Girly

I think my mother always hoped I’d be more girly than I am. I was a classic tomboy as a child, always sporting scratches, scabs, and bruises from various adventures. I loved trees, and would climb for what seemed like hours on end. Or stop climbing, after a while, and just perch on a limb, looking and thinking, until I was called down. My feet were always bare, and black with dirt.

Mum is completely different. Particularly when I was younger, appearance was very important to her. She was meticulous about being neat and tidy and creating a good impression. She wanted this not just for herself, of course, but for her kids as well. She would rub rouge on my cheeks before taking me to school, and this was when I was still in primary school. Like lots of girls I knew, my ponytails were so tight that my head actually hurt when my hair was loosened at the end of the day. Very occasionally, my taste would agree with Mum’s; I think that’s how the sneakers with rainbow holograph Velcro-strips ended up in my possession. (Hey, it was the 80s.) But such concurrence was a rare thing indeed.

When I was perhaps ten years old, we attended a family wedding. I had no particular role in the nuptials, but Mum disregarded this fact and dressed me as though I was some kind of flower-girl. I wore a white, lacy dress with a thick, pink waist-ribbon. I believe there may also have been white, lacy knee-socks. If I remember correctly, it was after this incident that I really started to protest in response to my mother’s fashion crimes.

At my brother’s wedding last year, Mum was thrilled to see me in the bridesmaid’s dress. For weeks afterwards, she passed on the glowing comments of neighbours and old friends I’ve never even met: ‘And Joyce down the street, you don’t know her, she said you looked absolutely beautiful.’ And I like these positive comments, they please me, but at the same time I know that Mum is so thrilled because I’m not always her ideal daughter. She loves me very much and is proud of me, I know this, but she just wishes I were more regular. With a job she understood, and a life she knew more about because she wasn’t scared to ask, and, ultimately, a husband, child and mortgage.

When Mum looks at those wedding pictures, I think she sees that ideal daughter. And I think she pretends for a bit. When I look at those pictures, I see myself looking unusually dressed-up and made-up, with a hairstyle that took an hour to complete. And I liked the game of it, the play of it, but it’s not who I am – or who I ever could be. Maybe Mum will understand this someday, and maybe she won’t. The latter prospect makes me a little sad, but this is the way it often goes in families, I suppose. I don’t have kids, but it seems that much of being a mother is about planning and hoping for your kids. Maybe once they’re grown, it’s hard to give up this planning and hoping and find some kind of acceptance.