Beauty or a beast?

Tasked with outfitting myself for a Halloween party, and wishing to build my costume around a pair of rotten teeth purchased a few years ago for just such an occasion, I headed to WalMart.

Half-an-hour later, I had a complete trashy teenager ensemble — purple crushed velvet camisole with copious bust, push-up bra with molded foam cups and itchy lace trim, fishnet pantyhose on sale for $1, big hoop earrings, matching skull-and-crossbones leather-ette armbands, a red wig, and plastic high-heel sandals (la piece de résistance for $5.88). To all this I added a denim mini-skirt that I had sewn from a pair of Levis in 1980. The total cost: $40.

It’s cheap to look cheap.

Samantha, age 6, declared that I looked beautiful. I looked in the mirror and saw one of those women who strut through the midway at the county fair on a Saturday night. Is this who my daughter aspires to be? I find myself hoping that conservative and preppy comes back into vogue before she reaches an age when what she wears will really matters. To her, and to us. Or will she always have a natural attraction to styles that make her parents wince?

When I was young, my mother’s college friend — a woman we knew only as Olga — would send us boxes of clothes that her daughter had outgrown. Olga lived in New York City and was obviously a member of a socioeconomic group that could afford to dress its offspring in miniature versions of the same clothes that the adults wore to the country club and PTA meetings. My mother would open each shipment and ogle over the Pendleton wool plaid pants and camels hair coats.

My older sister and I would cringe, denouncing each garment as ugly, hideous, and something only old ladies would wear. We would sooner wear our pajamas to school than be caught dressed in any of Olga’s daughter’s cast-offs.

Instead, my favorite outfit was a leather-look vinyl mini-skirt, complete with fetching fringe along the hem, and a matching brown vinyl vest, also rimmed with fringe. I remember wearing this outfit as many days in a row as I could, and my mother didn’t seem to mind, probably because the skirt and vest didn’t require much maintenance other than an occasional sponging. My sister owned a similar outfit, except her vest had longer fringe.

But when our appearance was required at a family event in Boston, where my grandmother lived, my mother would intervene in our clothing selections. At least until I was 12, when one fateful day, she threw in the towel. She had taken me to a local department to purchase “something decent to wear” to my weird aunt's funeral. The funeral was scheduled for Trinity Church in Boston, and my mother must have thought a Vanderbilt or Rockefeller might wander in off the street. But we were never close to Aunt Ann, my father’s older sister, and her passing was not an event that I thought warranted a fashion makeover. She had smoked eight packs of cigarettes a day and, little wonder, fell victim to lung cancer. She had also once had a frontal lobotomy back when that was the treatment for the mentally unhinged, and my sister and I were as emotionally close to her as we were to a floor lamp. Except for the floor lamp in my grandmother’s bedroom that turned on and off with a clap of the hands. We preferred its company to just about everyone on my father’s side of the family.

From the racks at Hovey's Department Store, my mother thought the perfect outfit for a spring funeral was a skirt and matching shirt with giant pink roses set against a light teal background. She insisted (insisted) that we buy it. I looked in the dressing room mirror and felt like one of Maria Von Trapp’s stepchildren dressed in a frock fashioned from the villa’s drapes. With hands defiantly on hips and snarly expression on my face, I insisted I would not wear it. Yet my mother bought it anyway. I felt completely and utterly defeated.

Then on the way home, we stopped at Zayre’s (like Ames, only lower quality, if that’s possible). There, I found a beige gauze skirt with matching t-shirt and brown faux leather belt. Now this was me! Wearing this outfit, I could hold my head high, smile at my fellow funeral goers, even chat up a Rockefeller, should one walk into the church vestibule. I'd like to think my enthusiasm convinced my mother to buy this outfit and return the other. In truth, the fact that it cost under $10 (to Hovey's $30) sealed the deal.

After that, my mother rarely forced her tastes upon me, probably because she realized it would cost her less money.

I choose not to fight clothing battles with Samantha. As long as her outfits are climatically correct and not too skimpy, she can wear stripes and flowers, glitter and leopard print. Not that I don’t wince or make comments. But I don’t put up a fight.

I’m confident that, thanks to peer pressure, her tastes will mature. As long as her peers aren't the ladies at the county fair.

Meow

When I entered high school in 1978, a girl could choose from three varsity sports, two of which — field hockey and cheerleading — had skirts as part of the uniform. I chose cross-country running, a sport for which I had, and still have, zero talent. But at least I could wear shorts.

We showed up every day for practice — the first sport that most of us had done, except for middle-school cheerleading. We ran long distances and short, and the primary lesson that I learned was how to suffer, that breathing hard did not mean death was imminent. By the end of the season, I could actually run three miles without stopping to walk.

But no one really taught us how to compete. The goal, of course, was to win. Or to run as fast as we possibly could. But we had no idea how to act as sportswomen. The other girls in every race were our enemy. Even the other girls on our team were the enemy. And we often treated them as such, in races and in life.

If we couldn't beat our competitors in a race, then we would trounce them off the field: for what they wore, who they hung out with, what they said, and where they were going in life -- but only behind their backs. We could be very, very cruel.

Thanks to Title IX, girls can now pick from a host of non-skirt-wearing sports. 

But has any of the mean-girl crap stopped? Can girls be proud of teammate who did well? Or only if they do well too? Has cat fighting remained a women’s-only sport?

Men seem to have the competition thing figured out. They compete on the field, against the clock, in the gym, and in the boardroom. But that's where they leave it. And they trash talk and tease with an innate sense of where the line is, or so a male friend tells me. Should a really good soccer player, cyclist, runner, lawyer, doctor, you name it, move to town, the others step up to the plate, try to keep up, and devise ways to excel themselves.

For men, a rising tide raises all boats.

Women seem to view the rising tide as a sign of imminent drowning. Rather than learn to swim, we stand there, water rising, making nasty comments about the tide-raiser.

Why do we care? And why do we pounce so brutally on a woman who dares show herself above the rest — in sports, in fashion, on the job? Must we compete in every venue? Do we fear our husbands, boyfriends, mates will judge us in comparison? Then flee, hoping instead to find the big-haired, big-boobed woman who once ran a successful Mary Kay franchise and now lives to decorate her home in color-coordinated basket arrangements? Does spinsterhood loom unless we have pot pourri in every bathroom and can still fit into our skinny jeans?

Why can't we rise with the tide? And be happy that someone in our midst is a success? Is it innate? Or simply a skill that we were never taught -- the skill of how to be a good teammate.

How great would it be to be on a team where everyone complimented us on our strengths and politely overlooked our weaknesses? Who cheered us in victory and defeat? And who openly talked about what each of us brings to the table? Might each of us actually flourish?

Hard to know. I have yet to find a team that works this way.

So if you'll excuse me, I'll go sharpen my claws on the furniture. Just to be safe.

New math: when 70-30 is 50-50

I married Andy for many reasons, but mostly because he’s not a typical guy. He finds hunting stories loathsomely dull and wouldn’t set foot in a Hooters even if the food was good. Or so he claims.

I’m not exactly a Cosmo girl myself. I have never had a manicure or pedicure, don’t pluck my eyebrows, and think Martha Stewart deserves her own special ring in Hell – a ring decorated with mismatched hand-me-down sofas (I have the perfect set!), wooden tables with water stains, and a floor covered in orphan Legos.

In our newlywed days, Andy and I did almost everything together, from pedaling away the miles on long bike rides, to watching movies (except those starring Julia Roberts). We even shopped together, sharing the same disdain of malls. Planning was easy. Whatever one of us wanted to do, the other did too. Mostly. 

So when Samantha was born six years ago, it came as quite a shock that our roles suddenly and sharply differed. Yes, I had some inkling over the nine-month gestation (actually, ten) that things would be different. For starters, I grew huge, topping out just 20 pounds shy of my 200-pound, 6 foot, four inch husband. I no longer walked, I lumbered. While Andy went on long bike rides, I sat on the couch and sulked, only managing a short walk (waddle) in the hours he was gone and thinking surely when the baby was born, our roles would equalize again. Ironically, my wedding ring no longer fit.

Five days after Sam was born, Andy left for work, his paternity leave over. Or so he declared. I stood at the door in a baggy t-shirt, two wet spots growing on the front, my rear-end filling out my elasticized-waist pants, Sam wide awake in my arms. What would this little baby and I do all day? We sat on the couch for hours, Samantha sipping slowly as if my breast were her own personal cocktail party while I stared into space (reading a magazine was anatomically impossible). When Sam wasn’t bellied up to the bar, we walked. I felt like Forest Gump, not so much walking away from something as trying to walk back into it.

I soon became insanely jealous of Andy’s 45-minute commute to work. He could listen to NPR uninterrupted, spend eight hours at work conversing with fellow adults, and use his brain as if it hadn’t been blown to bits by hormones, anxiety, tedium, and constant interruptions. His body hadn’t changed. He could still ride his bike at the same speed he always had. He even joined a tennis league.

That had been my life too. Now who was I? An overweight, overwrought, overtired woman incapable of speaking in complete sentences and who broke out into tears at the slightest provocation, like not being able to find the right sippy cup valves at the supermarket. Work for Andy must have been a relief, a step back into what life had been, a break from this creature who had taken over his wife, this creature who looked at him, jealousy brewing behind a pathetic mask that had a passive aggressive look of, “Why won’t you help me?”

No wonder he took up tennis.

Since those first months, we have taken many steps, collectively and separately, and just as many missteps. It has taken several years to understand and control my jealousy, trying to come to terms with the root causes — the misguided or unfilled expectations that led to it and the fact that, despite my feminist insistence that men and women are alike, we’re not. What I see as a 70-30 split of housework and parenting, Andy sees as 50-50.

Jealousy still rears its ugly head, and Andy calls me on it. I am not so quick to call him on his missteps, for confrontation upsets the domestic apple cart. And rather than dealing with it, I scurry about picking up the apples as I fume and ruminate. And then I write, first disparaging Andy, then realizing that I should disparage myself in equal share.

I must confess that I’m selfishly jealous of his tennis because it doesn’t include me, and that despite my occasional threats of getting a real job, I’m happy to work from home. Were it the other way around, our house might resemble a cross between Circuit City and Toys-R-Us, a complicated mix of plastic children’s toys, high-definition TVs, and a remote control that works every appliance except the washing machine. In the fridge? Milk and beer.

Instead, the refrigerator is mostly full of vegetables, as well as milk and beer. The washer runs perhaps too regularly, and I sit here writing blog entries.

It’s cheaper than couples counseling.

Settling Down

When my mother discovered that Andy and I were getting married, the first words out of her mouth were, “Good, maybe now you’ll settle down.”

Settle down? I thought. Like throw out my mountain bike, backpack, and passport in exchange for an apron and flowery house dress? She seemed to think that I rode my bike every day to impress someone, that I traveled because I was looking for something, or that I only scrambled up steep couloirs because I was chasing some boy. OK, maybe a little. But I genuinely love being outdoors -- skiing, hiking, cycling, even just walking. I spent my 20s and early-30s bicycle racing in the West, climbing almost every 14,000-foot peak in Colorado, slogging up the snowfields and glaciers of Mt. Rainier in Washington State and Mt. Elbrus, Europe’s highest peak. I skied every winter weekend and not on the bunny slope. Giving all this up and “settling down” would be as difficult as cutting off a limb.

But this is what my mother had done in the 1950s when she finally met my father. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1946 and spent the following decade teaching elementary school. On weekends, she skied, hiked, and rode her bike, among other pursuits no doubt considered too vigorous for her gender. One summer, she traveled to Europe alone, studying in Oslo, Norway, and traveling the continent. On one expedition that summer, she hitchhiked on a freighter from Italy back to Norway.

She rarely tells us stories from this decade, as if this time of her life happened to someone else. Her mission, she said, was to find a husband, and after 10 years, it must have felt a bit desperate. Most of her contemporaries had met their mates in college. My mother had missed the boat and was adrift at sea, not really enjoying the voyage and doing everything she could to find a friendly port in which to anchor. The word "spinster" was probably uttered by mean-spirited relatives.

When she met my father in 1956, her wanderlust faded. She had found her port. They married in 1959, and my sister was born two years later. I followed two years after that. She shelved her blackboard chalk and threw herself into mothering. As far as I can tell, she was never happy again.

My sister and I were lucky to be born into the generation that believed it could do whatever it wanted. Although I always assumed I'd have children -- two girls two years apart like me and my sister -- I didn't particularly want to be a mother. Mothers did boring things like cook vegetables, hang laundry in the dark basement, darn socks, and nag. 

Fathers, on the other hand, left the house every day, had offices with windows overlooking the world, sometimes traveled, and made money. They talked to interesting people, told dirty jokes, and laughed. They were happy. I wanted to be like my father, without much consideration for who would actually cook vegetables, wash clothes, and do the mending for those two girls I would be having. My sister and I both attended the same prep school as my father, then went to his alma mater for college. Our classmates talked of law school, med school, and jobs in New York. No one ever talked of having children.

When Andy and I married in 1998, nothing changed in my life. I raced my bicycle up New Hampshire's Mt. Washington, I rafted Class V rapids in West Virginia, and I backcountry skied at night in a foot of fresh snow. We bicycled around Mallorca, skied in Zermatt, and mountain biked in Moab, Utah. No way would I settle down.

Now that we've had a child though -- a girl, but only one -- I wonder if my mother's unquestioning acceptance of her role wasn't easier than balking against its demands. I constantly juggle too many balls, and one invariably hits the floor with a thud.

But is it better to pick up a dropped ball than tediously tossing only one ball in the air over and over, year after year until I forget that I actually am capable of more?

I have settled down to a degree. My bike rides rarely leave the county, and when we ski, we stick to the easy trails, trailing behind our daughter. We still travel, but we stay in places with swimming pools and eat in restaurants that sell more kid food than cocktails. Although I neither work full-time nor wear the Mommy hat 24/7, I have to keep a few balls in the air, even if I no longer toss them as high. It's the only way I know who I am.