Do not eff with the Franklin Mavericks.
I read a blog post the other day about how a mother lamented the fact that her daughter insisted on wearing boy clothes. She had gone so far as to attempt bribing her daughter to wear a dress for five dollars. That made me laugh.
The daughter said hell no.
The one and only time my mother insisted I wear a dress was for my aunt's wedding. I cried. As I recall, I had a somewhat similar stance and look as I do in that softball uniform. In fact, we left for the out-of-state wedding immediately following my softball game so I drove from Michigan to Georgia in it.
I think I even suggested to my mother that I could wear it to the wedding. She, being the cruel and heartless mother she was, refused. And thus I was forced to wear gender handcuffs in the form of a blue and white floral dress. Floral! I mean, talk about putting salt in the wound.
From what I can see in the childhood photos I have, I spent most of my time in cut-offs and a sassy bowl cut:
Here I am beating the family dog.
Moments before I reached my arms around his pony neck and strangled him.
Animal abuse jokes aside, I was a pretty butchy-looking little girl with a love for animals, trucker caps, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dorothy Hamill. It's no wonder I never had a boyfriend. Then again, I probably shouldn't have modeled my fashion choices after my older brother:
We never met a plaid shirt we didn't like.
Which one is the boy? Bowl cut on the left or bowl cut on the right?
That one was a trick question. I gave you two sandy-headed kids in bowl cuts. One is wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers shirt and the other is wearing plaid. It's basically an IQ test. You can provide your answer in the comments section and I will give you your Tomboy IQ. Then we will form our own little plaid Mensa society right here on Blogspot. Everyone will want to be a member.
I provide this photo evidence for you today as a public service. You can let your little girls dress like lesbians as children and it does not mean you are trying to turn them gay. You may still get grandchildren out of them, so calm down and let your little princess be a prince if she wants to.
Besides, gay children are the best children. They can either help you decorate or fix your car. In fact, if I could have ten children (and my husband would go along with it), I would. But only so I could be guaranteed at least one gay child. It's my way of helping humanity. We could definitely use a little more rainbow in this world.
HA - I too had the Dorothy Hamill hair cut as a kid.
ReplyDeleteI refused to wear pink until I was 22.
Cute post.
This is awesome. You know I have similar things going on with my eight year old. It's not even a matter of how he turns out - he already is who he is and that is just perfect.
ReplyDeleteYou are on the right. I think. I can see as a parent not caring what you wear but why did your mom have to give you the bowl cut? I mean she looks really pretty and fashionable. Oh, uh, yeah, you were a really pretty and handsome kid Mandy.
@Whiskey Girl: I saw online that it is now being called "The Wedge." As though that can make it sound stylish.
ReplyDelete@Wow that was awkward: I once had an old man hold the door open for me and say, "There you go, young man!"
I had the Dorothy Hamill cut with big metal braces (yeah, I was ROCKING hot ---NOOOOOTTTT!)
ReplyDeleteI'd like to guess and am going with the kid on the left because you mentioned you were younger than brother and smaller than him. But honestly, haven't a clue.
@Little Ms Blogger: I'll allow 24 hours for responses and then provide the answer. This is going to be fun! *Claps*
ReplyDeleteMy sister and I not only had the same haircuts but quite possibly the same clothes.
ReplyDeleteAnd look at us! We all turned out just fine, didn't we?!
:-)
Pearl
Being a tomboy was way more fun anyway! Less drama battles over who gets what Barbie, your guy friends that you climb trees with don't care if you hit them with a stick and you don't look like a homeschooler in a jean dress when you want to play baseball. I loved being a tomboy!
ReplyDeleteBy the same token, let 'em wear pink dresses if they want to. We and our daughter were determined not to impose gender roles on the grandkids, and we didn't. But that little girl at age 2 suddenly insisted on pink, dresses, princesses, ballerinas, and fairies. She doesn't have to fight about it, so she is free to run, jump, climb, and do whatever her brother does. You were totally cute, and I think you're the one on the right. Maybe.
ReplyDeleteSo does this mean we can bring back plaid flannel shirts and work boots from the 90s? I miss them. *sigh*
ReplyDelete@Pearl: You shouldn't have concluded that sentence with a question mark.
ReplyDelete@Padded Cell Princess: I was pretty comfortable being who I was until 5th Grade when a Girl Who Shall Remain Nameless said, "Mandy, why do you dress like a boy?" in front of my whole class.
@Blissed Out Grandma: I'll be curious to see what my daughter prefers. Thanks for playing the Tomboy IQ game, I'll reveal the answer tomorrow!
@Michon: I am currently wearing a pair of brightly colored jeans, which I think puts me somewhere in the mid to late eighties. The early nineties can't be far off.
That is you on the right.
ReplyDeleteYou can look boyISH but that little face belongs to a pretty little girl.
My son had long hair when he was a little one, it was blonde and curled a bit .. he was pretty. I cannot tell you how many busybodies would scold me for letting him look like a girl. He wore boy clothes.. I didn't send him out in a dress for gods sake ! But when his hair was cut, it was cut like yours... he still looked like a girl lol.
Now he looks like ... hmmmm... dark haired, very tall and sort of ben afleck-ish looking, with not so much jawline lol
Lets see the boy on the left is smiling naturally. Mandy always seems to have a serious look as a kid, so when photographed in a family portrait , I would think Mandy would not smile naturally. you would force the smile by over doing it. So Mandy is on the right side. I think )
ReplyDeleteEveryone thought I was a little girl when I was a kid... and I turned out okay... sort of.
ReplyDeleteGreat post (and great pictures).
The boy is on the left!
Your childhood pictures look just like my little 10yr old tomboy of my own. I wouldn't change a thing because she is perfect as she is.
ReplyDelete@aBroad: Aw, your son sounds adorable.
ReplyDelete@The Last Santa: Your analysis cracked me up.
@The Six Fingered One: We're just a bunch of gender-bending bloggers, aren't we? So ahead of the times.
@Freddy San Diego: Aw, she sounds wonderful! P.S. I'm going to San Diego.
Hell yes, I had to be threatened or bribed to wear a dress as well, back in the day. Dresses? Who can climb a tree in a dress? Pffft! I didn't know any girlie girls growing up, we were all feral. :) It's the only way to be.
ReplyDeleteAnd I haven't changed much... And yes I still grew up to enjoy men and handbags and the usual lady things, but hell, I'll still scurry up a tree if you let me.
I was a tomboy.
ReplyDeleteBorn between two brothers: and we climbed trees, went discovering, and never a day did I wear pink.
I loved the physicality of it all.
@The Vegetable Assassin: Girls who can scramble up trees haz skillz.
ReplyDelete@The Empress: I agree. It's probably why I like sex and working out.
OMG...does it count if I knew you when the picture was taken? Can I still guess? I love the picture of you and C, however. Same shirt, same hair.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure. Are you the one on the right or the left? Maybe somewhere in the middle? I just don't know
ReplyDeleteMum let us wear what we wanted growing up- at least what they could afford anyways. Trucks and dirtbikes were more fun than Barbie, even if the bitch has/had everything.
People pushing the Princess persona's are right up there with the Pageant parents. Sicko Psycho's!
Did anyone NOT have a bowl cut in the 80s?
ReplyDeleteI can't vote on the picture. I just stared at it for a good two minutes and I'm stumped.
Your message is great though - let kids be who they are. Bowl cuts and all.
At least you were never asked in EIGHTH GRADE, more than once, if you were a boy or a girl. That's when I started wearing skirts. I hated junior high.
ReplyDeleteI vote you're the one sporting the plaid on the right.
LOL Fun post. Made me laugh.
ReplyDeletexx
I have a Princess Boy, and people are always accusing me of turning him gay because I let him behave in a certain way. He's four! If he's in his late teens and dressing like a member of the Village People and actually having sex with males, I'd say, "Okay, he's gay". But I don't see how that would ever be a problem.
ReplyDeleteWhat the heck is a dress?
ReplyDeleteI mentioned this on another blog but some wonderful hippie friends of ours tried to raise their daughter in a "gender neutral" environment, not wanting her to be forced into female-dominant career choices.
ReplyDeleteSo they bought her Tonka Trucks and building sets and a baseball mitt. But what she wanted to do most of all was put on a frilly dress and "twirl". You are what you are, apparently. Embrace it.
I had a bowl cut for years. I think there's something about kid hair - super fine and straight (at least in my case) that there was really not much else you could do with it. And, it didn't really need much brushing in that style - a major bonus!
ReplyDelete@Soobs: You're not allowed to guess. That's cheating.
ReplyDelete;-p
@One Bad Pixie: Tomboys are not featured on Toddlers in Tiaras, this much is true. Maybe someone will invent tomboy pageants. They'll be a required Plaid competition.
@Mel Heth: It's possible we all had bowl cuts. I hear they're coming back. *Snicker*
@Vapid Vixen: Oh but I was. I don't know if it was twice, but it definitely happened once. Puberty be damned.
@Ms Smack: Maybe I stole these pictures from a famous tomboy celebrity? ;-P
@Twills: You can't predict what kids are going to be like when they're adults. When we will all learn this and let them pick their noses! Okay, maybe not that. But you get my point.
@That Janie Girl: *Snort* I see I don't have to explain myself to you.
@Robert the Skeptic: My baby girl likes to put a dish towel over her head and walk into the wall. I wonder what that means?
@Amy: You sound like my mother.
I don't know any girl who survived a 70s childhood who didn't have the Dorothy Hammill cut. I know I did. And, I rocked my brother's old tees and cut-off jeans. I also cut worms in half and sold them, sold water instead of lemonade and tore the legs off of grasshoppers and I turned out normal.
ReplyDeleteI still will refuse to wear pink, though I've been known to rock a skirt... just not the Dorothy Hammill hairstyle. Thank Darwin.
No idea. My mom was obsessed with giving me whatever was sporting the lid of Dorothy Hamill. In the 90s she wanted me in any short 'do of Meg Ryan. Now she just wishes I was married and making her grandkids. I blame the hair of my youth.
ReplyDeleteI suddenly have the urge to cut my son's Bieber cut. (The old one, not the short one.) It's way too close to a bowl cut and one day he will ask me what the fuck I did to his head. I suspect "Well, you got your hair cut once a year. Maybe." won't be a good answer.
ReplyDeleteYou are on the right. The posture, the mugging for the camera, it's all you. :)
um, this post is a scream!
ReplyDeletei had that stupid dorothy hamill haircut, too. NOT FLATTERING. not at all. me, my sisters and my MOM all had that stinking haircut. for YEARS!
p.s. i cried when i had to wear jeans as a kid. can you blame me? they were wranglers.
That last sentence? Kind of makes me want to cry. I adored this post.
ReplyDelete@Scribe: It'll probably come back. Everything else 70s and 80s has seemed to come back in some variation or another.
ReplyDelete@Janice: But did you have "The Rachel?"
@Megan: I love your answer! It's hilarious and ... correct!
@Drollgirl: I had at least one pair of Wranglers too ... and I think something called Toughskins or Tuffskins? Were they an off-brand of Wranglers?
@Amelia: Aw, hopefully happy tears. Rainbows rule!
ANSWER TO THE TOMBOY IQ QUIZ:
ReplyDeleteI'm the bowl cut on the right! The one in plaid.
*Ding Ding Ding!*
And our winners include:
Wow That Was Awkward
Blissed Out Grandma
aBroad
The Last Santa
Six Fingered Monkey
Vapid Vixen
Megan
Thank you for playing!
It's like Tommy on "Rescue Me" rooting for his daughter to be a lesbian because he knows better about boys, you know?
ReplyDeleteHmmm, that haircut looks very similar to the one I had growing up. I, too, wore plaid. My mother has questioned if I am a lesbian, though, on the account that I am still single.
ReplyDeleteLove the post;)
I'm going to guess that you're on the right. If not, I am so sorry.
ReplyDeleteI was never a tomboy as a kid. Even now, I'm big on skirts and dresses. But luckily I'm more boho than princess-y and that's the only thing that's kept my sanity.
I totally thought you were the other bowl cut. Fail. And yes, I had the Rachel... probably for longer than I should have. Now I have the same 'do as in high school. Arrested development anyone?
ReplyDelete@Always Home: Ha!
ReplyDelete@Consciously Sedated: Your mother cracks me up, but mainly because she isn't my mother. ;-p
@Fee: You are correct! Though my cousin Billy is a cute boy. ;-)
@Janice: I had the Rachel too. I've probably experimented too much with my hair. I should have kept a photo journal of it, had I known this whole blogging thing would happen.
Sorry this is brief but I gave you an award for your awesomeness. Stop by and grab it!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see if your daughter is more of a tomboy or a diva when she's little---and then to watch how she changes as she grows. My daughter is definitely the diva right now, and she SO did not get that from me. But I just love it about her; variety's the spice of life.
ReplyDeleteThis post was hilarious.
I've always liked girls who've been into blokey stuff, which possibly makes me gay, apart from my dubious haircut, rubbish shirts and love of vaginas.
ReplyDeleteApart from that, I'm like George Michael.