annulled his first marriage, exiled his old queen, and married a new one—feisty, flashy Anne Boleyn.

Unfortunately for Queen Anne, her first child was a daughter, Princess Elizabeth, instead of the son Henry desired. Henry sighed and gave her another chance, but Anne’s second child was a stillborn son. The disappointed father didn’t even bother to ask the once-loved Anne for an annulment of their marriage; he axed Anne’s head off instead.

Henry wasn’t only tough on wives. His kids suffered too. When Henry annulled his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, his daughter Mary was 16 years old and the pampered princess of England. After the annulment, Mary was declared illegitimate—a waif in danger of losing her life. Her bad dad demoted her from princess to lady, sent her to live away from court, and forbade her from seeing her beloved mother.