Posted by:
catnip
(
)
Date: September 17, 2017 10:16PM
I wasn't raised Mormon, so there wasn't the ongoing drumbeat about marriage-marriage-marriage that Mormon girls apparently endure.
In fact, my mother seemed to assume that I would never marry. I was a late-bloomer - a socially shy and awkward kid. The first time I was asked on a date, I was a freshman in COLLEGE, for pity's sake!
The guy wasn't anything special, but hey - the first date is something special. When I breathlessly told my mother and grandmother that I would be going out with a guy on Friday evening, my mother (already well into her cups) slurred, "No, you're not." as if I had said I had been hired by NASA to go to the Moon or something. She didn't believe me!
Stunned, I looked at my grandmother. I could see that she, too, was shocked by my mother's bizarre response.
Throughout the week, I kept talking about the upcoming date, to drive home the message that it was real and it would happen. She acted like I was a fanciful child, making it up.
When my date arrived to pick me up, my mother (drunk yet again), demanded to know who the he!! was parking in HER driveway. I said quietly, "It's the guy I'm going out with, Mom. I've been telling you all week."
The next several minutes were a train wreck. I had warned my date that my mother would most likely be drunk and belligerent, so he was at least somewhat prepared. She went after him like a fire-breathing dragon.
She took a pad of paper and a pen out to the driveway, writing down the make, model, and license plate of his car. She told him that I was to be home by eleven o'clock, and if I was not, she would call the police. I believe she would have, too.
I have no recollection of what we did on that date. I was too upset by my mother's behavior. Eventually, she accepted the fact that I had grown up and was old enough to go out with guys. She questioned me relentlessly every month whether "that time" had begun yet, and threatened to take me to a doctor if it didn't start within another day or two.
My grandmother, who had been a registered nurse herself, was just about the kindest, most loving grandmother a person could have. When I confided in the privacy of her little cottage, lovingly built by her son, my dad, right next door to our family house, that mother was constantly threatening to take me to the doctor, she said, "That might not be the worst thing." She asked me if I was still a virgin, and I truthfully assured her that I was.
She said, "If she makes you go to a doctor, and the doctor verifies that you are a virgin, he might tell your mother to stop wasting his time with her over-active imagination."
In later years, I asked some of my older cousins why my mother was constantly accusing me of sexual behavior, when I hadn't yet "done the deed." My aunt, Mother's older sister, laughed and said, "Your mother sowed plenty of wild oats herself, back in the day. She's accusing you of what she did, herself."
My mother was a wonderful guidebook of how NOT to parent. I hope I have done better with my own children.
My grandmother - Anna Margarethe Grantke, born in Meseritz, Posen, Germany, was the REAL mother in my life. I will always cherish her memory.