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  • Long Distance Mom: Wedding Dresses

    By Elizabeth Coffman April 22, 2009 9:22 pm

    While on sabbatical and spending more time with my kids, my thirteen year-old daughter, Katie, has opted to spend evenings with me, while her fifteen year-old brother prefers to stay with his dad (my ex-husband). Their dad and I are working hard to let the children initiate these choices, and not to fall into the trap, as Katie tearfully accused us, of laying on a ‘guilt trip’ for choosing the other parent. We do not allow any more statements such as, “But I’m cooking your favorite chicken pot pie tonight! Can’t you go over to your Mom’s house some other night?”

    Needless to say, I am delighted that Katie wants to spend more time with me lately, and we are carefully trying to develop more ‘feminine’ mother/daughter pursuits — moments she avoids with her father and brother. I am experiencing lots of feminist angst as many of these moments focus on issues related to clothes, romance, physical appearance, etc… None of this 'togetherness' precludes the fact that we’ve already spent lots of time developing Katie’s personal interests in volleyball, the sciences (we love watching the Fox show House), and the culinary arts (baking pastries).

    But at thirteen her interests (and her hormones) are changing radically and swiftly. Last night Katie begged me to rent the film 27 Dresses, written by Aline Brosh McKenna, the same screenwriter for The Devil Wears Prada. I have to say I enjoyed Prada as it reminded me of living in NYC after college, being terrified of my first editor and ignorant about questions of style, status or power. I became disillusioned with that NYC world very quickly, as does Anne Hathaway in Prada, primarily because of the superficial condescension that Meryl Streep embodies in her smart, edgy performance. I agreed to rent 27 Dresses.

    27 Dresses develops from the adage “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.” The film stars Katherine Heigl, who plays Jane, a NYC magazine editor’s assistant with a love for weddings and a tendency for planning her friends’ weddings while ignoring her own personal life. Jane’s closet is crammed full with bridesmaids’ dresses — all 27 of them. At one wedding she meets a ‘New York Journal’ wedding columnist who secretly writes a column about her bridesmaid 'self-hatred', while also falling in love with her. (The film is 100% heterosexual—not one gay wedding guest, not even a glimmer of sexual alternatives in it.)

    I won’t ‘spoil’ the ending for you, but I will tell you that the film led me to pull out my own ‘princess’-style wedding dress from the closet, try it on, and demonstrate how I could not zip it up any more in front of my daughter. Katie’s delight kept rising, as my feminist mom scorecard sank into the negative numbers. Katie talked about how she wants to have two children — a boy and a girl — when she grows up. (I don’t think she’s seen Knocked Up yet, but maybe so…) I responded that she should probably wait for marriage and children (unlike myself, of course) until she’s 30. She replied to my point just as quickly, “Can’t I get engaged before 30?”

    “Sure…” I said, racking up more negative points…

    I went to bed recalling a moment from my undergraduate days in David Paletz’s year-long “Politics and the Media” course at Duke University. Paletz (who was one of the reasons I went on to get a PhD in Cinema Studies) struck that first feminist note with me when he pointed out how many Hollywood films, particularly films aimed at a female audience, end with a wedding march. When he showed The Sound of Music (one of my all-time favorite films), I promptly picked up a pencil and threw it at the screen when Julie Andrews marches slowly down the aisle, looking perfect in her huge, white gown, after having discarded her less attractive clothes from the nunnery. Paletz laughed out loud at my response, which indicated clearly how disillusioned I was by Hollywood’s vision of a woman’s most 'triumphant' moment.

    Now why, I wondered, was my daughter not getting this contradiction? Why is the wedding day romance suddenly so important to a divorced child of college professor-types?

    I found myself remembering a New Yorker article about Barack Obama published before the election. In it Obama describes his international childhood, which was partially the result of a divorced, academic mother who gave her son the choice to stay in Hawaii at age thirteen, while she completed anthropology research in a brutalized Indonesia. As a result of this divorced, disconnected family life, all Barack wanted to do with Michelle was to establish a solid, home base in Chicago, and a community for his family to feel connected with and supported by. Both experiences have defined him in important (and electable) ways.

    Katie seems to be seeking a retelling of her own family romance, and I certainly can’t blame her for that. She keeps a wedding photo of me and her father in her room at her dad’s house. Like Obama, though, Katie already knows the alternative versions of that story. She doesn’t need me to remind her of them.

    Maybe we’ll read Freud next…

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Comments on Long Distance Mom: Wedding Dresses

  • Posted by Just a note... on April 23, 2009 at 10:00am EDT

  • Just a thought from a 29 year old doctoral student working on women's educational history: I don't think you should look at indulging your daughter's interests in clothing or romantic comedies as earning "negative" feminist points. In fact, I bet if you come down too hard against her interest in hearts, flowers and romance, she may decide to pursue it even more vigorously - possibly in unhealthy ways. My parents (who married young and are still together) encouraged me to have lots of goals outside of boyfriends and dating - in fact, they said things like "wait until you're 30". Of course, as a teenager, I believed they were a total drag and that I should clearly do the opposite of what they said. And making serious relationships verboten just encouraged me to seek them - not always in the healthiest ways. You sound like a great mom, and I'm sure you'll sort this all out. I'm just saying "don't panic." When I was 13 I mooned over Sleepless in Seattle, and pined over cute boys. I think in the end having the experiences so typical of adolescent girls helped to fuel my need to understand how women are educated, and why we go through that phase...which ultimately led me to feminism. So in a weird way, I couldn't be a feminist without having gone through a period of intense interest in romantic, "girly" things.

  • Posted on April 23, 2009 at 11:00am EDT

  • I think it's great you have the opportunity to share these things with your daughter. She sees you, a highly educated, thoughtful, articulate professional woman, who has loved, given birth, raised children, and survived the loss of a marriage, acting like a grown-up with your ex-husband in putting your kids first which means you have to deal and not just cut him out of your life...still enjoying wedding symbols, makeup and clothes, showing her your wedding dress, watching chick flicks of the most chicken-brained variety and just being a three dimensional poly-functional probably pretty happy (in the deeper sense of the word) adult.

    The best gift you can give your child, beyond being head-over-heels in love with her, is to show her up close and personal what a happy adult looks like, embracing the richness of life and all our lovely contradictions.

  • How sad!
  • Posted by Kayla Goldring , Financial Aid Director on April 23, 2009 at 11:30am EDT

  • How sad that a woman finds it so complicated to reconcile her feminist and feminine self. It's really not a contradiction at all. Don't confuse yourself and your daughter by agonizing over every stage of your daughter's normal development as a woman.

    Just chill and enjoy each other.

    (BTW, that line about the movie being "100% heterosexual" was, in my opinion, totally gratuitous. Are you inferring that every movie nowadays MUST make some reference to gays and lesbians? Whatever for?)

  • It doesn't have to be this hard
  • Posted by KC on April 23, 2009 at 12:30pm EDT

  • Are you raising a daughter or breeding a feminist? Being a mom is about helping your daughter be herself -- not forcing her into your dreams.

  • Do you want to be a grandma someday?
  • Posted by Just darn lucky on April 23, 2009 at 3:45pm EDT

  • While, as an educated and accomplished woman, you probably don't want your daughter to get married at 18 and become a housewife with a dozen kids, telling her to wait until she's 30 for marriage and children (and feeling guilty that you earned "negative points" for giving permission for an engagement before 30) isn't exactly the only other option. I think there are lots of us PhD moms (or expectant moms, as I am) who feel just darn lucky to have the chance for parenthood.

    I did, in fact, wait until after earning the PhD to get married. Then we waited until my husband finished his PhD and we both had solid careers to start trying to get pregnant. And - like many accomplished, professional women in their 30s - getting pregnant and staying pregnant has been the most challenging experience of my life. So far so good - and my OB says our odds are very good that I will carry this baby healthfully to term. But if I had it all to do over again - I'm not sure I would have waited quite so long to start trying for motherhood. There are plenty of accomplished and successful women who build their careers and their families simultaneously. I wouldn't have wanted to do this a decade ago - but maybe 5 years ago would have made a difference. And I'm just SO GRATEFUL that even though I waited, I will still have the chance to have my kid. I have friends my age in early menopause who will never get to be parents.

    I'm certainly not saying you should encourage your daughter to get married or have kids too young. But don't force standards of waiting forever on her, either. Teach her to be strong and independent and healthy. Isn't it better for her to make a decision to get married and have children when she meets a nice guy, feels like her life is pulled together, and feels mature and ready, than to base such a personal and emotional decision on a date on the calendar?

  • comments
  • Posted by Lee on April 24, 2009 at 7:45am EDT

  • Great blog. The preachy comments remind me why I stopped writing mine. Persevere, dear. You sound like a wonderful mother.

  • Posted on April 30, 2009 at 4:15pm EDT

  • I can definitely see the struggle you were facing as a feminist while watching your 13 year old daughter swoon over the fairy tellesqu movie ending. These movies are designed to fit into society's own cultural norm of what women should want and how they should do it (hence the likely beautiful, but generic wedding that was portrayed- or so I imagine as I've never seen the movie). And, it's geared at teenagers. But the beauty of it is you will likely have a greater impact than seeing that one movie- or even a dozen movies- will through your actions, discussions etc.

    That being said, don't see getting engaged/married at 30 as "negative points". I'm a very liberal person who got married young (23), had a child young and completed an MS wth a toddler. Perhaps I'm just lucky; my husband's dream job is being a "house husband" and is supportive of my plans on getting a PhD- and whatever I else I want to accomplish.

  • Not Sound of Music but Singin' in the Rain
  • Posted by Long Distance Mom on May 26, 2009 at 4:30am EDT

  • David Paletz just informed me that that I could not have thrown my pencil at The Sound of Music (since he never showed it in class). More likely, I threw it at Singin' in the Rain, which has a surrealistic, modern dance/wedding dress scene with Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse.

    This scene now looks interesting to me...

    I appreciate the rich comments on this column.

  • Posted by Melesha at http://www.my-wedding-chair-covers.com on October 29, 2009 at 5:30am EDT

  • My an my ex have a similar spilt arrangement with my having my son and him my daughter. I do think it allows me to be closer to both because I see my son all the time but especially the time I have with my daughter.

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