For lack of a better term, I’m calling this one a short story. It’s really more of a sketch. Maybe a rant. I met this woman and her little girl this week, and I wonder what will happen to the girl in a few years. I’ve never seen a more miserable eight-year-old in my life.
They were part of a caravan of mothers and daughters on their way across the country to some kind of beauty pageant. Nope. Little Miss Sunshine this ain’t.
The big topic of discussion among the mothers was what product to buy to spray on the little girls’ asses to keep their bathing suits from riding up. Little girls’ asses! I’m still reeling from that one.
Mothers.. Please.. I’m begging you. .Stop. .
There are enough screwed up women in the world already.
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An Ungrateful Daughter
Julie Buffaloe-Yoder
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…..All I ever wanted to do was help that girl. The money I have spent on her! Ballet, tap, jazz, gymnastics. All those cute little outfits at two hundred bucks a pop. A professional makeup artist. On my salary. Running around to the local events. Then County.. Regional.. State. .All those trips in sweaty vans with all those no-talent brats and their snooty mothers. I worked overtime, on my hands and knees, to pay for those contests. Virginia, Texas, California—my little girl won them all. Without even trying.
…..What a beautiful baby she was. On day one, I looked into those big blue eyes and saw something special. A shining star above all the rest. It was like God said to me, “Jennifer, I took your mother when you were five. I gave you a drunk, no account father. I stole your childhood and made you work like a mule. You had to drop out of high school before your sixteenth birthday. You married a man you didn’t love to get away from your father. But now I’m going to reward you for all that heartache. I’m giving you the perfect little girl.”
…..My girl could sing like an angel. She looked like one, too. Everybody on both sides of my family has frizzy brown hair. But my girl was a real blonde. Golden. Corkscrew curly blonde hair bouncing around those sweet pink cheeks. People couldn’t stop admiring her. And not just family, either. Total strangers stopped us in the street to ooh and ahh.
…..Then she had to go and get chunky. Sure, every girl has an awkward stage, somewhere along about ten or eleven. But no matter how many calories I counted, no matter how many exercise classes I enrolled her in, that girl just kept eating nonstop. Out of spite. Nobody in their right mind unwraps a stick of margarine and eats it like an ice cream cone. But she did. It doesn’t matter how much makeup you put on a pig, well…chunky girls don’t make professional cheer squad.
…..Then there are the years I don’t even want to think about. Other women got to take pictures of their cute teenage daughters in strapless homecoming gowns. I watched my daughter stagger in the house, reeking of smoke and alcohol. If she even came home at all. Those weirdos she hung around with changed her. “If you lay down with dogs,” I tried to tell her. But she ended up in juvenile detention, no matter what I said. Then there went more money for lawyers.
…..And the purple hair. Oh, God! The night she shaved it all off and told me…her own mother…to go to hell. It was like the devil was standing in my living room, blowing smoke out of her nose. Then all that money I spent on all those shrinks. That fancy mountain retreat where they said they’d cure her. She ended up finding more drugs there than she did on the street.
…..Now she finally decides to get her act together. Thirty two years old. Still ungrateful. Still rolls her eyes and snorts when I open my mouth. I guess every mother has crosses to carry. Believe me, I’ve heard a lot worse on talk shows. Kids see too much violence on TV and those video games. Drugs are everywhere. It’s a wonder any of them ever come out okay.
…..They’ve got her on some new nerve pills, and that has helped a lot. She still looks pretty good in makeup, considering she’s over thirty. As for all the things she could have done, well, there’s no need crying over spilled milk. Her ship has sailed.
…..At least we can laugh nowadays. We go shopping. I buy her nice ladies’ dresses or we get botafirm facials done at the mall. It makes us feel like young girls again. Today, we’re having the baby’s portrait taken at a professional studio. She’s an auburn haired beauty. Only the best for my granddaughter. Now that one—she’s my real heart.
Omigawd.
It ought to be labeled as child abuse. But no one who should, sees themselves in such moments. 😦
Ouch. That must have been some pair you met this week. As you know, mothers and daughters fascinate me. Luckily most don’t end up like this.
No point beating around the bush: this breaks my heart, Julie. Especially the fourth paragraph — reading it is like trudging barefoot on shards of glass. I’ve personally seen and heard children being disrespectful to their parents (even to their parents’ grave), but the other way around, well… talk about emotional abuse within a self-replicating system. 😦
everyday I have to cry some
i see this all the time repeated repeated..turn it into a poem…
Oh my, a stunning portrait of a woman in denial. That poor child. Those poor children! Good grief. Why don’t those (tries to think of a term to describe the maniacal OCD pageant moms but can’t) just go out and buy those kids a tiara?
I’m English so I totally freak whenever I see this gross sexualisation of little girls (we don’t do it here……yet). And, as always when women are abused by accepted cultural practices, it’s other women doing the abusing. How can any woman put makeup on her little girl and parade her around like a teenager. It’s beyond sick. Great post…….and that ass spray………god forgive the mother, but the f*cker who invented it, gggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Hello, Everybody! I’m sorry I’m not responding personally to each of you (awesome comments you have). More running around…but in a good way…it’s a beautiful weekend here:)
Yes, I agree that most women aren’t this extreme. I was in shock.
It has made me think of all the Bride-zillas I know, though. And the mothers of Bride-zilla. The working class parents who go into debt to pay for the “perfect” Cinderella wedding for their daughters.
Then I turn the finger around and point it at myself. I tried really hard to be a mother who wasn’t like this at all. I tried really hard to build her sense of self worth, to give her the power of the strong woman that she is.
But then I think of all the times I whined because I “didn’t have anything to wear.” Or all the times I called myself fat when I was really just normal. I wasn’t saying it to my daughter, but I was saying it to myself. Not a good example for self esteem. If I could go back in time and change the way I looked at myself, I would. I guess I’m trying to change it now.
Thanks again for your awesome comments. The sunshine is calling me again. Have a beautiful weekend!
I think this is a great short story, just as it is! Wonderful, Julie. Poor woman, so superficial, passing along her objective view of her daughter, reducing her to a thing.
This is wonderful. You can really get inside this person’s head.
Thanks, Christine & Nathan. And everyone else. Have a great day.
Mom,
I like how you resisted the temptation to turn this character into a monster or a sterotype. You show a very human side of a very real person who has been delt a tough hand and deals with it in a misguided fashion. I also like how you don’t take the easy way out with big drama – like the daughter never speaking to the mother or ending up with serious mental problems. Rather you take a much more subtle and nuanced approach, which makes it all the more realistic and powerful. Great stuff.
Thanks, Amber! I’m glad that shows through. I was wondering what motivates a person like this. Certain things she said about money…well…I can sort of smell a poor gal from a mile away:)
I do feel sorry for her (but mostly for her daughter). The girl was so silently angry. One thing I left out that would be a great detail for a poem is that we were standing near a row of Halloween candy…hundreds of bags of colorful candy. The girl kept wandering down the aisle and staring at the candy, then the mother would scold her for just looking at it! What a mixed message. The girl was so pretty and verging on that pre-adolescent growth spurt. The mother kept talking about the girls’ stomach and thighs and how she was getting chunky. Chunky was the mother’s word. Yargh!
Who knows. She might turn out “normal,” whatever that is. Or she might turn into a perky cheerleader type herself. I sort of doubt it, though. I’ve never seen such an angry little girl.
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments!! It’s always wonderful to see you:)