Mom’s frustration with difficult behavior was palpable and cast a shadow over my honest, albeit sometimes negative feelings. I knew how to behave and this won Mom's favor.
I was Mom's favorite, or so she would tell me. Why she favored me over my brother, I can only guess. Prehaps it was my good behavior, prehaps it was just because I was a girl. I remember Mom designating her children as a boy for Dad, and a girl for Mom. I believe she thought she was being clever and had no idea how devisive this arrangement was. Dad complied.
Being Mom's favorite, for whatever her reason, made me feel special as if I were a princess. I also felt lonely, and doomed to proper behavior only. In the movie Camelot (1960), the song "What Do The Simple Folk Do", a bored and isolated King Arthur and Guenevere long for the freedom and light hearted behavior of the common folk. I related to the story and have no common folk memories of fun, silly times with my mother. There are happy pictures of my brother with my Mom and memories of her playing "lobster hand" with him. They enjoyed pretending her hand was a lobster claw that could bite his face. He would grab her wrist in an attempt to keep the claw away from him. I'm sure my brother has plenty of unpleasant memories with Mom to balance the fun ones. I wish I had more fun memories to balance my unpleasant ones.
Being Mom's favorite had another curse and a blessing. My brother got to go on fun business trips with Dad while I stayed home with Mom. It was boring. As an adult, I learned my brother dealt with his own heartache during these excursions, although at the time I didn't see it that way. My blessing was I didn't have to suffer the same.
It is true that staying home was boring. But the other side of the truth is that I occupied myself in meaningful activity — art. I worked long hours in my room or on the dining room table. I loved John Nagy's How to Draw series and loved copying faces form books and magazines. I was good at it and it made my parents proud.
