Molding Me - from my book Changes

Chapter 1

Molding me

  My parents were wonderful parents in so many ways.  They did their best and taught us kids with patience and love.  There are only a couple ways they could have done better, in my opinion, and that would have been to be more accommodating when it came to my natural personality and interests.

I was loud and expressive as a child, and that did not sit well with the way a young girl was supposed to act, according to my parents.

Or maybe my loudness just got on their nerves.

“Go to your room until you can be happy.” Mom would say, if I was angry.

I would march into my room and sometimes stay there for hours before I could come out with a smile on my face.  Other times I could walk into my room, then turn right back around and come out smiling.

I remember mom laughing, and telling her friends and family about her great technique for getting me over being mad.

Some other things mom would say were, “When Michele’s mad, she lets the whole world know about it!”  And, “Modulate your voice Michele!”

And there was the poem she would say described me:

“There was a little girl,

who had a little curl,

right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,

she was very, very good,

but when she was bad, she was horrid!”

I must have locked my anger away, deep down inside myself, because I don’t remember getting ever getting angry at all  …except for once when I came into the house angry, yelling about a boy who put snow down my shirt, and my dad pulled my hair to shock me into silence.  I burst into tears and ran to my room.

Yelling, and being angry were simply not comfortable or acceptable in my family.

I was supposed to be pleasant, never rude; look attractive, and smile.

If mom walked by me and I wasn’t smiling, she would remind me by saying, “Smile Michele!” And I would.  That was normal and it didn’t really bother me at the time.

“Girls are made of sugar and spice,

And everything nice,

That’s what little girls are made of.”

“Boys are made of snips and snails,

And puppy dog tails,

That’s what little boys are made of ."

That was another poem mom recited to us and I thought it was so cute.