It's Becoming

I grew up when girls had long hair and wore dresses.  Trousers of any sort were forbidden at school except for snow pants on a winter’s day, and then they had to be removed at the classroom door.  (Anyone remember cloak rooms?)  I, however, was a tomboy.  Somehow I buffaloed my Mom, usually so conscious of social norms, into letting me lop off my hair (think a cute bob a la Rachel Maddow).  Out of school, I ran around in my brother’s old Tee shirts and jeans.  (Well, my Mom was a product of the Great Depression; hand-me-downs were a fact of a third child’s life.)  Even as a little girl, I did not like the constraints of a stereotype. 

My own daughter was a petite, slim child (read “small and skinny”) on the outside but indomitable on the inside.  The days of gender dress were over, and I have vivid memories of her racing through her aunt’s kitchen and out the door with an enormous millipede between her fingers, screaming triumphantly, “Look what I’ve got!  Look what I’ve got!” 

Then there were the hours of delightful play as she entertained her brother thinking up ways to kill the doll Billy by having him jump off the dollhouse roof, fall out the dollhouse window or slip in the dollhouse bathtub.  Sweet girl.  Her ambition was to be the person who went down in the shark cage.  She was a wonderful child and easy to raise but pink tutus and tea parties, not so much, either of us.

My Perfect Granddaughter?  That’s different story.  She chooses the pink and the frilly every time.  We laugh and say she must have gotten her girlie streak from her dad.  She knows all the Disney princesses, and the thrill of her life was getting done up at the Bippety Boppety Boutique at Disney World.  She’s nobody’s pushover, believe me, but she is all girl.  

(Alan got done up, too)

When she was misbehaving at the dinner table (both my grandchildren are Perfect, so although I can’t remember what she was doing, I’m sure she was doing it to perfection), my daughter rebuked her mildly with, “Stop it, Suzannah; that’s not becoming.”

My head swiveled, and I mouthed, “Not becoming?”

My daughter shrugged, “It works.” 

And so it did. Suzie sat up straight, smiled and became a model girl.

Don’t you wish it were always that easy?  The mean kids bully a meek one in the parking lot, so you walk over and say, “That’s not becoming.” They immediately stop and extend hands of friendship.

Secret service agents in Colombia:  “That’s not becoming,” and they zip their flies and return to the hotel, alone, and sober.

The mental cloud following you around?  Shake your fist at the sky and say firmly, “That’s not becoming,” and the universe shapes up and sends you a sunny, sunny day.

Child's Play

When I was a little kid -- many years before I started kindergarten (well, it couldn’t be too many years, I guess) -- I had doll I named Johnsie.  (The s is pronounced like a z. I was too young to spell, but still . . . .) I remember Johnsie’s weight, the substantial solidity of a rubber doll in the pre-plastic days.  I recall dragging him around the house.  Most vividly, I remember my rule that only my father and I could hold Johnsie. (I don’t recall anyone else every trying to touch him, but that only shows how powerful I was, right?) Putting Freud and my great affection for my father aside, Johnsie was the only doll I remember being deeply attached to. Sure there was a Besty-Wetsy that I got when I was sick in bed for a week with the flu. I don’t think I ever played with her after. There was the lone Barbie that denoted submission to peer pressure. I must have played with her, but I have no memory of it.


No, Johnsie was the important one, for a few years at least. He was replaced when I was seven by a blue and white elephant my dad got me when I had my tonsils out. I named the elephant Pillow because I buried my nose in him like a pillow to erase the lingering smell of ether. I loved Pillow, and I slept with him every night until I traded him in for my husband.

Now despite the classic book, William’s Doll, it seems to me that it’s little girls that like dollies. (Little boys like stuffed animals and action figures which are NOT dolls, not really.) Girls -- despite my own example -- generally like girl dollies. They like to mother them and feed them, teach them and put them to bed.
So here’s what I don’t understand. Given a choice, a little girl picks a doll in a frilly dress, the pinker, the better. She gets her home, and what’s the first thing she does? The first thing she does is take the clothes off the doll. And does she want you to help her put them back on? No, she does not. What she wants to do is take that naked dolly by one leg and drag it around the house. Why is that? Why? The child may ask you to wrap the dolly up in a blanket, but does she want help dressing her? No. I’ve never seen it, not once. It’s so odd; girls like their dolls naked.

Although, now that I think about it, big girls like naked playmates, too. (Hmm, sometimes these posts don’t end up quite the way I plan.)