Blacklisted from the PTA (4 page)

I
F YOU
’
RE STINGING FROM THE PAIN OF THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN
or suffering nasty paper cuts from your post-holiday credit card statements, consider cutting back on child-related costs this year. Examine your budget carefully, and wisely wield your scalpel. If you vow to say no to peer pressure of the imaginary kind this year, you may find the Tooth Fairy budget is ripe for cutting.

When my daughter lost her first tooth, she was handsomely rewarded by the Tooth Fairy with a crisp dollar bill (which I swiped from my son’s piggy bank, but that’s another story). The next morning she pranced down the stairs, proud of her newfound riches. A whole dollar! She couldn’t have been happier.

A couple of days later, her mouth got in the way of two toddlers engaged in a friendly backyard brawl. She ran bleeding and triumphant across the lawn, showing off the fresh gape at the bottom of her Kindergarten smile.

That evening as I put her to bed, she placed the tooth carefully under her pillow.

“Mom?” Her little face shone, full of hope.

“Yes, Sweetie?” I said, pulling up the sheet and folding it under her chin.

Her eyes grew large. “Some people get more than a dollar.”

Knowing where this was going, I tried not to react. “Really? What do they get?”

She hesitated before answering. “Well… some people get toys.” She turned shy—or was it calculating—before adding, “Ella got twenty dollars.”

I told my daughter that I didn’t know Ella’s arrangement, nor anything about the official Tooth Fairy payment schedule, but that her brother had always received one dollar from the irrepressible imp, and that she ought to expect the same.

Not to deprive the Tooth Fairy of her mission in life, but consider for a moment where this kind of inflation leads. If you let the Tooth Fairy drop twenty dollars a pop, then what about the Easter Bunny? He won’t be upstaged by some flighty chick who doesn’t even merit her own holiday. Before you know it, the gold bunny will be made of actual gold.

I don’t mind if other parents choose to buy every impulse snack and toy in the checkout. I humor the birthday parties with magicians, princesses, and ponies, where children garner more gifts than my first twelve Christmases combined. I accept that Valentine’s Day and Easter have been elevated to gift holiday status. But don’t mess with the Tooth Fairy. When I was a kid, the going rate was a quarter. Just a gesture really. The real thrill of the event was the thing coming out, especially so if there were bloodshed.

Poor Santa is already on the hook for plenty. Let this kind of spending go unchecked and mark my words, next year you’ll be pulling out a home equity loan for the Valentine’s treats. If you can get credit, that is.

I
ADMIT IT
: I
CAN
’
T WAIT UNTIL THE
E
ASTER
B
UNNY STOPS HOP
- ping by our house. It’s not that I don’t like holidays; I just can’t take the pressure of being the responsible adult. The trouble with children is that you can’t put much over on them, especially when they seem to be on the elementary school track for pre-pre-law.

One Easter Eve a few years ago, I lay in bed trying to fall asleep amid some low level tension because something just wasn’t quite right. Suddenly I bolted up, frightening my husband out of a sound snore.

I got up, turned on lights, rummaged through the guest room closet for baskets and candy, and set about making the sweetest little tokens of love from the Easter Bunny. I put them in the kids’ doorways and went back to bed, where the father of my children was sleeping just as peacefully as before my crisis.

In the morning the kids came to our room to show us their loot. My six-year-old daughter looked up at me with genuine curiosity. “I wonder why the Easter Bunny gave us the same baskets as last year?”

Note: The Easter Bunny is a touch stingy. She doesn’t really see the point in buying new baskets year after year, and this was the year she decided to test her theory that the kids wouldn’t really notice anyway.

I shook my head and offered up a little snort. “Do I look like I’ve been out all morning hopping around delivering Easter baskets?”

She eyed me, weighing whether or not to push it. She possessed a sparkly bag of sugar, after all. However, the little lawyer-in-training just couldn’t let it go. “It’s just that you said the Easter Bunny was a girl and the Easter Bunny knows what kind of books we like and—”

I
N THE THIRD GRADE
,
MY SON
’
S CLASS PUT ON A
T
HANKS
-
GIVING
program in which he starred as both a turkey and a rapper, and read an essay he wrote entitled, “Why I’m Thankful for My Education.” I value overachievement, so it was comforting to see my son following my example of excellence. As it turned out, he wasn’t the only one expected to perform.

Two weeks before the show, I received a note from the music teacher informing me that my child had been chosen to be a turkey. (Chosen! Nothing better than having my child singled out for special assignments!) Consequently I needed to cover a white t-shirt completely with feathers. Completely: all caps, bold. Use a hot glue gun, it said. If I was not able to make the costume, I was told in a condescending tone, I should call the music teacher immediately.

Ordinarily I’m not interested in proving my worth or competing with other women via my child. (Shoes and bags are more fun.) However, I also can’t seem to back away from a challenge. In my fervor for accomplishment, I interpreted this note as a dare.

If I sound—I don’t know… possessed?—I blame my mother, who probably couldn’t tell you what the letters in PTA stand for. Not that she wasn’t supportive in her way. She came to all my plays and concerts and even honored my wish that she not wear sequins, most of the time. The woman just wasn’t PTA material. I think there’s a gene for it. So in my extended adolescent rebellion to be not-like-my-mother, I skipped off like a Good Mommy to the local big box craft store.

To my surprise, an entire aisle of the store was devoted to feathers. Turns out they are not cheap, especially turkey-appropriate colors like brown, white, and black. I attributed the lower price point of the bolder colors to less demand. (The cul-desac burlesque scene wasn’t exactly “happening.”) I compromised, buying one packet of suitable feathers and a value pack for filler. How badly could a fuchsia and chartreuse turkey stand out from the crowd anyway?

I moved on to the t-shirt aisle and picked up a child’s small in “natural.” I figured the color would mask any ill effects of my feather scrimping. If I happened to run out of feathers midwing, my son would have a turkey-ish color showing through. I congratulated myself on this improvement over the suggested white.

That night I waited impatiently for the glue to melt in the barrel of my trusty, but ancient, glue gun. Then I got to sticking. Sure, I attached the first few feathers to my own shirt and yes, I burned off two fingerprints, but overall, for a virgin turkey costume designer, I rocked it. After thirty minutes, I called it good, even if there were a few spots of natural showing through.

Able? I’ll show them able!

The feedback I got the next day after the Thanksgiving Extravaganza dress rehearsal, suggested otherwise.

“You forgot the sleeves,” a neighbor girl noticed. As if turkey legs have feathers
.

“Pink feathers are for princesses,” came the next critique.

“There’s boogers on it,” said a kid who clearly did not understand the physics of dried hot glue.

And those were just the kids. The real assessment of my merit as a mother was yet to come. Those super PTA moms would surely notice that I in fact, did not rock the turkey costume. But my son, ever the encourager, told me not to worry. He pointed out that one kid had worn a plain t-shirt. Plain! That proved I’d done a better job than at least one mom.

On show day, as I took my seat in the cafeteria, tens of turkeys graced the bleacher stage. One actually looked like a very large turkey. A few evoked Vegas acts. The rest looked like mine—scrappy kids with feathers glued to their shirts. My son was not the most attractive faux fowl, but—objectively—his “Turkey Boogie” blew the others kids out of the barnyard. And, not to brag or exaggerate, but his essay demonstrated his ability to lead the free world one day.

Satisfied, relieved, redeemed—I enjoyed the program, distracted only for a moment by my pity for all those other moms, the competitive ones whose kids had no t-shirt showing through.

M
Y SIX
-
YEAR
-
OLD AND
I
WERE WATCHING
A
MERICA
’
S
N
EXT
T
OP
Model the other day—because there’s really nothing wrong with that. A girl’s got to have role models, after all. While I was feeling a teeny bit guilty about exposing my baby to a world of snorting and gagging, she sprung it on me:

“Sure you can,” I said. “You can be anything.” I went into Lame Mom damage control mode, grasping for examples to counter the effects of the models, not to mention Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. Sure, I could have pointed to political figures, but let’s be realistic. We were watching Bravo, not CSPAN, and that wasn’t exactly an anomaly.

Loudly, aggressively, the ideal heroine came to mind. In all her tatted rebel rock star glory, the answer was Pink. She was perfect! Despite her profanity, I wanted to pipe Pink’s message into my daughter’s brain while she slept. Independence, unfettered expression, and a complete irreverence for authority. Oh wait, that last one could be troublesome. But yes, that’s what I wanted for my girl. Granted it could pose some problems from say, fourteen to twenty-two, but prudence be damned! Ultimately I’d like to raise a girl who knows how to use her voice and get what she wants.

At the same time, the manicured, suburban part of me wanted to shield my baby from—or at least provide unnecessary explanations for—Pink’s ink and Kool-Aid colored hair. But these are part of what makes her unique and not a copy of something she saw in a magazine. Upsetting too was all that partying. What if my daughter took Pink’s example literally, embracing a life of rock and roll, someday “settling down” with a rock star? I pondered a fantasy future as Steven Tyler’s mother-in-law.

All I know is that when I crank Pink and hurl out the obscenities along with her, I don’t care what anybody thinks. That’s what I want for my daughter—sans the sailor mouth, of course. I wanted her to have an answer when someone whispered behind her back: Who does she think she is?

But I couldn’t say all that. Not to a first grader. So I instead I put on some lipstick, and blah-blah-blahed about women and society and important jobs and maybe, just maybe, a woman President very soon.

My daughter’s eyes popped.

“I’ll be President,” she said, leaving me feeling redeemed.

“And if nobody votes for me—” she added brightly. “—I’ll be a model.”

With that I gave up trying to instill any moral authority and went back to watching Top Model. If the girl decides to walk the runway, at least I can take partial credit.

Thank you for sending the Whore Barbie. It really is the perfect gift for an eight-year-old. How clever of you to find a loophole to my rule against Bratz dolls. Your granddaughter has been having a great time playing “Sure you’re not a cop?” and “Run, there’s my pimp.”

Oh, I know, Whore Barbie is a model. And I know models often walk around in black lace micro-mini-skirts, fishnet hose, and thigh-high boots with their hips jutting out and their hands on their asses. But still. Let’s call a ho a ho. Sure, the platinum blonde hair evokes Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, but endearing as the movie was, the hooker-with-the-heart-ofgold plot is tough to explain to a third grader.

Maybe you didn’t notice the half-closed eyes, but you couldn’t have missed the purple and gold eye shadow and the frosty pink lipstick. The doll’s a walking blowjob. And you can’t tell me that leopard print purse isn’t holding the iPhone she uses to process PayPal payments from the tech-savvy johns.

It’s not just me. Whore Barbie’s not even allowed to play with her wholesomely anorexic counterparts. It states clearly on the back of the box:

Not for use with other Barbie dolls.

Even Mattel knows she’s a whore. Anyway, thanks again. We’re off to play “Find my crack.”