You know in my day - before the world went to pieces - my mother took me into Boston and we went shopping for my first grown up outfit. While I was attached to a pink silk party dress with Juliette sleeves, my mother, being the sensible woman that she was sat me down and said "Now Martha, this is a lovely dress - it's a bit expensive, but we can afford it. Tell me, where will you wear it."
Truth be told, I didn't have an answer for her. So Mother said to me, "I will tell you where you will wear it; your father and I are taking to you to dinner at the Club. You are a maturing young woman, and it is now time for you to take your place at a grown up table. It is our way."
I was elated. But I burst my own bubble when it dawned on me that my best friend Evadele Miles-Ratner had told me about her introduction to the adults table not a month before. "Oh, Martha, it's terribly boring. Not only must you be on your best behavior, but there is no one for you to kibbitz with because you are the youngest one there!"
Mother sensed my disappointment and said that "there will be no long faces. This is your place in the world and there are many children in South Boston who would kill, quite literally, for this type of opportunity. Now smile little lamb and let's select a new pair of white gloves for your outfit."
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| That's a young me on the left and Evedele Miles-Ratner on the right. |
Later, when Sylvia and I worked as models for Filine's (I know what you are thinking -Martha Smith-Standish worked? Yes I did. One is only young once. But I didn't make a career of it, and that is what matters most.) we loved to get dressed up in the latest good-girl fashions. The silk dresses. The velvets, the muslin, the linen suits! And the bows! (We must not forget the glorious bows!) I enjoyed being a girl!
But those days are past, and now I am not a girl. I am a wife and mother.
Well, fast forward to today and as I was shopping for that present for Margery I felt quite sad that she will not be treated to her first grown up dinner when she turns thirteen. No, instead her parents, Melissa and Jonathan will be taking her to Disney World with Margery's best friend, a Miss Toemiko Jones, for a weekend of childhood indulgence.
Anyway, what does one buy a thirteen year old going on seven? Not a grown up dress, but an iPad, which is used for surfing the web, chatting with "peeps", and on rare instances, I am sure, playing something called Angry Birds.
Oh well, it would be lovely to have Margery here so I could buy her a dress, but according to her mother she is beginning to drift towards Goth fashions - all black, accents with chains and dark hair.
Well, such is life - the order changeth with the passing of years.
My husband Edwin Smith-Standish and I attending an international stamp show and the excitement in house is building to a crescendo of anticipation of what we might find and who we might see. If only Margery could join us!
In any event, I hope that your weekend will be relaxing.
My cousin's grandson chose a pair of black leather chaps and what is referred to as a motorcycle cap for his birthday present. He's fifteen but since girls are ahead on maturity Margery might like something like this. You could always surprise her. The young, you know, seem to embrace unisex fashions. TB
ReplyDeleteI remember my first and only dress - for Halloween. Never again. It is not my way.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember my 13th birthday presents but what I do remember about 13 is that there was a boy in my front yard and a boy in my back yard and neither one of them knew the other was there.
ReplyDeleteTeehee.