Book Hippo

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

The Birthday Trick

A lot of people will tell you that playing tricks on children by adults is cruel. But I also know a  lot of mothers, rather than argue, will tell a lie to their children to make things go smoother.

Once, my brother caught a frog. I wanted to keep it in my room and my mother agreed. I was ecstatic. We got a big metal box and put plastic over it with a rubber band to keep it tight. When I woke up, the frog was gone. For years I wondered how it got away until I figured out that my mother knew I was a heavy sleeper and let me have it in my room so she could come it and take it out and let it go.

When I was a girl in the sixties, my birthday was coming up one year. In a store at the bottom of the hill was a doll. About eighteen inches tall. She was dressed as a cowgirl with a fringed skirt and plastic cowboy boots.

I fell in love with this doll at first sight. I asked my mom to buy it for me. No, she said it cost too much. For my birthday? No, too expensive.

One day I walked by the store and it wasn't in the window anymore. I was heartbroken. I had planned to save the money for her. I told my mom. Someone must have bought it. she said.

On my birthday I was handed a box about eighteen inches long. In it was the doll. My mother had bought it for  me after all. I was ecstatic, thank you, thank you. We never said I love you in my family but thank you was okay.

Now some people I tell have said my mother was cruel to play that kind of trick. I don't know, I remember that birthday above all others.

1 comment:

  1. It doesn't sound to me like your mother was cruel at all. She might have explained why frogs don't make good pets and deserve their freedom but I think your mother did what she felt right. And you still remember that birthday so I'd say she was a descent mom.

    ReplyDelete