Tomboy Princess

 Tomboy Princess

 

My 5th Birthday. The only party I ever got. 

I should have been a parents wet dream.......

When I was a little girl I was adorable. I had long blonde hair and a cute face and I was perfectly
proportioned...
Perfect for a 1970's Sears Catalog Model BUT I was a curious child, who liked making mudpies, taking things apart to see how they worked and electronics and gadgets. Science was my favorite subject. I was super creative and artistic. I wasnt a leader or follower. I was independent, honest and kind. And I was a tomboy... 

I was a High - T Girl

My Mother was an Ultra Feminine Narcissist who never wanted to have boy children or deal
with messes, dirt, sports or anything related to boys.
My mother just wanted to have girls that she could play house with and dress up and shop with
and go to lunches with.
Basically live dolls!

She certainly didnt see us as individuals with opinions and ideas of our own.
My sister played along and became my Mothers girly-girl Princess Doll Toy.
BUT since I was prettier than my sister and had long blonde hair and long legs and pretty hands,
my Mother kept trying to cram me into a Girly Girl mold...
You should be a hand model!
Why dont you take piano?
Why dont you become a cosmetologist?
At school I excelled at woodshop, creating some really nice wood pieces. I LOVED taking apart
engines. I dont have any of my pieces. They all disappeared somehow.
HHHHMMMM!
I was forbidden from doing sports since "Sports are for boys" (as were showers) and besides
"you could get your hair pulled out or your earrings ripped out, if you played" my Mother would
say...

"Women shouldnt run or jog, they will damage their breasts"
So I languished...
Years later I wanted to apply to get a construction worker job at Laborers Company as I loved
getting sweaty and wanted to build things...
My mother told me to make sure I wore a nice dress and look nice when I went to apply.

 

 

 

So I wore a nice dress and made sure my hair looked nice and put my make up on and they
treated me like D.A.Jim Trotter III treated Mona Lisa Vito when she first took the stand to be an
Automotive Expert on My Cousin Vinny...

Smiled at me and humored me.
I should have worn Jeans, a tshirt and no make up.
Needless to say they didn't even give me an application...
Whether she just was clueless or truly meant to sabotage my chances I do not know.
Basically I was constantly being steered away from things that would fulfill me as a human
being and steered towards things that would fulfill my mothers fantasies...
I tried to play the part of the girly girl and was miserable...
20 Years later I found out there was Little League, Space Camp etc...

Our children are NOT here to fulfill their parents fantasies and avenge our childhood regrets
and disappointments in life! They are here to marvel at and guide while they become who they
already are...

If you try to fit children into a life that doesn't fit them they will never be happy or fulfilled and
they will end up hating you...
Your true calling sometimes comes in whispers and you cant hear it calling you if you are being
forced to walk in the opposite direction.
Your job as a parent is to encourage them to try everything, watch what they shine in, guide
them toward what THEY are good at and protect them from harm in the process...

 

My Mother always said,
"I always wanted to be a Mother and I always wanted to have ONLY girls no boys"…"I always
wanted 2 girls that I could dress up"

These statements are pivotal to my relationship to my Mother, as they speak of EVERYTHING
wrong in it.

They are the only true statements my Mother has ever made in her life as a parent.
My Mother only wanted girls because she didn’t want to deal with rough-housing, dirt, messes,
sports, guns, swords, car zoom zooming, smells, burping and farting contests, skateboarding,
broken bones, etc etc etc. Basically anything and everything that boys are about, she didn't like,
nor understand, nor want in her house or to have to deal with.
Her statement of "I always wanted 2 girls that I could dress up" backs that up, but it goes even
further. It shows us what my Mothers vision of Motherhood was all about.
My Mother truly believed that MOTHERHOOD was all about the surface work. The fantasy! The
dressing her two girls in pretty dresses and putting bows in their long hair. The picture perfect
vision of taking those 2 perfectly dressed girls shopping and lunching, going to piano classes and
hovering over us as she taught us how to cook in her perfect kitchen. No messes, no dirt, no
farting contests, and no sports!

But, that’s not real life!
It's fantasy land.
Not only is it sexist and wrong, but it leaves no opportunity for individualism, self challenge and
growth.
And unfortunately if you are like me, and are a freespirited staunch tomboy/computer geek and
really don’t give a fuck about girly-girl things and you are unfortunate enough to be born to a
Mother like mine, you have almost no chance of being steered into any structured and
productive activities that you may benefit from.

 

I was introverted and shy. I was socially awkward.

I have never seen Friends or Sex In The City. I dont watch Kardashians or Real Housewives. I wanna watch educational shows.
I always thought some girls were immature. My classmate Susan would save up her hard boiled eggyolks from lunch, to take to recess and throw them at boys, I never understood why?! My sister loved going to the mall with her little girlfriends from upper class families on the Main Line and shopping for the latest fashions. Although I liked looking nice, It wasn't my thing, I didn't wanna look like all the other girls. I wanted to explore, to travel, to learn. I loved shopping but I went to the mall for Sam Goody and Spencer's. My sister wanted to buy $95 plain white Calvin Klein Tshirts. I was fine with Fruit Of The Loom 5 pack shirts from CVS.

 

And my mom not getting my personality wasn't just a failure to find activities for me, but she also had some weird ideas in her head that being a tomboy was akin to being a criminal or troublemaker.

My Mother simply didn’t "get" me, my personality, nor my energy level. She looked at me as
damaged goods cause I wasn’t her fantasy girly-girl daughter number 2 and pretty much gave
up on me when I wouldn’t cooperate and fulfill her fantasy. She labeled me hyper and a
troublemaker and told me "you were a lot to handle!" and "hard to love" She basically washed her hands of me from an early age and ignored my needs and focused all her love and attention on her other
daughter who played along and was the dutiful girly girl Princess she dreamed about.
Unfortunately because my Mother didn’t get that some girls aren’t Girly-Girls me being a
Tomboy translated in her sexist mind as "Dru is hyper, Dru is a troublemaker" So when anything
happened in the neighborhood or at school my Mother IMMEDIATELY blamed me, NEVER asked
me what had happened and SCOWLED at me for months afterwards. Regardless if I had done
anything or NOT. I even remember my Mother APOLOGIZING to another kid's Mom for ME
hitting them, when actually I had been the one punched in the face and had the fat lip to prove
it! Honestly I can count on one hand the times I truly did cause any trouble or do anything bad.
My Mother just didn't understand that hyper and tomboy did NOT translate into BAD or
VIOLENT or "PRONE TO START FIGHTS"

I hated fights, I hated confrontation, I hated violence.

All I needed was love, protection, guidance, nurturing, activities and education.

Like every other child on earth.

Instead I got NONE of those things and was gaslighted into believing I was a horrible person.

So in closing, narcissists do not accept their children for who they are, they are looked down upon for these differences and then not steered towards anything that fulfills THEM and they are unable to make any friends with common interests.

 

Why couldn't my mom have valued me for who I was and treated me like a 

Tomboy Princess?

Thanks Mom!