Pancakes Taste Like Poverty: And Other Post-Divorce Revelations (22 page)

He said with a dangerous-sounding giggle,
"Jessica, did you know that when you are 18 I'll only be 25?"

The older girl shot him a look I didn't
understand. I nodded and shrugged. Our ages had no significance to
me.

Then he said, "So Jessica, would you say
that you're...easy?"

At this point the older girl marched over and
punched him hard in the chest. I still didn't understand. He laughed
and ran away spewing false apologies. I didn't understand his
word
s...
but I understood
his eyes and his tone
,
and I
knew things had changed.

A few years later
,
I had a male teacher who I considered a mentor. We had a
conversational bante
r,
and
he often let
my circle of friends
and me e
at lunch in his room. My seat was the closest to the
door. One day
,
another male
teacher came to give him something. They were friends. The other
teacher looked at me with
that
look. He muttered under his
breath, "Is that the one you were talking about?" My
teacher nodded. The other teacher let out a long
,
slow whistle and gave my teacher a face that read "Oh
man..."

That
time I understood
,
and it was tattooed into my brain. I resigned to the truth
about myself:

Congratulations. They don't actually like
you. They all just want to fuck you.

I spent the next several years pivoting on that
central point. My oxygen became male sexual attention. My entire
self-worth was steeped in it. This addiction led me to become
pregnant my senior year of high school by a man who was ten years
older than me. I was pregnant again a year and a half later by a man
I'd known for six months. I married that man and suffered a
miserable, high-drama marriage. Being a sex object altered my future.
It's a massive chapter in my story.

So here I am, several years into parenting. My
children are all quite pretty. When my oldest daughter was in 3rd
grade
, i
t started.

She went to a "good" charter school, in
a "good" part of Tampa. She was close buddies with a
classmate - a little boy.

One day she found out that he'd bragged to his
buddies that she was his girlfriend. I've always been extremely open
and honest with my children, volunteering information in ways my
parenting peers would probably think is "too much, too soon."
My parents spared me gory details and I learned a lot, lot, lot the
hard way.

So in front of a few classmates my daughter told
this boy, "Look, I like you as a friend
,
but we are not, by any means, boyfriend and girlfriend." His
shame got the better of him and he went on the attack.

For the following weeks
,
he tormented my daughter. He flipped her uniform skirt when
she walked by. He talked about her boobs. He drew dirty pictures of
the two of them and passed them around. The entire class was
enthralled in the drama. Finally, when it got to be more than she
could handle
,
she came to
me.

I. Was. Livid.

But more than livid, I was terrified.

It's already started. I didn't protect her
from anything.

I asked her how she'd been handling i
t,
and apparently she fought fire with fire. She'd told the teacher
,
but the teacher would only separate them and tell the kids to
quiet down. I don't think she was aware of how bad it'd become.

"I'm really sorry, mom, but I called him a
fuc
k-f
ace."

"That's fine, honey. He
is
a
fuc
k-fa
ce. But now I have to
involve the
principal,
since
your teacher isn't doing anything."

We went to the
principal
the next morning. My normally painfully shy daughter stood up
straight and spoke with a clear and direct tone
,
and told the principal
everything.

The
principal
invited the little fuck-face
into the offic
e,
and for the next half hour brought in witnesses to confirm his
lechery. He cried and whined, but eve
ntually his parents were
called and my daughter and I were dismissed.

I looked at my daughter,
aching
at the
attack on her innocence, but I could see a little strut in her walk.

I realized I had changed the future.

Where I was clueless, she has knowledge. And with
that knowledge, she has a voice. And with that voice, she stood up
for herself. Something I never learned to do. Ever.

It happened again recently.

Now my daughter is 10 years old. She has her
period. She is 5'4". She wears a bra. She looks 14. She is
modest and insecure about her body because it is so different from
her peers. She often walks with her arms folded across her
chest.
I'd told her once about the episode of South Park where
one character grows boobs and all the boys literally turn into
cavemen.

"This is the truth, girl. It's real. It's
what happens. You're a child, but your body is not a child's, and
everyone treats you differently and it sucks."

"It does suck," she said somberly
,
but with eyes that said "thank you for understanding."

Anyway, my mom took my kids on a trip to a local
water park.

While she swam, a group of young boys stood
nearby whispering and pointing. In
her
words
,
"it was like being molested by eyes."

Finally, one by one, they approached and
introduced themselves - clumsily and stupidly.

"Hi, I'm _______ and um, that guy over there
thinks you're cute."
"Hey, that guy over there wants to
know if you'll go out with him."
"Hey, I'm ________. Do
you have a boyfriend?"

She answered directly.

"I'm 10 years old. I don't need a
boyfriend."

This didn't stop the pre-pubescent hecklers who
were now starting to turn on each other.

"You see that fat kid? Yeah he wets the bed,
don't go out with him."

She answered, "Now you're turning on your
friend,
real
attractive. Look, I'm just here to swim. Leave me
the hell alone."

At this point, my son took up position near her
as protection and my youngest daughter was splashing the guys
directly in the face.

My mom stepped in and told them to go find some
business
,
but it didn't stop
them.

Only now, dejected, they huddled and whispered to
each other but loud enough for her to hear.

"She's a bitch."
"She's
probably a slut."

When I was her age, this would have
crushed
me. I would be an insecure pile of mess. Actually, it probably would
never have even gotten to this point because I would have picked one
to be my boyfriend. Because after all, the girl who hangs with the
boys is the "cool" girl.

I would have been their pet or mascot.

But she has me as a mother and I am the
exact
mother she needs.

I can see the future. I can see around the
corners. I warned her and trained her and coached her.

And she was ready.

When she came home and relayed this stor
y,
I
was in shock.

It's happening.
It's already
happening.

And I wanted to pity her and hold he
r,
b
ut I didn't because I looked at her eyes. Her eyes were eyes
of triumph. Her body language was strong and tall. She was so proud
of herself. She was so glad she stood up to them. I didn't want to
project
my
issues onto her
,
but my issues are what saved her self-esteem that day.

We can worry about our children. But our past
doesn't have to be their future. We are manipulators of time, if we
choose to be. If we pay attention and if we are honest and if we get
real with ourselves.

My parents divorced when I was young. My mom
worked all the time to support us. I was a lamb for slaughter. I had
no map. I had no armor. I was
Red
Riding Hood
and the world was the wolf.

But despite following my biological footsteps
almost exactly, it isn't the truth for her. She is Alice and the
world is the Jabberwocky. And she is slayin' it.

Boobs

I am my
boobs and my new bra is life.
A few
months ago I got a proper bra fitting and invested in some new bras.
I encouraged a lot of my friends to do the same.

My boobs, over time, have gotten unreasonably
big. Or, if I'm being completely honest, unreasonably long. Three
pregnancies in five years and something like five straight years of
breastfeeding mean that I no longer wear that perky 34C of
yesteryear. I'm lugging 36DDDs around.

Unreasonable.

If you have boobs I'd be willing to bet you are
wearing the wrong sized bra now. A girlfriend of mine whose boobs
have got to be twice the size of mine was arguing with me that it was
impossible that my boobs are bigger because "she wears a 36C."

But just because you're wearing a 36C doesn't
mean you're
supposed
to be wearing a 36C. And bra sizes are
not constant. Your 25-year-old boobs and your 40-year-old boobs are
not the same boobs. Come to terms with that.

Here's a short lesson:
If there is any
puckering going on in your bra between your boobies, your bra is too
small. You know that little space of fabric between your bra cups? It
should be flush against your breastbone.

You should be able to easily fit your fingers
under your straps. The support should come from the band around your
ribcage, not the straps. If your straps are digging into your
shoulder meat, you're wearing the wrong bra.

The part where you fasten your bra in the back,
that whole strip of fabric should be under your shoulder blades.

Your boobs should sit comfortably between your
elbows and armpits. If your boobs are aligned with your armpits,
they're up too high. If they're sitting on your belly or sagging as
low as your elbows, they're too low. Got it?
K, get your tape
measure and get your tits together.

Anyhoo, before my recent chest investment, I'd
been wearing the same two ratty
,
old bras for about seven years. The underwire was poking me in
the chest, having worn through the fabric. I took the wires out and
just wore the bra without them. It didn't support my boobs at all.
But it did the basic job of holding my boobs in place and it kept me
from embarrassing myself in cold weather.

The idea of dropping even thirty dollars on a
bra, when I had a perfectly efficient one, seemed excessive and
frivolous.

Let's really evaluate that for a second.

It was
too much trouble
to spend
thirty
dollars
on something that would a) make me look better because my
boobs would be in the proper place and b) take stress of my lower
back which was creaking and groaning like a haunted house every day
no matter how much yoga I did.

And thirty dollars for a decent bra is, like,
nothing in real-life world.

But in the low self-worth world, apparently, it
might as well have been a billion dollars. I just didn't care about
myself enough. But now I'm single and kinda impressed with myself so
dropping mad dollahs on a good boob-sling seems like a no-brainer.
Of
course
I want to look better and relieve back pain! Doy!

But here's the funny thing that happened.

I got my new gigantic, expensive bras. I pulled
them out of the plastic and tried them on and then guess what?

I didn't wear them.

I went back to my comfy, old, crappy ones. Talk
about a metaphor for life!

The new bra, even though I
knew
it was
better for me, felt restrictive and alien. The old, lazy
piece-of-crap bra that was no better than wearing a few paper towels
and duct tape, despite being less comfortable, was somehow
more
comfortable because it was what I was
used
to.

Oooooweeee, chile! Revelations are e'rrywhere.
Ain't that just the way humans operate?

It didn't serve me. It didn't help me. It didn't
make me look better. It made me slouch. It dug into me and chafed my
flesh. It made my back hurt. But I'd already worn it for so long that
it'd become "normal" to me. I had to consciously
choose
to wear the new bras. They literally force my posture to align
properly - no biggole heavy boobs weighing me down.

And then what happened when I held myself up?

I got a little pep in m'step. I was forced to
walk with some confidence with my chest puffed up like a rooster. And
then I thought to myself:

Well, my underthings don't match my
outerthings. I need some new cute clothes to strut in.

So I took a couple of bucks and, instead of doing
something for the kids, I went shopping with my sister. For moms,
this is usually very hard. It is definitely en vogue as an American
parent to "always put the kids first." That's a theory and
catchphrase that I think too many of us have internalized and taken
to heart. It's as destructive as it is well-intended. What the hell
good are we to our kids if we don't take care of ourselves? And if
taking care of yourself is just painting your toenails then tell the
kids to leave you alone for twenty minutes so you can paint your damn
toenails. Or call me, I'll come over and paint your toenails.
(I
won't watch your kids, though. Sorry.)

When the airplane is crashing, you put the oxygen
mask on yourself and
then
on your child. Why? Because your
child is helpless without
you;
you
have to take care of yourself.

It was hard shopping for myself at first. I
literally hadn't done it in years and years. When the seasons
changed, it always caught me off guard and I'd end up wearing some
friend's hand-me-downs to "get through." I never looked
like myself on the outside. But at least I wasn't nekkid. That was
the best I wanted for myself - just the bare minimum.