rebellion

My daughter's first college was Simon's Rock College of Bard. I lived in Amherst, MA, getting a masters degree while she was a freshman and sophomore in college. It's a two or three hour drive to Great Barrington from Amherst.  I only saw her at the required mid-term break, when students were expected to leave the campus and, for the most part, go home. The students at Simon's Rock, now integrated fully into Bard but, back when Katie went, a separate institution, were high school sophomores and juniors. They had those required mid-term breaks so the younger college student spent time with their parental units.

I did not go to campus except to pick her up and drop her off for such breaks but to hear her tell it, I hounded her with visits. I would call her about once a month, which is not very much for a parent who lived with the kid for sixteen years, but, gripes, she angrily recoiled at my calls. She angrily denounced me for sending her U.S. mail, too, even though I typically sent her mail accompanied by money.  She was ready to individuate, I guess.  The way she angrily attacked me for staying in touch with her, one overhearing her might easily conclude I was a monster. Is showing up for parent weekend being an intrusive monster?  I didn't go to parent weekend the second year but, uh, yeah, I went the first time. Keep in mind that the summer before Katie left home for Simon's Rock, she had spent the entire summer in full-time treatment for an eating disorder. First she had been in residential treatment and then in outpatient day treatment.  Her health was fragile and I was her only parent.  I don't think it was being pushy to show I cared.

In the spring of her freshman year, as it happens, she got kicked off campus when her weight dropped dangerously low.  I had been very worried about her starving herself but I had held my tongue. A friend turned her in.  Not me. Thank goddess.  I had seen her during that mid-term required break.  I saw had dangerously thin she was.  I worried. I grieved, imagining my daughter keeling over from a heart attack because she weighed 98 pounds, but I said nothing. A very anorexic child can take on a strangely incandescent glow. The anorexic female's thinness is praised by most.  When Katie was at her thinnest, men, esp. older and older ones, would openly drool over her thinness.  These people did not see, I think, that she was not thin, she was starving.

I remember a story she told me when we were spending time in NYC, staying at my sister's Central Park South apartment (which my sister no longer has, sis now living in Illinois, married to someone else).  Some guy had followed her on the sidewalk along Broadway, speaking to her about how hot she was. He followed her long enough, scrutinized her closely enough, that he noticed her panty line. Then, apparently, he closely scrutinized her panty line  (this was before everyone skinny wore string panties, around 1999) to note that her panties were a little baggy. Her panties were 'baggy' bikini briefs because she was literally deathly thin. She knew the guy had been following her, scoping her out, openly commenting on her, on how much he would like to do her, yet when he got up close and whispered in her ear that she needed to buy smaller panties, only then she did feel invaded. Or, at least, this was the story she told me.  I don't really know what kind of relationships my daughter had, or encouraged, with men who openly talk about women's bodies on the street.  I suspect that there were times when she encouraged such behavior, seeing their interest as flattering. I remember once, when she was still in high school, around age 15, telling me about a guy asking for her number. She told me she didn't give it to him. She had her first cell phone at that time. Then she was hospitalized, for the eating disorder, and her phone was with me. It rang and I asked the caller if he was the guy who had just tried to pick her up at the So-and-So (whatever sidewalk cafe Katie had described:  it was something at the corner of Lake and Hennepin, a coffeeshop). He said 'Yeah', and I said "Do you know my daughter is fifteen?"  He hung up and never called back.  I know he didn't call back because she was hospitalized for several more weeks and she did not have the phone with her.

I sold my house to finance Simon's Rock, then used some of those proceeds to finance her education at  Cornell.  I gave her private schools for all but two years of her life.  I gave up stuff for her, as most parents do.

So. In the fall of 1998, as I drove her back to her college campus after her first college-mandated mid-term break with parental units, I asked her to sew a button onto an article of clothing of mine. I have never learned how to properly sew on a button but in Waldorf schools, all the children have handwork classes. All the children in Waldorf schools learn how to sew on buttons. There is a trick or two to how you knot the thread between the button and the garment. I had never learned that trick. When I sewed buttons onto coats, they fell off. When Katie sewed them on, they stayed on.

So I had planned that button repair for the trip. She had refused to do it the whole week she had spent 'home' with me in Amherst. She didn't have much to do that week but she resisted doing it. I had naively imagined that, trapped in the car with me for a few hours, and aware that I was putting wear and tear on my psyche by driving 2.5 hours to her campus and then 2.5 hours back -- she had never driven and she was probably unaware that five hours of driving is work, not a joy ride -- I had totally expected, and assumed, that she would do it. She had been living apart from me for a couple months. She had not done anything for me since college started. She had not lifted a finger during the week she had spent at home with me.

I still don't think it was much to ask, to ask her to sew on that button.

When I asked her to do it, in the car, she initially said she would do it. But later.  When we pulled off the turnpike, for the final half hour or so stretch through side- and back-roads to Simon's Rock, I said "Now, Katie, this is your last chance."

She angrily informed me that she was not my servant and she would not sew on that button.

I pulled to the shoulder and said that we were about thirty miles from her dorm and maybe I would refuse to take her further, just let her and her luggage off right there.  I pointed out that I was doing something for her, not to mention that I was paying for everything in her life. The meals on campus were not free. The single dorm room that cost extra was not free. The  clothes on her back were not free.

She was furious with me.  I don't think I was furious. I think I was hurt.

When I saw that there was no fucking way she was going to sew on that cursed button, I pulled back on the road, drove to campus in relative silence and did not get out of the car when she unloaded.

I guess that was the day she left me, although I did see her a few times after that.