The Many Thoughts of Wanda Kidd

My last post spoke about how my mom prepared me to meet the challenges of adolescence and beyond. I promised four stories that would capture that process. Here is

Story #2

There Is A Good Chance You Are Just Jealous

To the casual reader, this story reads like a “girl’s story.” It could easily be dismissed as something that girls do to each other and labeled as petty angst.  Heaven knows probably everyone, but particularly every woman I know, at one time or another, has had their story trivialized, demeaned, or ignored by people in power.  I remember how angry I was when my high school boyfriend’s mother called me “her son’s little girlfriend.”  Granted, I was little, and I was his girlfriend, but I knew she meant it to downplay the seriousness of it, and there is not a girl alive who does not understand that your first real boyfriend was SERIOUS. Fortunately, reframing this particular story made me look at all of my relationships with new awareness and clarity that lasted long past the third grade into adolescence and well beyond.

My mom was not a traditional nurturer.  She did not give many hugs, have bedtime rituals, or do a lot of book reading, but she loved to design and create clothes for me. When I was young, she let me go with her to pick the fabric, patterns, and buttons for a new dress. Then, when she had cut out the garment and begun sewing, I would sit on her bed, and we would talk.

I am unsure if I loved fabric and creating clothes because of my mom’s love for it or if it was innate, but my heart tells me it was a natural bond between us.  When I was two and a half, we took a train to visit her family in upstate New York.  When we were close to the station, Mom changed my clothes so I would look cute for the arrival.  She was only 23 years old and the returning prodigal, so my cuteness was important. I vividly remember being shy about undressing in front of strangers, but she lured me into cooperating because I loved the dress she made for me to wear for the event.  To this day, I can recapture the image of that dress.  The fabric was white with little red umbrellas all over it, and she had appliquéd a red upside-down umbrella pocket on the front.  It was adorable.

When Mama sewed, we talked about everything. There were stories of people from her past, what it was like growing up where it snowed waist-deep, and the trauma of her father’s death when she was twelve, which left her family destitute and changed her life forever.  Mama was very private and did not let many people into her story. I felt privileged to be her confidante, even though that responsibility became quite burdensome as years went on, but then, It made me feel valued and loved. All in all, life was good…until third grade.

I absolutely loved school, but the third grade was a grave disappointment.  My teacher was older and had no sense of humor. She was unkind to us but would become delightful when parents and other adults entered the room. That incongruence was troublesome to my nine-year-old sense of fairness. In addition, for the first time, I was not the teacher’s favorite. (a position that was not publicly acknowledged or lamented. The teacher’s pet was an undeclared role, but everyone knew who they were, including the pet).

However, besides the unpleasant classroom culture,  I experienced my first brush with negative interactions with girlfriends. It came out of nowhere, and it was particularly hurtful that the taunting centered on my clothes and that my mom made them. I was confused and devastated by the gibes. (Why do people who want to hurt others have an innate ability to go right to the core of their victims and attack them where they are most vulnerable or about something they hold most dear?)

Well, according to my mother, it was because she was jealous.  What? Are you kidding me?  Mama, her family’s name is on half of the stores on Main Street.  She is the most popular girl in the class. She is smart and pretty, and the teacher loves her.  What does she have to be jealous of?

“Your clothes”, she said.  I responded, “But she said they were ugly and asked me why I couldn’t buy my clothes like everyone else?” To which my mom said, “But are your dresses really ugly? “No”, I said.  She spoke pragmatically when she pointed out in a language we shared, “And her mother, while a lovely person, wears clothes that are dated and bit frumpy. So, it would be reasonable that her daughter’s clothes are similar.” “I can’t tell her that!” I said.  “No, please don’t, but we are talking about truth, and what would make her say those things?  I think she is jealous.”  I shook my head and braced myself for another day of the horrible and painful third grade.

It got so bad, and I cried so many tears that I developed an honest-to-goodness stomach ulcer and had to take Maalox as a nine-year-old. And through it all, my mom would listen but shake her head.  “Why do you let her bother you so?” I had no answer, but the shift in my world was significant.  It impacted my grades, and I doubted who I was and what I held dear.

One winter afternoon, I got home from school to find that my mom had been to the grocery store and was still putting away the eggs and milk.  She looked at me and said, “Guess who I ran into at the grocery store?”  It was an odd question because we knew everyone in town, and why would I care?  I shrugged, but she went on like a dog with a bone, “Your friend’s mom. When she saw me, she came over and said in that genuinely kind way she has, “Virginia, you either need to start sewing for other people or quit making Wanda’s clothes. I am so tired of Sissie going on and on about how Wanda’s mom makes her clothes, and why can’t I do that, too? So, would you consider making clothes for Sissie?” Mom said she did not think she could fit that in with three kids and a full-time job but thanked her for the compliment.

She could hardly wait for me to get home from school so that she could tell me about this interaction. There was nothing that someone in my family enjoyed more than being right and proving it to the other person. I guess for this to be the perfect story, my mom would have made Sissie a beautiful dress, and she would have worn it with pride and thanked us all, but wisdom and life say that there was a distinct possibility that if she found out that her mother had shared that weakness, she would have just doubled down. As it was, Sissie and I went on to be good friends through many of life’s incarnations.

No, what I got from that experience was an insight into people, which has served me well for the rest of my life. If someone sets out to put me in my place, it is usually because I have upset the perceived balance of power in their life, and they need to reorder that with whatever means at their disposal. Life often feels like one continuous thumb-wrestling event that is exhausting.  But from that day forward, my go-to thought for a person who wanted to bring me discomfort or even pain is that there is a good chance they are just jealous. Sometimes, I compliment those people; sometimes, I remove myself from untenable situations; and sometimes, I hold the truth close to my heart and revel in it. Judge me if you want to, but then you know what I am going to think.