Growing Up Female

A recent post on my daughter’s Facebook page read,
“wow, a slumber party with her friends, and suddenly Zoe wants to take singing lessons and is wearing
mascara.”

My first thought was, “Oh No!” My second thoughts? “What fun! Things sure have changed since I was her age.”   Zoe will be thirteen at the end of September. Growing up and becoming a woman starts earlier and earlier these days. I’m actually surprised and grateful that Zoe’s burgeoning didn’t happen sooner.  Unlike a lot of early bloomers I’ve noticed lately, she’s pretty much on track with where I was at her age, almost sixty years ago.

 But now, as I squint back over the years, maybe I was fourteen when I first tried wearing makeup. It’s likely she’s a year ahead of where I was. Not bad! But still, strolling down Charlottesville’s downtown walking mall on a Saturday afternoon, you’ll see what look like ten and eleven year old girls trying to be eighteen. Zoe doesn’t dress like that … yet.

How parents let their little girls out of the house dressed in sexy clothes more appropriate for sixteen year olds is beyond me. But then I’m an old fart. I’ll be seventy-one in November. The years are going too fast and the world is changing at a pace that I’ll never catch up with … Though I try. I do have my MacBook, iPad, and iPhone.

I don’t listen to much of today’s music. I cherish the rock and roll of my teen years and stopped caring after the Beatles and folk singers, the likes of Joan Baez, weren’t “in” anymore.  Best of all I love the music of my mother’s era … that Big Band sound, jazz, and vocalists like Frank Sinatra. And fashions?  I love clothes with classic lines that are hip without trying to make this old crone look like she’s trying to be twenty-five again. I love linen and cotton … and just a tiny bit baggy. I don’t wear shoes with even the slightest of heal. It hurts too much. Yeah, like I said,”I’m aging.”

But back to those teen years and growing up. Makeup … mascara, eye liner, eye shadow, bright colored lipstick or nail polish were not allowed in my house. And forget, fragrances. I did manage to get, with my mother’s okay, a straight skirt with a slit up the back when I was around fourteen. I also wore felt poodle skirts and saddle shoes. But they weren’t sexy.

It was that hip hugging, tweed straight skirt that got my father’s attention. So when I walked out of the bathroom wearing it along with a tight, black turtleneck one morning, he had a fit. But it wasn’t so much the skirt and turtleneck sweater that made him loose his mind. It was the addition of mascara, eyeliner and lipstick.

“Where do you think you’re going, young lady?” he asked. When I answered, “To school,” he told me to “Go back in the bathroom and wipe that garbage off your face and then change into something more appropriate for someone your age.” He told me to bring him all of my makeup and nail polish, which I had purchased with my own money. He threw it all into the garbage can. My tearful hysteria, must have given him second thoughts. Or maybe my mother had spoken to him. Later that day, he agreed to a compromise. He said I could have clear nail polish and the palest of pink lipstick. He, of course, would be purchasing them for me. I’m sure he thought that letting me near a makeup counter would brand me a whore and a slut.

After I’d saved up some more allowance I bought more makeup. I put it on at school and wiped it off before I got home. And my already deep dislike for my father, grew into something even worse. Ironically, today I don’t wear makeup of any kind. It just isn’t me.

As for the voice lessons?  I say, “Yes.” When I was twelve and wanted to take tap dance lessons by father said, “No, because you can’t make a living being a tap dancer.”  I guess he never figured out what growing up is all about.

I applaud Lisa for letting Zoe experiment with make up. It’s a new day, in a new world. God only knows what it will be like if and when Zoe’s daughter is twelve going on thirteen. I’m no Victorian, but I do hope the rush to be a grown up slows down a bit. Can you imagine little girls arriving in the world wearing mascara and eye shadow?