What Would Mom Say

Image from Jenna Norman
on UnSplash

This week my question to answer on the year long bio I am writing for my daughter and family as well as my wife Liz involved what parent I learned the most from.  

As I compared my Mom and Dad, easily I learned the most from Mom. Outside of the usual circumstances, I found I could find many more opportunities to spotlight Mom's influence on me. For example, I remember at a very early age watching Mom put on her makeup. Being a product of the "greatest generation" she was not shy about dressing up. However, I don't think watching makeup being applied led me to being a transvestite or even a transgender woman really mattered. Somehow the gender issues I faced went much deeper. Perhaps as deep as the medication Mom took during her pregnancy (DES) which was offered to women at the time to prevent problem births.

It turned out, I was successfully delivered just before my parents had decided to give up after three still births and adopt a child. I think because of all of that, my Mom put an extra emphasis on raising me and my brother who came along two years later. So much so, I wonder now what would have happened if Mom would have realized she had a daughter rather than a son. In all fairness to her, the fifties during my youth had very little information on gender issues. When it was available, gender issues were known as mental illness. 

Throughout the years, I always mistakenly thought girls had all the benefits in life I always wanted. Girls were able to wear the pretty clothes I wanted, be gifted the dolls I wanted and even never had to worry about being drafted and serving in the military. Male privileges were not known to me in those days because I had not yet earned any. As a side note, once I did earn the benefits of being male, I learned some of them were automatic and I did not want them anyhow.

I have forever wondered what my life would have been with Mom had I been born a biological female. Being as similar personality wise as we were, we fought quite a bit as mother/pseudo son and I have to think it would have been worse as a daughter. Mom was very headstrong and I am sure we would have had battles over fashion styles in the 1960's as well as when I could begin using makeup. In fact, when I was sneaking around using her makeup, I was probably younger than I would have been had I been her actual daughter.  I am sure too, Mom would have tried to influence me into going to her college and joining her sorority. She would have done her best to push me down a certain path which was certainly going against my generation's rules at that time in history during the upheaval in the later 1960's.

By this time, you may be asking where was Dad during all of this. It was not like he was not an influence in my life but he was not as hands on as Mom was. He was long on providing and short on emotions which I struggled with for most of my life. One thing I remember most about him was how desperate I was to never disappoint him and since I rarely if ever heard a positive from him, I never knew what he really thought of my life. He was blessed with excellent health and outlived my Mom by ten years and I never came out to him before his death from Dementia.

I did try to come out to Mom but it was a dismal failure for both of us. Predictably, when I told her I wanted to be a woman, she offered up mental health counseling. The conversation took place just after I was finished with my military duty and was never mentioned again until her death fifty years later. I used to hold her thoughts against her and was quite bitter but I gradually mellowed with age and came to realize she was just a product of her generation. 

To honor all her sacrifices, I used her first name as my middle name when I legally changed my gender markers nearly ten years ago. Had I had the opportunity to be accepted as her daughter from the beginning, it would have been interesting how our lives would have intersected. Way past the pushback I would have received for wearing my skirts too short and wearing too much makeup when I was a teenager. I know what Mom would have said. You aren't leaving the house looking like that. Maybe I should have thought of that when I tried and failed to dress that way later in life.