School Days

I thought I would share this story just in case any of you have ever been embarrassed by your parents as a child.  DB and I were saying we were glad our grandkids liked school because neither of us ever looked forward to the start of school.   He said one reason he disliked school was he was often humiliated by some of his teachers.  He was a poor kid who just happened to fall into a school district full of children from well-to-do  families.  And some of his teachers seemed to enjoy embarrassing him.  I don't know why I disliked school.  Most of my teachers, with a few exceptions, were fine.  Anyway, we eventually got around to most embarrassing moments in grade school.   Here is mine: 

My mother was always a very practical person.  She was a product of the Great Depression.  At Christmas, while we usually received a toy, and always received oranges, nuts and candy canes in our stockings plus a box of chocolate covered cherries and some hard candies, mostly we got pajamas, underwear and things we needed rather than anything we necessarily wanted.  (The one exception to this being my microscope kit.) And she also was the world's worst secret keeper so she always managed to blab what our gifts were, taking the fun of surprise out of receiving gifts.  She was loving and kind hearted but just terrible when it came to understanding certain things about kids and gifts.  So one year, when I was in about the fourth or fifth grade, our class had a gift exchange and everyone had to buy a gift for someone else of the same sex.  The price limit was a fifty cents or a dollar, I cannot remember exactly. 

Well, my mother bought a gift for me to take.  I must have known what it was ahead of time because I am sure I probably wrapped it. I always wrapped my own gifts, so it is doubtful my mother wrapped this one.  It was in a flat white box like women's handkerchiefs used to come in.  The significance of the gift apparently did not dawn on me ahead of time because I do not remember worrying about it until the time of the gift exchange.  

The exchange took place and everyone opened their gift.  I do not remember what I received but will never forget what I gave.   I gave two pairs of nylon panties!   I have no clue as to how the recipient reacted, because I was too busy trying to survive my own embarrassment over this gift which my mother, no doubt, thought was a pretty and practical present.  She would have had no clue as to the embarrassment such a gift would cause. 

This is the same lady who hung her own just laundered underwear in the basement to dry rather than have everyone in the neighborhood see them on the clothes line.  Our backyard abutted a woods, so I am not sure who she thought would see them. I suppose only adults were allowed to be embarrassed over someone seeing their undies. 

Yes, some things your parents do you remember for a long time.  In retrospect, I know at least my parents were good people; did not abuse us; did not drink or act in inappropriate ways, so this was not such an awful thing.  But you would never have convinced me of that during the gift exchange or for quite a few years while the gift exchange was part of a recurring dream.