Maddison is eleven. Wait, don’t go anywhere, because this could totally relate to you. Presumably you were eleven once. And, I’m guessing, just like me, you were embarrassed by your parents at least once. Perhaps even mortifyingly so.
My mother was an absolute bandit for embarrassing me. She didn’t mean to of course, but well, when a massive generation gap meets limited budget, it was to a teenager, like social death.
Let me count the ways.... I guess the worst thing my mother ever did to me was cut my hair. Short. Like a boy. In Year 6. Well technically I gave her the go ahead. See, she loved me with short hair while I on the other hand knew the only way to my first kiss and/or boyfriend was to not look like a dude. But she got me with the almighty dollar. She offered me fifty bucks if I would get my hair cut short. See, right there, that’s messed up. I mean, who does that? But being the clearly easily bought little tramp that I am, I accepted.
I took my Dolly Magazine down to the salon, showed the hairdresser a picture of the model with a short, yet stylish flicked hairdo and sat down waiting to be transformed. The result? A brunette Ronald McDonald. Pretty much no one spoke to me at school for almost 5 months. Here’s a heads up: Fifty bucks can only buy you so many packets of chicken twisties to take away the pain.
Now they say clothes don’t maketh the man, but they almost certainly make the teenager raging her way through puberty. I am testament to that. See, back when I was around 14, I wanted labels. Those labels here on the Gold Coast were Cheetah and Oakely. There were a few other surf brands as well, but mainly those two. Sadly, even back then, over 20 years ago, a pair of Cheetah togs were $70. Oakley sunnies were over a hunghy. Yet, the fact that mum could not supply these made me feel undeservedly hard done by. So we improvised. Or I should say, she did. Rather than forking out for a pair of Cheetah Tracksuit pants to take away on my year ten camp, she Hobbytexed CHEETAH on my $7 Best and Less pair. Oh I was popular.
She also made a lot of my clothes. Here I am in a little number I would wear skating at Skaters Paradise even years later. Sometimes with a fetching flip skirt.
And it appears as we get older, our parents don’t stop the rot. Phil’s dad, my now Father in law, embarrassed his son beyond belief the very first I met them. Now, Allan, Phil’s dad, is a lovely guy, so much so, he was super excited that his son was bringing home a “new” girl to meet them. Clearly Phil had been just lovin and leavin em before that. He asked me upon entry if I’d like a drink. Now Phil’s parents do not drink. Like Ever. Yet at some point they’d been given a bottle of Baileys, so that was what was on offer. I accepted happily, loving not only a bit of Baileys but also the social lubrication. That’s when Allan poured the Baileys into his best glasswear and chunks fell out. See, at some point, probably at least two years prior, he’d added some Milk to the Baileys BOTTLE and then returned it to the abyss of their liquor cabinet. Ahh, I’ve loved his dad ever since.
So have I learnt anything from my childhood? Will I zip my lips or buy my children all the cool stuff so they fit in? Maybe, because I remember only too well how this stuff can pre-determine a kids coolness factor.
Mind you, I did find myself leaping out of the car this morning and pinning Maddies hair back for the school photos she had on later that day. I then may have proceeded to wet my finger with my own saliva and wipe Milo from her chin. Oh God. It’s started.
How did your parents embarrass you?
27 comments:
Hobbytexed. There is a verb I have never seen.
Mum embarrassed me in recent years by calling the home phone of the boy I loved, at 3 am, to ask me whether I was coming home or staying there at his house. Right in the middle of our first - and last - kiss.
My Dad made my sister and I get our hair cut short enough that we could have passed for soldiers.
The first time meeting my in-laws-to-be we were giving them my old phone and I'd left my old Virgin sim card in there. My FIL pulled it out and said, with a massive smirk on his face, "Oh, you used to be a virgin? I guess you ran outta credit, huh?". Apparently I've never turned so red before in my life.
Oh hon, that's beyond embarrassing. Parents, who'd have em? Well we all would I guess xxx
Oh Glow, that kind of makes me want your FIL as mine. Inappropriate sense of humour - tick!!
Wow its like we come from the same family!... i also grew up with some lovely home made matching onsombles as did my cousin we were often dressed like twins just different colours, never rated high in the coolness ranks when trying to get noticed at the local blue light disco.
OMG - I can relate to both, what my mother did to me, and what I subsequently have done to my now grown children - and yet somehow they still love me - phew.
Although even though I hobbytexed I can say I never even though to do the label thingy - so part of me thinks your Mum rocks, but of course I would never tell her that. xxx
I can't complain about the wardrobe but my mother was the Queen of licking down cowlicks and spit face washing. She then graduated to folding knickers in front of visiting boyfriends, which wouldn't have been so bad if she didn't always find the daggiest floral undies with a hole in them and hold them up to the light and ask "what do you think? Time for these to go in the rubbish?"
Ewwww, the spit thing. I can't remember my mother ever doing that, and if she did I don't want to know.
I cannot spit lick finger wash. Just last week, it had to end. I was trying to do a kiss and drop, and whilst making up for my guilt by doing a licked finger spit wash on Charlie's Vegemite encrusted face he SHOUTS at the TOP of his voice "Mum. Do. NOT. SPIT. ON. MY. FACE. Ewwwwww. Muuum. RANK." Every teacher and kid at school now thinks I am a spitting freak.
My mother was a demon for applique and sequins - sometimes together. She would take a perfectly fine black pullover (read teenager who was early adopter of grunge in the 80s) and whack a triangle of random, bright material right in middle of it. The only way of stopping her was to wear the clothing at all time. It peaked at my school formal when I left the house to get my hair done, and came home to find my beautiful green formal dress newly adorned with a diamond sequined applique right in the middle of the neckline. Noice.
My dad was my high school science teacher. Enough said. The fact he got a blood nose one lesson...and proceeded to teach with a tissue shoved in one nostril..probably explains the broad shoulders I have these days.
First thing that comes to mind is my mum telling the shop assistant my life story while I was trapped in the change room, squirming with embarrassment. It happened every time we went clothes shopping.
I had the same haircut as my brothers (short, short, short) until I was 13 and would hide whenever the word hairdresser was mentioned. My wardrobe was filled with nanna-like op shop dresses (and not in a ubercool vintage kind of way). It was no wonder that every cent I earned from my part-time job at Woolies Deli got poured into new clothes.
Now: I try to come up with a balance for my own kids - well the teens. They choose how they want their hair and clothes is a mix of necessities plus a couple of label treats (usually included in birthday and Christmas presents). My theory is that if they're given a few of these they won't be so desperate to blow all their disposable income on clothes in the future.
I had the Lady Di cut long after it was fashionable thanks to my dad preferring short hair. I also wore my Godmother's fencing pants to a disco birthday party, because I was so desperate to have pedal pushers at the last minute. Some mole looked me up and down and said "Oh. Are *those* your pedal pushers?". In retrospect - how awesome was my godmother?! - she could swordfight and was slim enough to lend clothes to a 12 year old!
The anonymous commenter above's stealth hit and run bedazzling mum may just be my favourite person ever.
My Mum also made my clothes...a particular hit was the brown corduroy Holly Hobby knickerbockers-and-vest set (complete with yellow skivvy underneath) fashioned for my 7th birthday party. I also sported the unfortunate "curly-haired-girls-shouldn't-do-short-hair" cut when I was 13, but I was more Orphan Annie than Ronald McDonald...or, actually, maybe not.
Hey Bern,
Great post! My mum also made our clothes and I was lucky enough (NOT!) to often be dressed in my brother's hand me downs so I was mistaken for a boy more times than i care to remember! I buy my nephews cool clothes but on EBAY so they are a bit cheaper!
p.s. Also love the stealth sequinner - classic!
I shared with you last night the way my dad embarrassed me during childhood. My mum used puff paint on my tshirts as well. I'd forgotten that till now. Oh dear Lord.
Oh God -where to begin. Thank God my mum can't sew, is all I can say. Best one was when I was 15. I went out all day & then to the drive-in that night with friends. I had forgotten to call mum to let her know, as usual. So, worried, she turned up at the drive-in and got the guy to announce'Benison O'Reilly your mother is here. Please come to the office' over the PA, thereby interrupting every single patron's movie experience in the process! Mind you, now I embarrass my son by calling his friends' mobiles if he doesn't answer his, so I guess I'm becoming my mum, as we all do.
Quietly chuckling here. I don't recall anything especially horrifying from my parents. Aside from the Kmart clothes (Oh the horror of it!), and the spit face cleaning. And what was it with the smell of the supposedly clean tissues she'd dig out of the bottom of her handbag? That's the number 1 reason why I use the cute little purse packs. Can't stand handbag smelling tissues LOL
As for the spit thing, we've never done it. We started early teaching our kids to lick the tissue themselves before we wiped. Only if they complained about having their face wiped would we spit. But then they deserve it, right?
Oh my, I read your blog Bern and was shuddering all the way through. My lovely Mum even made my school uniforms once and couldn't afford an overlocker so I had to endure those lovely handstitched hemlines. It was, however, the home perms that have cost me a lot of money in therapy. Being a redhead, it wasn't going to happen anyway, but I so badly wanted that Madonna spiral perm look and Mum just did not get it. I'd suggest to her, while she was rolling my locks onto tight round curlers that perhaps if she sort of spiralled it down the curler... umm.. no, "I've been doing my own perms for 30 years blah blah.
The result: A massive bowl of red tight curls... Aaaaaargh! Say no more
I'm about to embark on a Keratin treatment addiction as part of the healing process.
Oh God, the horrors I can remember. Mum used to make our clothes too, including my school uniform. Hence my school uniform was always longer, looser, and flairier (to disguise any butt defination)than anyone else's, and it was always slightly the wrong colour, because she'd get the off-colour material a little bit cheaper. Mortifying.
I survived childhood unscathed. However, now as an adult, my Mum is weirdly inappropriate, and it doesn't go unnoticed among my friends. It's her method of getting me to change to the way she wants me to be. It's taken years, but I've finally figured her out... She made me and loves me more than anyone, so, she won't let anyone (not even ME) wreck her best and most important work (I'm an only-child). Couple that with the fact that she openly declares "I'm old so I can say what I like, how I like, whenever I like" and you can almost appreciate her capabilities. She's an old dog so there'll be no new tricks. Now that I accept that, our relationship is actually rock solid. She's still sometimes hard to take and I have to conscientiously bite my tongue a lot - but I guess one day I may well be similar, hopefully without giving my kids too much heartache along the way!
Like no-one said, I never ever did the spit wash. My mum used to do it to us as kids; she'd spit on her hanky and wash our mouths. eewww! I hated it so much I soon learned to make sure my face was clean before leaving the house and I taught my kids to clean their faces as soon as they'd finished eating, because I was NEVER spit washing any of them.
My father once appeared in a hotel lobby at 1am as I was pashing a boy. "How long have you known him?" he asked. Uh.... 2 hours......
My mother cut my hair short too, around the same age. When I say "my mother" I mean, my mother gave me instructions to attend a certain hair salon after school one day, where she had instructed THEM to cut my hair short. SHE was nowhere in sight. So I sat by myself in the hairdressers having my long locks removed in tears, alone. No fifty bucks for me.
I was having a snog with a boy down on the beach at the surf club teen disco and my father who was one of the supervisors, shone a very bright torch down onto the beach mid snog. Oh so very embarassing when you are 14....had forgotten about that till now. Obviously that memory is not too far repressed though!
My mother preferred us (my sister and I) to have short hair, because she could never grow hers long. She actually admitted that once. So off to my auntie's every couple of months (yes she was a hairdresser) for a vile short bowl haircut which my father would laugh at when we got home. Mum was surprised when I told her last year that I hated those haircuts! Mum was also a dressmaker so I used to get well made saggy outfits all the way through primary school. To top it off, she called my friends looking for me once when I was 29 and married with kids! We were late getting back from visiting someone she hated. Didnt own up to it until my friends laughingly told me. I think people left the room when that fight started.
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