Although all of these fears are understandable, I know that in reality they are not much to worry about. There will be differences, but my husband and I will work diligently to provide her with the same structure we’ve provided for our son, which, we feel, has worked pretty damn well. Her hair, my elders have informed me, will be the least of my worries. This, I know. Which is precisely why I am scared shitless of having a girl. I’ve tried to explain it, but it comes out all garbled, and the people I try to tell chuckle at me, telling me I’ll be just fine. And then, as I heard my mother-in-law relaying my fears to her girlfriend, laughingly, it hit me. All of these other fears are a cover up for what I’m really afraid of—a sort of hypochondria to disguise my real illness. My biggest fear of having a girl is the fear that I will transpose all of my own insecurities and fears and neurosis onto her.
A while ago, my family went to the lake for an afternoon of fishing and roasting hot dogs. On the way home, my niece and nephew, who were driving home with my parents, made up a song in the style of “Ol’ McDonald Had a Farm.” “And on that farm he had a Gramma, EIEIO. With a hat-hat here and a hat-hat there” (Gramma likes to wear hats). Eventually they got to Aunt Michelle. “And on this farm he had a Michelle, EIEIO. With a nag-nag here and a nag-nag there. Here a nag, there a nag, everywhere a nag, nag.” Nag. I am commonly referred to in my family as a nag. My response—if people would do what I told them to, I wouldn’t have to nag. I am bossy. I am a know-it-all. I am a smart-ass. My friends and family know this, and love me anyway—or maybe because of this.
It is rarely my intent to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I know I do it more often than I’d like. “Um, did you wear that skirt to school today?” I asked my teenage niece. My intentions were entirely sincere and caring—it was a little short, and I wanted to know that she wore shorts or something under it. I remember a day in high school, wearing a jean skirt, where the educational assistant came up to me, while the students were sitting at our desks in an all-class circle, and whispered in my ear that the way I was sitting with my legs crossed allowed the boys sitting across from me to see my underwear. Talk about awkward. My comments to my niece were merely in a concern for her to not have to experience the embarrassment that I once did. But do you think that’s how a 13-year-old construes that comment? Not quite. I know the comments I make to my daughter, in an attempt to stave her from discomfort, will be construed as criticism. And no amount of backpedaling can erase what’s already been said.
In all honesty, my criticism isn’t always geared as a protection for the person it is aimed at. Often, particularly regarding my son, it’s as a protection for myself. I am insecure. Although I think I’m pretty damn cool, my perception of people’s perception of me is that everyone thinks I’m a loser. And again in all honesty, one’s child is seen only as a reflection of their parents. When at a birthday party with a gaggle of four-year-olds, when one child is acting like a wild banshee, what every other parent there is thinking—even though they may not say it—is “who are that kid’s parents and why aren’t they over here parenting?” I work in education and grew up with parents and in-laws who work in education—I know how this goes. You have a student, that student, and when parent-teacher conferences come around and you finally meet little Johnny’s mom, it all clicks. Ah, you say, so that’s why Johnny is a terror. Granted, there are a few occasions where the parent is not to blame, and there is certainly a level of “kids will be kids,” but I know that in my quest to appear as the has-it-all-together-mom, I’ll over-criticize my children. So far, I’ve done okay with my son. But expectations are different for girls, and the role of the mother is stronger for daughters than it is for sons (I can blame my son’s behavior on his father). Yet why should my daughter have to suffer because I’m insecure? She shouldn’t—but she will.
I’ve talked with these girls, whose mothers have had a hugely adverse effect on their psyche. I worked with a high school girl whose self-esteem and therefore eating disorder could be directly tied, with at least eighty percent relevance, to her mom. A good friend of mine, with similar self-esteem issues, can also relate it, again with a good eighty percent, to her mom. I don’t want to be that mom. But I fear that I will be, that I am, that mom. I fear it with all my heart. That one day my sweet girl will be sitting in therapy saying, “Yeah, yeah. My mom was something else. Nothing I ever did was ever good enough for her.” I fear that she will never know, never truly understand, that my criticism and nagging is derived from love, and that nothing, nothing, she will ever do will be wrong.
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