Debby and Barbie
There’s a saying that the “Difference between law and in-law is you can justify yourself before law (long pause) …………but never before your in-laws.”
Every spring, my husband, Nathaniel, my daughter, Hannah, and I travel to Boston for a reunion with his family. Nat is the youngest of five. I love them all, but it’s like coming into a play somewhere during Act Two. They know their history; I’m reading the program notes. Everyone got cast in their roles long before I showed up. I’m an extra in Aida; I’ve got my spear, and I’m just watching the elephants march on by.
The entire sibling cast was assembled on the first night of our visit, last year. The great dramatic question: where do we want to go out for dinner?
MARC, the overachieving, athletic, oh-my-god-he’s-such-a-perfect-golden son that the family thinks he spreads rainbows wherever he walks: How about seafood? Very healthy.
DAN, the ex-hippie, now a computer geek and family man: It’s gotta have some vegetarian food for me.
SETH, the patient middle-school teacher who talks to us like we are his 8th grade students: Mark, I’m sick of seafood. Why not a Chinese restaurant?
NATHANIEL, my husband. Call Central Casting for an “absent minded mathematics professor” and they’ll send him over right away: Chinese food on this coast isn’t nearly as good as in San Francisco. How about an Italian restaurant?
DEBBIE, the oldest sibling. The only daughter. Thin, intense. A closet smoker. She has a PhD in Clinical Psychology and thinks she knows everything about human motivations: Italian food?! Are you crazy? Do you know how many carbs there are in pasta? And how rich those sauces are? You know, Nathaniel, you really need to watch what you are eating. You eat too much, and I am worried about you. (PAUSE) You know what, fine. I don’t need to go, anyway. If you all want to go to an Italian restaurant, go without me. I’m not coming with you. I’ll stay here and eat whatever is in the house.
Ah, Debbie. Years ago, I coined a name for her unique affliction: Harpy’s Tourettes. The enhanced ability to recognize and obsess upon another person’s insecurities combined with a complete inability to SHUT UP ABOUT IT.
My turn, channeling my inner Butros Butros Ghali diplomat: Debbie, you know we don’t want to go without you, because we hardly ever see you. Let’s just talk about it some more. I bet we will figure out something.
A few minutes later, miraculously, we found something on which everyone could agree: a Thai restaurant. It turned out to be lovely and upscale place. We got one huge table for all of us. Hannah was next to me, on the end.
Information for anyone who has never been to a Thai restaurant with a nine year old girl: Thai food is weird. Curry is too spicy and that vegetable dish looks really strange and the chicken noodle soup has green stuff in it. I slipped into Mom mode.
OK, Hannah, you know the rule: I want you to try some of this, but you never have to eat anything you don’t like. This is a different from what you are used to, and I want you to at least taste it.
But it’s weird. This one has pencil shavings in it.
Hannah, those are not pencil shavings. It’s called lemon grass. It is an herb that makes the dish a little sour. It tastes like lemon, see? You don’t eat the lemon grass, just leave it on the side of your plate.
I don’t like it.
Fine, okay, give that food to me, put it on my plate, I’ll eat it. Here, try this tofu dish.
What’s this wormy thing?
It’s not a worm, it is a baby corn. It is just like the big ears of corn we eat sometimes, only this one is so small you can eat the whole thing. Try it. It tastes good.
Yeah, this is okay. I like it.
She likes it! Yaaay! Hey, folks, could you please pass down more tofu. Hannah thinks it’s good. Now, why don’t we try this eggplant….
By the end of the meal, I felt pretty good. Hannah had gotten enough to eat, and I praised her for letting herself be open to trying something new. I’d enjoyed the food, myself, and had tried some dishes I’d never had before. Good choice.
It took a minute before I realized that someone standing next to me at the table. It was Debby. She was frowning. She leaned into me intensely.
“I am really worried about what you are doing to your daughter. Do you realize how much food you have been eating tonight? Do you realize how much you have been making her eat? I’ve been watching you, and I don’t like what I see. You can’t go on in denial about this. I am really very, very worried.”
(let time freeze good mood vanished look around and realize where I am)
They are all watching me. Anything I do is gonna be the part of the family chronology for years.
Oh, crap.
Hannah, I don’t want to stay here, so I am going for a walk. You can come with me, or stay here at the dinner table with Daddy. Either one is okay.
I want to come with you, Mommy.
I took Hannah’s hand. We walked out of the restaurant into the cool Boston evening.
Hannah, I’m really mad at Aunt Debby right now. That’s why I wanted to leave the restaurant. I just feel really GRRRR! Are you okay?
Yeah, Mommy, I’m fine.
OK, good. Look, there is a drugstore over there. Let’s go inside for a while.
The drugstore was a typical, generic Walgreens. We entered and Hannah of course went straight for the toys aisle. I walked to the magazine racks. Maybe I just needed something to read for a while.
Ladies Home Journal. Redbook. Cosmopolitan. Seventeen. Elle. Glamour. Allure Vogue. Self. Shape. Weight Watchers.
Hannah? Sweetheart? Let’s go. I am done here.
I avoided Debbie the rest of our visit, and I was really glad to leave Boston a few days later. I’d had enough of the in-laws drama for a while.
As a treat for Hannah, a few days after we returned to San Francisco, I took her to a matinee of the stage version of High School Musical at the Orpheum Theatre downtown.
It was a fun, light show. The essential question: Can the Jock and the Brainiac find happiness together while succeeding in their academic and sports interests and also singing the leads in the High School play, even though the mean kids are conspiring to take it all away from them? The answer is, yes, of course they can. This is a Disney show, duh?
Come on, Sweetheart. Let’s get out of here. Did you like the show, Hannah?
Yeah, it was great!! Wow, there’s a lot of people in this theatre. We’re moving really slow.
Hey, Hannah, you know what I say?
What?
Baaaa.
Yeah, baaa.
Baaa.
Baaa.
From behind me, I hear:
UGH, lose some weight!
HEY!
I turn around quickly. Oh, wow. It’s Golden Age Barbie! She’s about seventy years old, and she is wearing her coordinated go-to-theatre outfit. A basic black dress, matching shoes and handbag. Perfect hair and makeup of course. Her red earrings and necklace set are the exact same shade as her lipstick. I’ve never been able to do that!
The Barbie doll I had when I was a kid was eternally poised, with this glazed half-smile on her face. Golden Age Barbie looks downright terrified.
Barbie sees the look on my face and turns around, trying to walk away from me as fast as she can. We’re in a crowd of people, though, and she rather reminds me of a salmon swimming upstream. I grab Hannah’s hand, and follow her.
Barbie reaches a point where she simply can’t go any further and she has to turn around to face me. I don’t see the crowd. There is no one in the room but her and me and the little girl holding tight to my hand.
EXCUSE ME?!!! I’ve never seen you in my life and yet you think you have the right to insult me? How dare you! Who do you think you are?!! I’m here to take my girl to a nice show, and for no reason you think you can make fun of me?! Your behavior is rude and cruel. They say that age brings wisdom, but that’s clearly not true in your case! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. SHAME ON YOU!!
I keep holding Hannah’s my hand as we walk to our car. I keep the engine off, and I sit her in the front seat next to me.
Hannah, checking in. Are you okay?
Yeah, I guess. I’m kinda nervous. You scared me because you were shouting, and you never shout.
Yeah. I was really angry. But you know I wasn’t mad at you, right?
Yeah. I guess I was scared because I wasn’t expecting it. You just started shouting at that lady.
Well, I’m sorry if you feel bad. I just lost my temper. Do you get what was going on?
Yeah that lady was mean to you, and she told you to lose weight, and you didn’t do anything to her.
That’s right. It’s wrong to say mean things to people and to hurt their feelings. I am sorry if I scared you, though. I guess I’m still mad at Aunt Debbie, and when that lady insulted me for no reason, it was just like the last straw, and I lost it.
That’s okay.
And we still had a good time at the show, right?
Yeah, it was great!
You know, except for you being bothered by it, I’m not really sorry I yelled at that lady. Maybe she’ll think twice about insulting strangers in public again. I don’t know. I guess I’m still really mad at her.
Yeah, mommy. It’s okay. I love you and I’m proud of you.
I love you, too, baby girl.
………………………….
That night, after Hannah was asleep, I took some time alone to think.
I don’t know if I did the right thing or not. The world is full of mean and inconsiderate people, and you can’t just blow your stack at every one of them. How do I teach Hannah to handle cruelty while keeping her equilibrium and sense of self worth?
And I think about Golden Age Barbie, too. How did she get to where she is? Why did she think it was appropriate to insult a harmless stranger, in public? Why did she care so much about my body size in the first place?
The world is full of people like Golden Age Barbie. Snap judgments and casual cruelty are just facts of life. I am a fat person, and that means I am a premium target for it.
Hannah has got my genes. There is no way she’s going to grow up to be a thin person. I can do what I can for her. I can feed her right, make sure she exercises, do what I can to enhance her self esteem. I’m proud to see that she doesn’t have an eating disorder. But I can’t fight Mother Nature, either, and I can’t protect her from unkindness in her life.
What if she’s destined to be a big woman when she grows up. What do I tell her? What can I teach her? How do I give her the tools to find confidence and self esteem when there are so many forces lined up to take it away from her?
And, the big question, what I don’t understand: why is the world so messed up about us fat people in the first place?
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