Mother’s Talk To Your Daughters

Mother’s Talk To Your Daughters -Monday, June 26, 2006-10:05 pm
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Note: I’d been saying I was going to write this entry for weeks but then I ran across a journal today where a woman said she wasn’t given the knowledge to care for herself as an adult. She wasn’t taught to balance a checkbook or anything like that. Once I read that I figured I’d go ahead and write this then do a backtrack to her. I can’t remember the link for the life of me. So, if she reads this then could you leave a comment so I can post your link. Sorry ’bout that.

I was doing missionary work in the Mennonite and Amish part of Indiana. It was only a 4 day tour and the group and I talked to a lot of people. It was quite nice. The funny thing is, before the group of 15 black people showed up we had to inform the police that we were coming. There were not a lot of black people in the area, to show up in a group of 15 unannounced would have really been a bad idea. As I said, the trip went well but half way through I started itching terribly. This horrible vaginal itch lasted the entire trip and for 6 days total before I finally couldn’t take it anymore. Back at home I went to the ER and told the doctor that I feared I had AIDS. He put me in a room where I clutched my Bible and thought of how I would tell my mother that her Christian daughter contracted HIV or AIDS. When the doc did the exam I cried uncontrollably. I had flashbacks but when he asked if I was okay I said I was. I cried so hard and so deep that he didn’t want to let me go home. The result of the exam was that I had a yeast infection. He had to explain what a yeast infection is to a twenty year old woman. When I left I was happy that I didn’t have an STD but angry that I lacked the information to understand what my body does.

I was about 23 before I knew the ins and outs of my period. Before then I only I knew I had it and I knew that it had to do with why a woman gets pregnant. That minimal knowledge wasn’t enough to take care of myself as an adult. I didn’t know that the walls wash themselves out if I wasn’t pregnant and the passing of that wall is the flow. I had no idea what ovulation was. My mother didn’t tell me these things but she should have.

A few days ago Sg was telling me things about the female body that I didn’t know. I was in awe that she knew so much about how her body works and why it works that way. She was telling me about tissues in the breast behind the nipple and the presence of that tissue determines if the nipple is upright or is facing down. I was enlightened and asked a lot of questions that she could answer. Sg use to be a midwife so I figure she did know the answers. Some things like the presence or the absense of tissue behind the nipple is stuff that isn’t vital to know. But when it comes to how my body works and why it works that way I should have know before I left home. I should have known more about my period and I should have known about common things like yeast infections and other vaginal issues. She failed to teach me those things. I learned them in humiliating situations or through conversation with adult friends. The day I walked out of my mothers house was the day I truly began to live. I left with little information about how my body worked as well as information about the male body. I left with little information about sex and about basic things that an adult should know.

My mother taught me how to balance a checkbook. She gave me my own bank account. They called it a Squirrel account back then. Whatever money I put in my mother matched dollar for dollar and my grandmother doubled the amount. I knew how to write a check at age 8. I knew how to withdraw money from the back, how to deliver the rent check and how to mail off bills at a very early age. As a matter of fact I had possession of my mothers check book and bank card because I was the one who was writing the checks for her. I even wrote the checks at the grocery store. The time that she said she was leaving me and my sister I told her to go but that she would leave pennyless because I refused to give her the checks or her bank card. When she left I went and checked the balance to see just how much time we had alone in the house before we would be discovered. Did we have enough money to stay in that house for 6 months with lights and a phone? I sent my sister to bed and planned out how we would live there without the mother. I was 8 years old at the time. So when it came to finances I was pretty good. When it came to organizing the house, helping my older sister with homework and adapting to my mothers moods I was certainly a master. Somehow though, through all of this the mother still said that there was no way I could live without her. She said the world is a cruel place and that she is the only person I can trust. I feared she was right. I feared that I would not be able to move out on my own and take care of myself. I worried that I’d be home alone and some guy would come crawling through the window and hurt me. I worried about having to go back home after that and see the “I told you so.” look on her face. I stayed there. Even though living with her as an adult was horrible I stayed because 1) I believed that I couldn’t do it on my own and 2) I knew what the pain of living at home but I didn’t really know what was out in the world. Known pain is more “comfortable” than the pain of what could be. I am so happy that I left. It was a good decision that I will never regret. FYI: my older sister still lives at home with the mother.

Parenting is a huge, huge responsibility that sometimes gets passed onto schools and day care programs. But in day care programs and in school the child does not get the individual attention they need to fully understand themselves. If a parent is there for his or her child they can make sure the child understands. Age appropriate knowledge will help the child grow into an informed adult. If you don’t teach them you may someday stumble on their website and see where they’ve written that you failed them in this area.

Austin’s August