Sometimes lessons in parenting can sneak up on us, and in this case, arrived for me just in the nick of time. I’d been invited to a lunch where I was surprised to run into a classmate from primary school.
“I remember you,” said Margot. “You used to ask a lot of questions. Do you remember that?”
“Not at all,” I said. But somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain there was a flash of recognition.
She continued: “The teacher would say, ‘Has anyone got any questions about this or that?’ and you’d immediately put your hand up. You always had a question.”
I was getting the impression that for Margot, this was not a pleasant memory. I sensed her irritation building as she recalled my enthusiasm. Perhaps I’d used precious minutes of lunch or recess as I asked for clarification on trivial points. Maybe it was not just Margot. Maybe the entire class cursed the sight of my raised hand.
As she spoke, the image of my eight-year-old self came into sharp focus. There I was in the middle of the second row, sensible short, curly hair and wearing round-toed school shoes that Mum said would prevent bunions or something. And yes, I could see that little hand shooting up into the air at every opportunity. I could now also see what had not been previously apparent: my classmates rolling their eyes as they watched the minutes tick by on the large clock above the blackboard.
I tried to recall if I had friends. I think I did. I was invited to birthday parties – that’s a good sign, but possibly the whole class was invited. There were only two of us without proper party shoes. Anne Maddox and me. The other girls wore crimson-pink party shoes with a buckle strap. But Anne and I wore our brown lace-ups (no bunions for us). Now I cringed at the memory.
Maybe I should also have worried about the birthday presents I gave. Mum had a stash of embroidered handkerchiefs, because that’s what I always gave – a gift box of four embroidered handkerchiefs. That can’t have been good. I wondered if Margot ever invited me to her party, but I guessed not.
How could I have been so unaware? I remember hating the school shoe thing, but accepted they were For My Own Good. And I must have known hankies weren’t a great gift, but the social implications eluded me.
I was now faced with the uncomfortable possibility that my fond school day memories were misplaced. I told my husband, Martin, about Margot’s observations.
“What about it?” asked Martin.
“Well, she implied that my questioning everything was a bit wearing.”
“Really?” he said, not sounding at all surprised.
“There’s more,” I said. I told him about the school shoes and the hankies. He looked down at my worn-out clumpy brown clogs.
“But these are just for around here,” I protested.
We both knew that wasn’t true.
My daughter’s Primary School graduation was the following weekend and we’d been deadlocked in discussions over what she’d wear.
“All the girls will be in stilettos,” she wailed, as I pointed out pink sandals in the shoe shop that I would have killed for at her age.
“You can’t dance in stilettos,” I said. “You can’t even walk in stilettos.”
“No, you can’t, Mum. Other people can.” She changed tack. “Look, you ruined my kindergarten graduation making me wear that ugly furniture fabric…”
“You remember that?”
“I looked like an idiot.”
“But those little girls were so tizzy in tuille petticoats and synthetic taffeta. Your dress was tasteful.”
“You just don’t get it, do you?”
Given that she was my daughter, I wondered how she “got it.”
If I didn’t want her to suffer my fate, I needed to compromise. We settled on shoes with an “umbrella” heel. She felt like a million dollars, and I had to admit, you couldn’t pick her out of the crowd, which I now understood was the whole idea.
“Just one thing,” I said on the way home from the graduation, “Do you ask a lot of questions in class?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not a nerd, Mum.”
“No, of course not,” I said. “I was just checking.”
*This recently appeared in Read or Die!, a Medium publication
Took me back to my childhood! I was shy and probably never put up my hand. Now in my 80s I’m sure I put up my hand often and people roll their eyes … loved the image too.
Although I cringe at the memory, it’s probably a good thing I was so oblivious!