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Brian Reed
Melissa
Joanne
Roseanne
Salpietro
Melissa’s Mom
First Communication
Rick
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Ira Glass - This American Life

The
Motherhood
Of The
Traveling
Pants
For generations, the gender of babies
born into one family have all been
determined in advance. The
pregnant mothers receive a
package in the mail, and
if a little pink dress
is inside, it’s a girl.
If there is a pair of
brown polyester oldman
pants, it’s a boy.
Producer Brian Reed
reports the story.
We
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egin today with a series of messages
that have gone back and forth
within one family for over 35 years.
They are uncanny.
They are mysterious.
They are inexplicable in their
accuracy. Brian Reed explains. A
Brian Reed
few weeks ago, I talked to woman
named Melissa Salpietra. She’s pregnant,
so she had a lot on her mind.
But the thing she was obsessing over
most-- more than baby names, or
strollers, or the new house she and
her husband recently bought-- was
this package that had arrived in the
mail with her
name on it. I
CHARLOTTE,
NORTH CAROLINA
Melissa Salpietro
haven’t seen it yet. I have been away
from home. And the package came
to me at my house in North Carolina.
And I’ve been in New England
for the summer.
But it probably is some sort of padded
manila envelope that you get at,
like, Staples or something. And my
husband is going to bring it to me
this weekend. And if I open it up and
there’s a pair of pants in it, I’m going
to have a boy. But if I open it up
and there is a little pink dress, I’m
going to be having a girl.
BROWNFIELD,
NEW ENGLAND.
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Melissa’s Mom
know, we joke. We laughed and
thought, oh my God, look at this
little polyester pair of pants, little
old man pants. And at that time,
you didn’t do sonograms. You didn’t
find out the sex of babies before you
were born.
So we just waited.
And when the first born was born, it
was a boy. Did
you guys have a moment where you
said, oh, wow, Nonna was right?
Yes.
We all said that. Oh, hey,
she picked it. Great. Now
to nail that job interview? Talk to
Nonna. Trying to buy a new house?
Go see Nonna. She didn’t even make
you kiss her hand.
So years before Melissa was born,
when one of Nonna’s grandsons announced
that his wife was expecting
a baby, he went to Nonna and asked
for a little favor.
He told her he wanted a boy. Here’s
Melissa’s mom, Mary Annette, who
was around at the time. You
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is Roseanne, the next of Nonna’s
grand-kids to have a baby.
Roseanne
just a heads up here. Nonna had
this big Sicilian family. And their
names are what one might call variations
on a theme. There’s Mary Annette,
Mary Anne, [? Roseanne, ?] [?
Joanne, ?] Melissa Anne.
So the woman who had this first
baby boy was Mary Anne. She
named her son Tony and stitched
his name on the tiny pair of pants.
And then for some mysterious reason,
without even being instructed
by Nonna, when the next woman in
the family got pregnant--
She
just automatically when she found
out I was pregnant, she packaged it
up and mailed it to me as a good
luck charm.
This
You know, I just got the pants and
assumed I was to have a boy. Why?
That seems a little bit crazy. I
know. When I think bad it’s like, I
don’t know, kind of weird. Because
honestly, my husband and I never
gave it a thought.
I mean, we truly did not have a girl’s
name picked out.
Because
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wanted the girl. I wanted to be the
first one to have the girl in the family.
There
Mary Annette was, lying in a hospital
bed back in the old country,
about to go into labor any day, fantasizing
about her new baby girl. And
my husband comes in after work
one day. And he says, I picked up the
mail, here. It was this manila envelope.
I thought it was pictures of her baby.
I thought it was, you know, newborn
baby, they sent me pictures.
So I opened the envelope. And out
falls the little brown pants. And I
screamed. I went, oh, fuck, fuck,
fuck. You
swore? I
did. I said, oh, no.
I wanted the girl. A
you got a little pair of pants in the
mail, you just were sure you were
having a boy? It
was meant to be a boy. It was meant
to be. It was going to be. And
across the Atlantic Ocean, Mary Annette
was on the verge of having a
baby. She was living in Italy at the
time. And she was due just a few
weeks after Roseanne.
So Roseanne stitched her newborn
son’s name on the pair of pants.
Packaged
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what did you have? I
had my son, Tommy.
Meanwhile
it up and mailed it to Mary Annette,
thinking that that’s what she would
want, you know, a boy. I
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few days later, Mary
Annette had a son. After
that, we all looked at Nonna. Then
we asked. We all looked at Nonna
and said, OK, how about a dress
now? Nonna
abided. She sewed a miniature pink
satin dress and gave it to Mary Anne,
who was pregnant with her second
baby. And the rest was like clockwork.
Mary Anne had a girl. She sent Roseanne
the dress. Roseanne had a girl.
She sent Mary Annette the dress.
Mary Annette had a girl, and then
another girl.
Nonna wasn’t directing this. But everyone
knew where the power originated.
Nonna was batting seven for
seven.
A few years passed. And then Nonna’s
prediction powers reached a
turning point.
Because Mary Annette was the last
one to have a boy and the last one
to have a girl, which means she had
possession of both the pants and the
dress. So when Mary Annette’s sister-in-law
announced that she was
having a baby, it was up to Mary
Annette alone to decide which one
to send. The power to determine
the sex of this woman’s baby was in
Mary Annette’s hands. And
I’m sitting in my family room getting
the pants, getting the dress,
getting the envelope ready with her
address, her name and address, to
send. And then sitting there looking
at these two items, I said, I have
a choice to make. And I don’t know
how many times in and out that envelope
went the dress or the pants,
the dress or the pants, the dress or
the pants.
And I said, I can’t play God. I’m going
to have to let her choose. So I put
the dress and the pants in the envelope,
mailed them to her. I
called Mary Annette’s sister-in-law,
Joanne. She vividly remembers tearing
open the envelope, the pants
falling onto her kitchen counter, the
dress tumbling out right after it. A
couple months later, the doctor told
her she was having twins.
Joanne waited until she delivered
her twins to find out what sex they
were. Though really, she knew all
along.
First
Joanne
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off, he says, you have a son. And he
handed me the baby. And I was like,
oh my God, my boy. I got my boy.
And then I think they were only born
one minute apart. He immediately
then said, and you have a daughter.
And it was just, of course.
It wasn’t a surprise to me.
And
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It’s a boy!
Melissa went around hugging everyone.
Her brother, Nonna prediction
number three. Her cousin, Nonna
prediction number five. Her sister,
Nonna prediction number seven.
Laura.
Laura
Yeah.
I’m calling to tell you that Nonna
was right again.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh. That is so crazy.
I have goosebumps.
Do you?
Finally, she could wipe the sweat off
her brow and breathe a sigh of relief.
Not only was she getting the boy she
wanted, she could call Nonna’s relatives
all over the country without
shame or disappointment and tell
them that number 23 was right.
Brian Reed is one of the
producers of our program.
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