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In junior high, my mother picked me up from school in her Volvo station wagon, my sister
perched in the back. We waited through the throngs of walkers, and I
cowered a bit in the front seat. Like every 14-year-old, I
was hyper-self-consciousand the fact that my mom and her boyfriend were major hippies and no one in Wisconsin had ever heard of a Volvo before and
thought our car was "weird" was a major embarrassment. (It wasn't until the Volvo
finally went to the great Swedish Auto graveyard in the sky that I discovered
the untapped cachet of the brand.) In eighth grade, your weapon was your mouth,
and I was always on the defense, but was practicing my superpower of turning
invisible by not meeting anyone's gaze, by not thinking any thoughts or showing
emotion. It was probably my best skill until I learned how to tie a cherry stem
in a knot without using my fingers.
Two girls in my
grade passed in front of the car at an intersection.
Two average girls, not popular, closer to the cast of Freaks and Geeks than Gossip Girl. One said something to her friend, and then kept walking. I watched the exchange and felt a familiar plummeting feeling in my gut and tried to brush it away, but right then, my 9-year-old sister in the backseat spoke up. "Do you know those girls, Weet?" "Yeah, sorta." "Are they your friends?" "I don't know!" I actually was friendly with Kim, the speaker. We made each other laugh in one class, but definitely weren't hanging out with each other or anything. "Oh, because you know what they said? I read her lips. She said 'Weet's fat but her mom is pretty.' " I turned to look at
my mother in the driver's seat. She got flustered and giggled a little, the
same way she did whenever a guy tried to flirt with her at Shakey's, even when
her boyfriend was sitting at the table with us. She recomposed and then said, "Weet, you should confront them tomorrow at
class. You should go up and say that your little sister read their lips and knew
what they said. You could say that your little sister is
deaf!" But her voice was chirpy when she said it. She continued to
concoct confrontation scenarios, each getting more elaborate about exactly which
moment I would spring this revelation on the girls, who would be there to
witness the shakedown, the shame they would feel for getting caught. I didn't point out to
her the obvious: what they said was actually true. I was fat. And my mom was
pretty.
Let me explain: I was cursed as a child with a pretty mommy. I'm not biased: my
mother was so beautiful that she was stopped in the street by strangers who
asked for her autograph. Some people thought she was Cher (in my opinion, she
looked NOTHING like Cher, but whatevs), others just assumed that she was famous.
She was tall and thin and had amazing cheekbones and these piercing blue
eyes. At parent-teacher conferences, she would cause my male teachers to stammer
and be unable to meet her eyes. Every little girl in my Brownie troop begged to
sit next to her, every little boy in my neighborhood brought her flowers. She
wore bikinis when I was in high school, and she looked GOOD in them. Forget June
Cleaver, I was raised by Janice Dickinson.
Through grade
school, kids and teachers would tell me that my mother was so pretty. They said
it like a surprise. I always imagined that in their heads they thought Mama Bix
would look like Lulu from HeeHaw. The slender, tall creature with the lilting
hostess voice was a bit of a jolting contrast. "Uh-huh," I'd reply, because what
do you say? What? "Thank you"? "Yes, believe it or not, her body produced me!"
"I'm sorry I don't look more like her"?
The worst part is that in some ways, I was her little
childhood doppelganger. She had been a blonde as a child, with her hair turning
much darker brown around middle childhood. I too started out a strawberry
blonde and then faded into my current chestnut brown (ok, I assume that whatever
is under my current shade of Mrs. Mia Wallace is still mostly chestnut and not
entirely a witchy grey). I inherited a similar shade of blue eyes and we had nearly identical cheekbones and facial structure,
only I missed out on her angular nose and instead got the upturned sorority girl thing that I tried not to view as porcine. She had been chunky as a child,
with Sumo-wrestler thighs in her baby pictures that begged to be poked, and
while I hadn't been overweight as a baby, I had settled into a decent puppy
tummy by the time I was four. My great-grandmother liked to remind me that my
mother had been a quintessential gawky ugly duckling until then too, whereas my
classic bone-structure was obvious from the start, and she just knew that I was
going to be breathtaking and, unlike my mother, really make something of
myself. Everyone, including my mother, told me that the weight would just "fall
off" when I hit puberty, just like my mother's did, and then I would blossom
forth. I would be a cheerleader in high school, chased by dozens of guys, and
excrutiatingly popular, just like her, just like she was. Just wait and see.
Just wait. I waited.
My mother is no
longer beautiful. Again, I am unbiased here. A lifetime of smoking,
sun-worshipping and oxidation has caught up with her skin and her metabolism has
slowed to a crawl. She engages in one-sided competition with her two daughters, for decades reveling in the fact that of the three of us, she wore the smallest
size. When she was faced with the realization that my sister might--just
might!--have gotten to be a size smaller, my mother went into hiding and now,
the discussion is off the table with my sister. No matter what, I'll never be
smaller than her. My fat ass is her ace in the hole. Should I ever lose a
significant amount of weight and drop below her on the scale, I suspect that
she'll stop speaking to me completely. Sometimes, after a particularly painful
phone call or interaction, I want to threaten weight-loss surgery, just to see
the panic, just to watch her calculate the possibility that she would be the
only member of the trifecta wearing a double-digit size. In my fantasies, I
complete the scenario: see me waltzing up in an impossible size four, suddenly
looking every inch of the inherited 5'9". I would be
her doppleganger once again, turning down flirting men while she watches the
ghost of a lifetime that once was. Just wait, I want to say. Just wait! We're
both still waiting. 13 CommentsLeave a comment |
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Thank you for writing this - I don't think any of us can clearly grasp what an impact our parents (and their looks/behaviors/opinions) have on us as children until we ourselves are adults. I was very tall growing up (both parents short) and, combined with my lighter hair and eye color, was ALWAYS confronted with "Oh, is she adopted?" by strangers or even my parents' friends. Sometimes they were just saying it in jest but STILL...you don't SAY that!
I really need all these essays published and bound and on my bookshelf. Like yesterday. To give to everyone.
When the experts are looking at causes of EDs' I think they should ALWAYS look at the relationship with the parents. Not that parents are always or even solely to blame, of course, but for many of us, there is definitely a linkbetween our relationship to them and our EDs.
BTW, A LOT of people assume my kids are adopted. My husband is Filipino, and our kids have very dark hair and dark eyes. (For a while, when my sister-in-law lived with us, people thought we were a lesbian couple and that she was the mom.) Seriously, I did all the work! Give me a little bit of the credit, people!
Wow, that is almost tough to read.
I had a much more supportive mother, but it never ceases to amaze me when her competative nature comes out with me. In my little ideal world, moms only feel pride for their kids, not the need to be better than them. It is just so odd, but obviously true.
I'm going to sound in from the other side; my Mom is awesome. She is 100% supportive and accepting of her three very different daughters. And although she may have had reason to be resentful by times (she was one of FIFTEEN kids - university was not an option although she deperately wanted to go. My youngest sister has spent way too many years getting an undergrad, which was completely paid for by my parents, that has not yielded a job other than "nanny"), she never has been.
Sadly, in her love she has contributed to some of my disordered eating behaviors, namely my emotional associations with food. Food is for comfort, and when we're celebrating, and just when we're bored. And dessert after supper, because one needs a little sweet to finish the meal.
I look like my dad, and my mom - who has darker skin and different hair texture - was assumed to be my nanny when I was a kid.
But that's kind of wacky. I mean, why even compete that way? You're her kid. You're not her generation, not the same level, and why bother? She's her, you're you, you're a sharp writer, and if she cares, it should be for reasons of health, longevity, and well-being. I used to be upset when I couldn't paint as well as my mom when I was 5, but my mom just laughed at me through my temper tantrum, and I never thought about competing with her again.
Although I got really pissed at my little bro when he developed asthma and decided that the best way to spend an afternoon was sitting on his butt in front of a computer. He's built so that if he started doing the most perfunctory lifting, he'd get incredibly jacked in like a week. And he could lessen the effects of asthma by strengthening his lungs. Used to piss me off beyond belief that he sat around and did nothing. You can't imagine the fury. Maybe it's the same thing with your mom and she just doesn't know how to express it? Like she's always been worried and thinks that goading you is the best way to motivate you to get healthier?
I don't know, I'm just saying... I'm an inveterate problem solver. I suck at just listening or just reading. I'm sorry if this is offensive; I don't mean to be.
(But since I was in high school, I've learned to better communicate w/ my bro and he got uber-tall, plays ultimate frisbee for fun with his friends, and has gotten less soft. Like he can throw me over his shoulder. Haha.)
Every time I read one of your entries, I am completely absorbed, both by the content and your writing style. Thank you for sharing this!
Thank you so much for sharing this story. It must have been tough. Sometimes I think that even our parents don't realize the huge influence that they have over us and the way we live our lives.
Well, after reading the comments, I have to say this: I hear ya. My mother was not beautiful, inside or out, and she's always been in competition with me. It took me YEARS to understand that that wasn't normal and that it wasn't my imagination. I had the great displeasure of being the thin daughter who my heavier mother believed had gotten everything that was rightfully hers. It did a number on my relationship with food, and after several eating disorders, here I am - almost as fat as she is.
It's not easy to live with someone like that. I'm sorry it happened to you too, and I want you to know that you're not alone.
My mom was always a natural beauty and never had to wear makeup, so she never showed me how to wear makeup. I was the only girl in my california middle school not wearing a half inch thick pancake of MAC junk and I got guff about it every day. I swear public school should be outlawed.
I have had the great fortune to have had the opposite sort of experience. I have an identical twin sister, and we're both thinner and taller than our mother, but she's never been anything but supportive, always telling people how smart and pretty and tall her daughters are. (She's only 5'2'', so being tall is a big thing to her.)
My mom was always a natural beauty and never had to wear makeup, so she never showed me how to wear makeup. I was the only girl in my california middle school not wearing a half inch thick pancake of MAC junk and I got guff about it every day.
I would be a cheerleader in high school, chased by dozens of guys, and excrutiatingly popular, just like her, just like she was. Just wait and see. Just wait. I waited.