Last week, I shared my family’s tradition of decorating our Christmas tree. This week, we placed an ornament from Cracker Barrel on the tree, which sparked a conversation about what happened when we bought the dancing bear ornament.
I will be the first to admit I have more regrets than Amazon has distribution centers. Still, I do not regret buying a pink wig for my middle daughter. At age 10, like her sisters, she was the self-appointed influencer for her brat pack. They would have stripped for her and handed her the scissors if she had decided it would be cool to cut up their designer jeans and make them purses.
Her zest for extracurricular activities kept me spinning a schedule of dance lessons, theater rehearsals, and private singing lessons. I couldn’t count on child support, but I could count on the sun rising and a new performance idea from Daughter Two. Kitchen clean-up doubled as a recap of dance class or a reprise of the opening of Newsies. Bedtime stories were told with a theatrical flair and always included happy endings.
She scrimped her allowance to buy the acrylic pink bob, only to learn that her school’s dress code banned wigs. After a few rounds of letters to the school boardfailed to change the rules, she threw the bob in the Prop and Future Halloween Costume bin.
It did not surprise me when Daughter Two decided to wear a wig on an outing for pancakes. The smell of bacon and maple syrup thickened the air as our waitresssugar-pied us up and we ordered. We gave no further thought to Daughter Two’s accessory, accepting the pink wig as part of everyday wear. However, back in the 90s, pink wigs were rare in our southern part of the world.Fellow diners’ glances soon turned into stares.
The girls and I chatted, waiting for our pancakes.My voice rose, trying to drown out the chatter from a four-top of older ladies.
“I never.”
“…should know better”
“Bless her heart. ”
Daughter Two’s mouth pursed. She wiggled in her seat.She twiddled her straw.
She stared right back at them. She re-arranged her fork and knife on the menu.
With a pop of her napkin, she plowed by our waitress carrying a load of pancakes; we assumed she’d be back from the bathroom before the butter melted on her stack.We slathered syrup on our stacks, and I wondered about Daughter Two camping out in the toilet. Perhaps there wasa line. Daughter Two’s chair sat empty. The glob of butter now melted over her pancakes, cold.
We found no line in the bathroom, just a weary traveler, adjusting her snowman sweatshirt, preparing to wash her hands. Outside a stall, I tried to coax Daughter Two with bathroom humor. The lady nodded toward the last toilet.
The girls and I shifted, peaking through the cracks. Daughter Two perched on the edge of the toilet, her blonde hair flattened, her small hands wringing the wig.
With eyes red and big tears raining, she declared she would never eat a pancake ever again, and to leave her alone. Forever.
“No pancakes for the rest of your life?”
“Can I have what you ordered?” asked Daughter Three.
“Can I have your bacon?” asked Daughter One.
Elevator music looped, and toilets flushed. Women moved in and out, offering looks and opinions. “Yes, thank you.” “NO, thank you.” “Bless YOUR heart.”
My youngest squatted in the corner of the bathroom, looking up and under the door, begging Daughter Two to come out.
My mom genes kicked in. There was more at stake than a bit of restaurant embarrassment. I had to get it right. I felt the weight of the moment: The rock of my daughter’s soul was tumbling down a dark hole, and she might never be the same.
I needed time to figure out how to pull the knife of doubt out of her heart, to stop the bleeding and convince her she could love the identity she created, at the bare minimum, to re-enforce her natural strengths and beg her not to question her ability to pull off a fashion statement.She needed assurance it was okay to trust her most authentic self. If she couldn’t trust herself, I would havefailed as a mother and fellow female.
I was no longer standing in the bathroom of an interstate pancake house, and we were no longer using a coupon for pancakes before they expired. Instead, I was kneeling in a forest next to a hole freshly dug by a beautiful human, my child. She had sunk into a deep space carrying her childhood comforts: cookies, nuts, and a blanket. Shesmoothed out the tattered edges of her childhood, a loveyquestioning her place in the world.
I looked through the crack of the door. Her puffy eyesmet mine. And in that moment, she knew I knew that place,too. She made room for me under her blanket.
I wanted to tell her it would get easier, but judgment is timeless. It is a relentless foe. We all stood in silence.Swoosh, another toilet.
When I gave birth to a bevy of girls, I knew what I wanted for them. I also knew it would be challenging to teach them. I am still trying to figure it out, and I am lucky enough to be 63 years old. The daily challenge of beingmyself—how to be myself in a world that is ready to tell me who I ought to be—still happens occasionally.
But back to the bathroom. I needed to get something right, and the battle for one female to get it right was right before me.
“I don’t know a lot, but I do know that if you wear apink wig, you will get stares. ” Holding my breath, she gazed through the crack in the door, leaning on it.
“ You got to be ready for it. If you wear it, you can’t care.” I paused, not knowing what I would say next,praying for the right words to come out of my mouth.
“Wear it. Don’t wear it. You decide. But if you do wear it, wear it with guts.
But be ready. You do not need permission to be yourself.”
Stillness. We sat in stillness. No one walked in or out for a moment. Daughter One sat down and grabbedDaughter Three’s hand.
Daughter Two straightened, smoothed out the pink wig, and opened the bathroom door. We walked out and into the world, feeling altogether different. Altogether better, all together.
Moments passed into a future memory that I hoped would become a point of reference for my girls—and it happened. We shared that story while hanging the dancing bear.
