It's something I've been hearing my entire life, every day, even. Whenever I don't sit poker straight, whenever I trek mud up the stairs, whenever I have belching competitions with my brother (I usually win); 'Iona Skye Howie, act like a lady. We did not raise you to act like..like a hoodlum!!'. Story of my life. I am the eldest sibling in my family. I also have a younger brother and a younger sister. My brother, however, was not born for almost four years after myself. This meant that I spent the first portion of my life as an only child. Being in this position, I was therefore exposed to very little of the real world. It was completely up to my parents to deem what they thought was important for me to know and what I should be shielded from for my own safety.
On the first day of kindergarten, I met a boy. For all intents and purposes, I will call him Fred, although that is not actually his real name. Anyways, Fred and I were sitting fairly near one another during snack break and he was eating baby carrots. I guess the carrots were pretty hard to chew or something, because this kid started yelling and screaming at them, saying they were stupid idiots. My eyes were immediately saucers; my jaw dropped. Did...did he just use the word...st-stu-stupid?? That is such a bad a word, I can't believe he just said that. So there sat little five-year-old me, in complete and utter shock that this boy, who was so obviously a hooligan, had just sworn in front of me. I told on him. He laughed at me. Then he started dissing Barney the Purple Dinosaur. Not. Okay. After an intense debate about whether the cartoons I watched were lame or not, I realized that the world was not what I had always believed. My good old pal Barney....was suddenly uncool.
Regardless of the fact that singing purple dinosaurs are awesome, I was in fact aware that Barney was not real. That was something that my father had decided was important for me to realize. When I was little I used to spend a lot of time down at the local library. One day they had a special guest - I'd like to say Barney, but I think it was just some random giant plush character that children loved. The name is not important. Anyways, I remember standing in line, waiting for a hug and a lollipop from this giant fuzzy creature - and the little girl in front of me turned to me and started chattering about how she was so excited she could pee herself. Or something along those lines. I just remember looking at her for a moment, my mind absolutely puzzling this way and that. Then I simply said to her, as though she were a fool, 'What's the big deal?? It's just a man in a suit.' In those few moments, I saw the fire in her eyes die, the smile on her lips fade and the excitement vanish. She burst into tears and rushed into the outstretched arms of her mother. I blinked. Then puzzled some more.
Something that puzzled my parents, however, was the fact that I was virtually a little boy as a child. My hair was short and curly, I didn't like bathing, the only clothing I liked were my patent red Dr. Martens and my dinosaur t-shirt.....I'm sure you can picture it. I wanted to be a paleontologist. I could rhyme off every species of dinosaur to ever walk the Earth, I had plastic models of each - a whole basket of them. I had every dinosaur picture book ever published and playing in dirt was one of the greatest joys in life. My parents just couldn't figure it out.
Let me give you some history on my parents and why they raised me the way they did. My father was raised by a very English mother and a Scottish father. There were set times for every meal, etc. and, as you would suppose, it was a very strict upbringing. My mother, on the other hand, who was also raised in quite a strict Scottish family, was just naturally a goody-goody - always had been, always would be (still is). While she was in labour with me among a handful of other screeching ladies, the only thing she said over and over again was, 'Oh my gosh, oohh my gosh, oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gooshhh'. Meanwhile the ladies surrounding her were screaming profanities unknown to humanity, cursing at their husbands for this awful thing they had done to them. Etiquette and poise are important to my parents.
You can't change the way a person thinks. Not truly. Isn't it far better to just embrace a person for what they are, who they are and everything they are, anyways? That is why I gave up long ago trying to loosen my parents' views on raising a child. In spite of this, I see them shifting their opinions and tactics when dealing with my younger siblings, making their lives wayyyy easier than mine has been. I guess that's just a natural aspect of family dynamics, though. I know that one day, when my parents have to deal with another generation of rug rats called grandchildren, they will spoil them rotten and be the coolest grandparents ever. But as for the present, when I belch at the dinner table and laugh in my strangely-low-for-a-girl-bellow and they say in reproach, 'Iona Skye Howie!! We've raised you to be a lady!', I always answer, 'Nope, you've raised me to be Iona!'.
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