And so we live our lives in what strikes
me as the ultimate just desserts re-
lationship. When I was a kid, my mother
and father spent a lot of energy trying to
make me into a girl. Maybe it was just to
save money on medical bills, but I suspect
that there were ulterior motives behind
their inexhaustible efforts to get me to
slow down, not play so rough, limit myself
to three sports, and stop picking fights
with my brother. I’d catch them looking
askance at the outfits I’d choose to wear to
school, which were combination plates,
shorts under my skirt, tee shirts under my
blouse, and one—piece gymsurts under my
dress. I did used to pick a lot of fights, and
the clothes that girls wore in those days
forced one to think first of modesty, and
second of getting in the first good punch.
Not the right order for escaping tight situa-
tions unscathed.

I provided my parents little solace in those
days. I know they loved me, but I also
know they harbored secret desires that I
conform to more socially acceptable

norms. I used to spend a lot of time eval-
uating them as parents. Basically, I
thought they were doing a good job, but I
wished they’d let go of the “norms” bit
and cool it with the lectures.

Now, I have a wonderful, sensitive, and
very loving kid of my own, who I am
sure spends a lot of time evaluating me.
There’s no doubt in my mind that she’s
having the same reactions to me taht I
once had to my parents. I recognized it in
her eyes when she was three years old,
and I was trying to get her to step in the
mud and experience dirt. And then again
when she was about eight and insisted
that she didn’t want a birthday party at an
Expos game. I see it all the time now,
since adolescence is by its very nature a
trying time wherein parents and their no-
longer-quite-children engage in tests of
will on a daily basis.

The more fascinating a sociological phe-
nomenon is to me, the more extraneous
and irrelevant it is to her. For example, I

May 1992

will have just completed an eloquent, pos-
sibly publishable dinnertime treatise on
the importance of challenging social
norms and asserting one’s individuality.
I’ll glance over at my daughter to see if
she’s as impressed with me as I am. Her
eyes are glazed and she’s pushing at her
peas with a knife that’s got a blob of but-
ter on it. Her body language is saying,
“Where’s the Starship Enterprise Trans-
porter when you need it?”

Recently I resigned myself to the re-
alization that she got the parent I’d al-
ways wanted, and I got the parents she’s
always wanted. And that reminds me of a
joke a friend recently told me: “Why is it
that grandparents are so close to their
grandchildren? It’s because they share a
common enemy.” Which probably ex-
plains why I’m so excited about her an-
ticipated heterosexual future as a wife and
mother. V

W
V

announce

THE
WoMEN’s

V

2 Church Street

860-7454

SUSAN MCKENZIE MS
ELLEN KIRSCHNER CSW
MARJORIE ROBLIN CSW

the joining of their practices
and the opening of

THERAPY CENTER Plus-~ . . .
. - Applied Kinesrology

- Homeopathy

- Acupuncture

- Therapeutic Massage

- Nutritional Counseling

A Feminist Therapy Practice

Burlington, Vermont

E

   
 

STRUCTURE
¢

Dr. Tiffany Renaud

Dr. Mary C. Spicer

are proud to announce the opening

INTEGRITY

   
 

and

of their practice

Center For Chiropractic
Aflolistic Health

“health care for the whole person”

We are honored to serve our community
and are committed to offering you
Gentle Effective Chiropractic

New Patients Welcome

4 San Remo Drive - So. Burlington, VT 05403
802-658-6092