She Thinks

My folks (especially my mom) had some very definite ideas about child rearing.  When my brother and I were young, there was a certain formality to the way things were done; how we were supposed to act; when we woke/ate/went to bed; and even how we were dressed – that was typical of the times.  Not surprisingly…our dad worked long hours in important jobs (of course), and mom ruled the home (and was the primary disciplinarian).

The “strict” nature of it all came in the form of discipline and manners.  My mom was a no nonsense woman when it came to her children behaving properly.  We were NEVER allowed to talk back, or (God Forbid) utter the word “No” to our parents…EVER.

Of course I tried it…once, and ended up with a mouth full of soapy water.   YUK.

From that point on, the threat of “don’t you say that – or use that tone – to me or I’ll wash your mouth out with soap and water” (lips pierced and wagging her finger at me) took on a true and ominous tone to which I would quickly back down (no matter what).

There were a few “spankings” along the way (until I got too big to fit across my mom’s lap and we both realized how silly the whole thing was) and more than a few banishings to my room.  But nothing much more in terms of actual “punishments.”

The worst was when my mom would get so mad at us that she would send us to our rooms and go to the kitchen and begin emptying the dishes (or pots) from the cabinets and begin washing them all by hand, while yelling at the top of her lungs (to nobody in particular) about how wrong/stupid/rotten we were on that particular occasion.

When the ranting began…we knew we had crossed the line.

As we got older, rules began to be placed on our comings and goings, and I started to feel the strict boundaries that my folks would place around me until I left for college.  You know…the regular things like curfews, restrictions on sleepovers, and the differences in “school day” activities vs. “weekend” activities.

The hardest was the curfew.  I HATED having to be home by 11:00 p.m. (on weekends!) all through high school, but I think I hated the “rationale” for the curfew more than the actual time I had to be home.

“Mom…why can’t I just stay out to midnight like everyone else!?!”

“Because I want to go to sleep at 11:00 and I can’t go to bed unless you’re home.”

“Sure you can…I don’t care if you’re up when I get home.”

“I CARE”  “So you’ll be home at 11:00.”  “PERIOD.”

REALLY???? Can parents really get away with that?

You bet.  I did.  (More on that later)

I too was a stickler for discipline and manners (I am my mother’s daughter) as I wanted my kids to be polite and well behaved…mostly so that we could all go anywhere or do anything together without me having to worry whether or not the kids would act out (and because that’s how I was raised).

Oh they had their moments of bickering and snitty tones and slacking off around the house.

But I swear…they were amazingly good kids.

And sometimes I think it might have been despite my parenting.

I yelled a lot, especially when they were young.

I took the whole ranting thing I grew up with and raised it to an art form.  And I regret having yelled at them so much.

Because I think I scared them.

But as my kids aged…I think I figured out how to parent with a modicum of strictness (and yelling) mixed in with a healthy dose of humor and love.

But I still think I was pretty strict (mean).

They had curfews ‘til 11:00 on weekends too.  OK…Ally had it all through high school but I’m pretty sure we relaxed the rules when AJ got there (and I’m sure that inconsistency and lack of fairness will come back to bite me again and again…)

But I don’t think it ruined them.

They’re really wonderful people.

Um…No.

I mean, I guess we could if we wanted to.

But I don’t think we want to.

Funny…’cause we can (and do) talk about just about everything else.  But sex.  It just doesn’t seem to come up in our conversations.

I swear I don’t avoid it.  I don’t really talk about sex all that much anyway.  It’s nobody’s business.  Especially my kid’s.

And, I think that goes for talking to them about my sex life or theirs.

Don’t get me wrong.  They’re both adults and I totally hope they’re having sex (really).  Wonderful, loving, satisfying sex.  But I don’t tell them that.

And I figure they know I’m having sex.

(Why did I just picture them reading this and covering their ears shouting NANANANANA until the inevitable image disappears from their heads?)

But it’s true.  Wonderful, loving, satisfying sex.  But I don’t tell them that either.

I don’t know why.

Although I NEVER talked to my mom about sex.  She was clearly uncomfortable discussing anything about sex, or those “intimate things we may or may not be doing behind closed doors.”  Which for her…included everything from shaving her legs (which was a total mystery to me until waaaay into my teenage years)…to those other things she may or may not have been doing behind her closed doors.

I know my parents were totally in love with each other and were openly affectionate in front of me and my brother…but it never seemed…sexual (somehow).  And God knows they never talked to us about sex.

But I guess it was implied…in the way they looked longingly into each others eyes, kissed longer than expected, or  lingered for what seemed like hours in a hug.  But it was never discussed.

Me…I was pretty open about just about everything when my kids were young.  I was very comfortable shaving my legs in front of both kids (not wanting it to be a mystery to them)…or even walking naked around my room in front of them.  UNTIL I could see it started to make them feel uncomfortable.  And then I made sure I had on a robe in their presence (and started to shave my legs in private).

But that’s not SEX.  That’s just being human, and comfortable in our human bodies (not always an easy thing – but that’s for another post!).

Sex is different.  It’s private.  It is one of the most intimate things we can do with another human being.  And it’s not something I feel comfortable sharing (either way) as a mother (no matter how much of a friend I become) with my kids.

I just think we should all go about our own business…having as much wonderful, loving, satisfied sex as possible…and keep it to ourselves!

So there.

Do I like the name Cindy?

I guess its okay.  It’s not a bad name.  It has two syllables (I like names with two syllables).  And it’s kind of cute.  I mean when I think of the name “Cindy” I think of a cute girl, probably with blonde pigtails, sitting on an old wooden swing hanging from the limb of a single tree on top of a hill, on a bright cheery day.

(What a strange vision I seem to have.)

So I don’t really relate to the name.

I know I’m blonde, but I never did the pigtail thing…or the swing thing for that matter.  Now that I’m 54 years old…it’s really an absurd vision of the name.  OY.

I, like millions of other folks, had no control over the name I was given, and was always referred to with my shorter nickname (Cindy) of my longer, more formal, real first name…Cynthia.

I like Cynthia, but I have absolutely no personal relationship to the name.  It was the name that I had to learn to write in Kindergarten, but I knew that even though I had to learn how to spell it…nobody would ever use it to reference me.

I was Cindy.  From the day I was born.

My mother used to tell me that she named me Cynthia after Elizabeth Taylor in the movie with the same name.  I never saw the movie.  I’ve seen just about every other Elizabeth Taylor movie, but somehow, Cynthia has eluded me over the years.

So, when writing this post I decided to look it up (love that Google) and see what my namesake was up to in the movie.  Here’s the first blurb I found…

Cynthia (1947) was Elizabeth Taylor’s coming-of-age film, the one in which the intense and determined young girl who had become a star at the age of 12 in National Velvet (1944) became an intensely lovely and just as determined young woman.

Nice!  Mom named me after a girl of intense loveliness and determination.  I could live with that!

But then I read on…

Based on an unsuccessful Broadway play, Cynthia is the story of a sickly, sheltered teen who rebels against her parents’ overprotectiveness, finds a boyfriend, goes to the prom, and gets her first kiss.

Really?  First…they made a movie based on an unsuccessful Broadway play?  NOT A GOOD IDEA.

And then…she was sickly and sheltered and her only great accomplishments were that she rebeled against her parents, finds a boyfriend, goes to the prom and gets her first kiss.

Whoop  Whoop.

And…It was a flop.  According to a critic for the New York Times, “Cynthia is a synthetic morsel — right out of the Metro candy box.”

Thanks mom.

But…more than 40 years later, British critic Alexander Walker re-evaluated, calling Cynthia one of Taylor’s “unjustly forgotten triumphs of tact, sympathy, pathos and insistent self-assertion; and the identification with Cynthia by the bobby-soxers who saw it must have been total. It is one of the most likeable movies of adolescent independence.”

AHA! “One of the most likeable movies of adolescent independence.”  Now I understand why my mom loved the movie.

She also used to tell me that she named me after the Character/Movie because she thought Elizabeth Taylor was one of the most beautiful women EVER and she wanted her girl to have the name that embodied that beauty.

Woohoo!!!  What a mom.

But she never called me Cynthia, even when she was mad at me.  I was always Cindy.

(And just for the record, I haven’t been able to find any beautiful girls in the movies named Cindy)

The funny thing is…I don’t feel like people actually call me by my name…directly.  I know they refer to me as Cindy (to others), and once in a great while…someone begins a sentence to me by starting out with “Cindy….”  But it doesn’t happen all that often.

It actually feels strange when someone calls me Cindy (to my face).  I feel like I jerk my head up and wonder who they’re actually talking to.  It’s like an out of body experience somehow.

I know I’m Cindy.  I sign my name easily as Cindy.  I respond to it on those occasions when someone uses it.  But I still don’t really relate to it.

It’s just kind of there.  A label separate from me, but somehow, a part of me.

I wonder if others feel the same way about their name?

I wonder what Alexandra B  thinks about her name?