LJI Week 3: In Another Castle

[deza]

My mother turned 40 a month and a half after I was born.

"So?" you say. "That's no big deal."

Except when it totally is.

When my mother was a teenager, WWII was going on. There are family stories about the POW camp near her town and the German soldiers that would walk in to her father's store to get odd treats and chat up the pretty girl. She was in college when she met my father. They had a grand total of three dates before they married in the 1950s -- Daddy was in the Navy, so most of their relationship was carried on by correspondence, both before and after the marriage.

Mom was every inch the military housewife. She ran things when Dad was deployed -- which was 19 of the first 27 years they were married. She had three sons, and one surprise baby girl just as the youngest son was gearing up to turn 13. She smiled and had bake sales and ran the PTA, was a member of both the Enlisted and (later) Officers Wives Clubs, supervised moves for herself and others. She's lived in Italy and Japan and on both coasts of the States. Behind the scenes, she always Got Things Done, whether it was a birthday party thrown together days after an international move or "arranging" for a cheating wife and family to be transferred to another base.

That was the woman who raised me. June Cleaver from a distance, Lucretia Borgia when she needed to be. She raised me to be a 1950s housewife just like her. I can sew, cook, clean and make it all look easy. I know how to handle a surprise "Honey I'm bringing the boss home for dinner" call with less than an hour's warning. I can golf and dance and mix cocktails and hold my own at any Country Club party. I can change a baby's diapers while making sure the toddler isn't peeing in the fireplace or covering the dog in mayonnaise.

Those skills are not exactly relevant in today's society.

You see, between when my mother became a housewife and I came along, this little thing called the 1960s happened. You may have heard of it. Suddenly women weren't expected to be Susy Homemaker any more. We were supposed to have jobs and careers and fulfilling lives outside of the family. Trophy wives were no longer The Thing To Be. The world changed, without my mother's permission.

She didn't see a need to change with it.

When I went to college, it was with firm instructions to "find a nice boy to settle down". I was told to hang out at the fraternities on campus because the "nice" boys would be there. Following that advice landed me in a world of trouble and hurt. So I turned my back on her vision of my future. I found a passion for knowledge, followed that through undergrad and grad school and into the working world. I refused to be the 1950s Trophy Wife my mother wanted me to be.

I'm not sure she's ever forgiven me for that.

There's still a little of the 1950s upbringing in me. Just a touch -- and that touch is enough to often make me feel like part of me is living in a different era. Sometimes I still fantasize about the life envisioned for me, about being the Trophy Princess in a castle on a hill.

Til fantasies come true, I'll be just fine in the castle I've built for myself.

This is my entry for LJ Idol Season 9, Week 3, In Another Castle. Thank you for reading.

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[deza.livejournal.com]

Do what you have to do. There's a reason I never told mom when I went from modeling to stripping.