which_chick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
which_chick) wrote2019-10-05 11:21 am
which_chick) wrote2019-10-05 11:21 am
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My relationship with my mother, in one story
I love my mom. I do. I feel like I have to start with that because it sounds a lot of the time like I don't love my mom. We are very different people and neither of us is very good at fulfilling the expectations of the other. That doesn't mean we don't love each other. We just... mostly disappoint one another, most of the time.
I am the second of my mother's pregnancies and the third of her children. My brother Roy was one of twins, the other one, named Jack, died on the table at Pittsburgh Children's Hospital at six months old during surgery to correct a previously-undiagnosed congenital heart defect. It was 1969 and babies died back then. It happened. Hell, it happens today and we're a lot better at surgery and shit.
Anyway, my mother's pregnancy and baby doctor was all If you want to have more children, you should go home and get on that because the longer you wait, the more you will worry. This is what passed for grief counselling in 1969.
Jack died in the third week of June, 1969. I was born two weeks late, during the first week of April in 1970. Guess she didn't waste any time on that project.
The year that I was three, the gift for little girls was the Baby Tenderlove from Mattel. If you do not understand the expectations for little girls and Baby Tenderlove dolls, take a quick gander at this vintage ad. Somewhere, there are slightly off-color faded photographs from that Christmas with me and the Baby Tenderlove and her pink bottle and her pink bowl and her pink spoon and her pink highchair. It was the Christmas right after I'd cut my bangs so I'm even cuter than usual in said pictures, a chubby toddler with a bowl cut and scalped non-bangs in the front.
We only have the Christmas pictures of me and the Baby Tenderlove. Like, the tree is still in the background and there's wrapping paper everywhere and stuff. There's a reason for that.
Before the holiday, my Mom had asked me what I wanted for Christmas. According to her, I told her that I wanted A Tonka Dumptruck Like Roy's. (My older brother Roy had a Tonka Dump Truck and it was yellow and metal and it really dumped. It was awesome, perhaps exceptionally so because he wouldn't let me play with it.) She's held to this narrative since the first time she told me about the Baby Tenderlove Incident, so she did know what I wanted.
I guess she thought I was only interested in a Tonka Dumptruck because Roy had one. (This was a pretty reasonable assumption, honestly. She also tells people about the time when she had two balls, one red and one blue. She offered me first choice of which one I wanted. I said "I want Roy's.") Anyway, mom bought me a Baby Tenderlove instead of a Tonka Dumptruck, figuring that I had no freaking idea what I might actually like to have for Christmas. And little girls like dolls. She'd grown up with two sisters. They all liked dolls. Probably I would like dolls if I just had some damned exposure to dolls. Regardless of the reasoning behind the gift, the Baby Tenderlove and all her accessories were my Big Present for that Christmas.
A few days after Christmas, as the narrative goes, my mom asked me where my Baby Tenderlove was. I told her I'd thrown the doll in the burn barrel out back (we burned our trash in a 55 gallon drum outside the back corner of the house because we were rednecks), with the rest of the trash. OF COURSE I had waited until the burn barrel was lit. I was three, not stupid. And my mom (horrified as fuck) was all "Why on earth would you burn up your baby doll?"
"I told you. I wanted a Tonka Dumptruck Like Roy's."
(Spoiler alert: mom never bought me a Tonka Dumptruck. She did get them for my female cousins, though. Betsy and Julie's Tonka dumptruck hauled Barbie around as a construction supervisor.)
I am the second of my mother's pregnancies and the third of her children. My brother Roy was one of twins, the other one, named Jack, died on the table at Pittsburgh Children's Hospital at six months old during surgery to correct a previously-undiagnosed congenital heart defect. It was 1969 and babies died back then. It happened. Hell, it happens today and we're a lot better at surgery and shit.
Anyway, my mother's pregnancy and baby doctor was all If you want to have more children, you should go home and get on that because the longer you wait, the more you will worry. This is what passed for grief counselling in 1969.
Jack died in the third week of June, 1969. I was born two weeks late, during the first week of April in 1970. Guess she didn't waste any time on that project.
The year that I was three, the gift for little girls was the Baby Tenderlove from Mattel. If you do not understand the expectations for little girls and Baby Tenderlove dolls, take a quick gander at this vintage ad. Somewhere, there are slightly off-color faded photographs from that Christmas with me and the Baby Tenderlove and her pink bottle and her pink bowl and her pink spoon and her pink highchair. It was the Christmas right after I'd cut my bangs so I'm even cuter than usual in said pictures, a chubby toddler with a bowl cut and scalped non-bangs in the front.
We only have the Christmas pictures of me and the Baby Tenderlove. Like, the tree is still in the background and there's wrapping paper everywhere and stuff. There's a reason for that.
Before the holiday, my Mom had asked me what I wanted for Christmas. According to her, I told her that I wanted A Tonka Dumptruck Like Roy's. (My older brother Roy had a Tonka Dump Truck and it was yellow and metal and it really dumped. It was awesome, perhaps exceptionally so because he wouldn't let me play with it.) She's held to this narrative since the first time she told me about the Baby Tenderlove Incident, so she did know what I wanted.
I guess she thought I was only interested in a Tonka Dumptruck because Roy had one. (This was a pretty reasonable assumption, honestly. She also tells people about the time when she had two balls, one red and one blue. She offered me first choice of which one I wanted. I said "I want Roy's.") Anyway, mom bought me a Baby Tenderlove instead of a Tonka Dumptruck, figuring that I had no freaking idea what I might actually like to have for Christmas. And little girls like dolls. She'd grown up with two sisters. They all liked dolls. Probably I would like dolls if I just had some damned exposure to dolls. Regardless of the reasoning behind the gift, the Baby Tenderlove and all her accessories were my Big Present for that Christmas.
A few days after Christmas, as the narrative goes, my mom asked me where my Baby Tenderlove was. I told her I'd thrown the doll in the burn barrel out back (we burned our trash in a 55 gallon drum outside the back corner of the house because we were rednecks), with the rest of the trash. OF COURSE I had waited until the burn barrel was lit. I was three, not stupid. And my mom (horrified as fuck) was all "Why on earth would you burn up your baby doll?"
"I told you. I wanted a Tonka Dumptruck Like Roy's."
(Spoiler alert: mom never bought me a Tonka Dumptruck. She did get them for my female cousins, though. Betsy and Julie's Tonka dumptruck hauled Barbie around as a construction supervisor.)