I had several things going against me growing up. One of them was the fact that my mother was blessed with 3 daughters, and my aunt, the hairdresser, had 3 sons. My mother had NO idea how to do little girls hair. This is one of the reasons that I prayed for sons. I couldn’t imagine putting a child through the emotional scarring that I endured, just in case I too, couldn’t figure out how a barrette worked when applying it to someone else’s head.
In order to solve this dilemma, my mom made us get our hair cut really short. Really short. Like butch-short. I was still in second grade at my new school, and my teacher who never really bonded with me after the Valentine fiasco, was out sick and we had a substitute.
Now at this point in my education, I was still a good student. I excelled in English, and my teachers had always adored me. Our substitute was giving a spelling lesson, and one of the words was “orchestra”. I was so excited because I knew it, raising my hand, bursting with excitement to be the first one in the class to figure it out when the teacher called on me, saying “You..um..are you a boy or a girl?”
Now, over the years I have tried to figure out what could have possibly made the teacher think that this was a politically correct way to address a child. Did this lady not realize that kids get made fun of at this age? Did she think I was used to being mistaken for both genders? I have no idea, but I can tell you I am 31 now and this happened when I was about 7, so it kind of fucked with me and still does.
I was so shocked and horrified, I could barely eek out the word “girl”. And this was about the time I stopped raising my hand to participate in class. The substitute would become my teacher later in elementary school, and if you think I didn’t remember this bitch the whole way up until that point, you are WRONG. Needless to say, I did not have a productive school career in 5th grade.
I was nominated on Babble's Top 50 Mom Blogs List. So pretty please take two minutes and click here: http://www.babble.com/babble-50/mommy-bloggers/nominate-a-blogger/index.aspx then scroll down to "Glamorous Life" and click on the "like" button.
Thanks a bunch!
