My Parents Tried

As I grow older and get closer parenting myself, I find myself appreciating my parents more. What I think I appreciate most was how hard they tried with everything. It must have been bewildering for them to come here and do their best to support their kids in customs that are completely foreign to them. And they did a good job, although sometimes they would just be a tiny bit off.

Two examples of this burn in my memory. Oddly, they both involve Halloween. SN. For me at least, Halloween and Valentine’s were the two most terrifying “holidays”, both for peer pressure reasons. It’s fairly obvious why I was scared of Valentine’s. Or maybe it’s just an unpopular kid thing. But yeah, in elementary school, girls are still gross to some extent, or at least bewildering (SSN. They’re still bewildering. Just less gross). So you don’t want attention from them. But then, if you don’t get any Valentine’s that’s even worse, it just emphasizes how unpopular you (that is, I) are. Even worse is to get Valentine’s from only guys. I mean, that’s just weird, even in elementary school. So yeah, you want some attention, but not too much attention; either way it’s potentially embarrassing, and overall it’s just a really confusing, strange time. I personally think Valentine’s should not be celebrated until voting age.

Halloween was scary for me for other peer pressure reasons, the whole costume thing. You can’t not dress up or you’ll stick out. And you have to have the right costume or, again, you’ll stick out. Pretty much the main goal of my childhood was to not stick out in a bad way. As Homer Simpson says, I wasn’t popular enough to be different.

Anyway, my first Halloween ever, in first grade, I wanted to be Superman. So my mom obliges. But not with those cheapo costumes you get from Toys R Us with the scary plastic mask and suit. No, she got me blue tights and red underwear. The whole bit. Anyway, the look might work for Christopher Reeve, but it definitely did not for me, egad. I still remember the humiliation because some teacher gave nominations for best costume for each class, and for my class, he nominated me with a laugh because, I mean, I looked absurd. On the other hand, it was undeniably a more authentic costume than what other people had. So yeah, he was forced to draw attention to me, but laughed at me while doing it – my nightmare scenario. Burns in my memory. My mom had the right idea, but was just a tad off, with horrific results for me.

Another year, I wanted to be an Ewok. I have absolutely zero idea why; it’s impossible to understand the mind of me as a child. So my poor mom, she went to some fabric store and got this woolly Ewok-like fabric and did her best to make me an Ewok suit. I barely remember it, but I do remember that she stayed up all night making it. My poor mom. Sadly, in the end it didn’t that great. I mean, you try making something like that and tell me how it turns out.

But the part that burns in my memory is, so you know, imagine making something out of a rug. The underside of the rug is really rough, right? It has the potential to chafe certain critical body parts. So to deal with that, my mom cut out a swath from the crotch area and replaced it with a smooth fabric. That way I wouldn’t rub my privates raw.

The problem with that is, now you have a suit where everything looks the same except for this small patch of fabric on the crotch. And I dunno, drawing attention to your privates is cool for orangutans, but not for elementary school kids. Deeply, deeply traumatizing.

I remember those incidents as being two hugely humiliating events in my life, and I think I was a little bitter at my mom for it. But thinking about it now, I’m ashamed of that. It’s just amazing to me how hard she tried. She did the best she could in a culture she didn’t fully understand. And she always tried, with everything. And for that, I’m eternally grateful. I just hope I can give my children a fraction of the effort of love my parents gave to me.