- Feb 3, 2024
- LitBits
- 0
You’ve Got Your Mother in a Whirl by Rachel McCarron Personal Reflections on Gender
Inspired by CS Dalton’s recent blog, Baking Day, I’ve been thinking about all the things my mother never taught me. My mum baked. There was Baking Day. But I don’t recall my sister and I joining in, except perhaps to lick the spoon. I have a vague memory of that. But we didn’t weigh, measure or mix because we might get it wrong, and we didn’t go near the oven because it was hot and dangerous, and we might hurt ourselves. We were only in the way in her kitchen.
My mother was well-skilled at baking and cooking, but she did not pass those skills on to us. To this day, I don’t know how to do any of it. As a student I could boil pasta and spoon pesto onto it, but that was my limit. I’m fortunate that for the past twenty-odd years, someone else has cooked for me. And my waistline is grateful that nobody in our house bakes.
My mum also knitted and sewed. We had beautiful hand-knitted jumpers, hats and scarves – nothing itchy or embarrassing, just quality clothing that would have cost a fortune to buy. My mother made beautiful matching dresses for my sister and me. Sometimes, we were allowed to choose the material, and I still remember lovely fabrics with woodland animal patterns and the gorgeous rainbow skirt I thought of as silk but must have been rayon. But we weren’t allowed near the sewing machine. I don’t know if this was because we might break it or in case we hurt ourselves.
Only once do I remember my mum trying to teach me to knit. It was a rainy holiday in a caravan in Italy. I don’t know if it was her patience or mine that ran out within minutes, but I couldn’t get the hang of it straight away, and there was no persistence to master the craft.
I have a good relationship with my mum. I’m not bitter about any of this. I don’t want you to think I am. She was a conscientious and nurturing mother. But thinking about it now, I wonder if it explains something about me. And something about her.
I think there was an overprotective fear of injury. Neither myself nor my sister ever had a bicycle. I remember a tricycle and then something with stabilisers when we were little, but we never graduated because around that time, a boy from school, who lived a few streets away, was knocked off his bike and killed.
I had roller skates. But I fell and broke my arm. And that was the end of that.
But what was so dangerous about knitting? Did we risk losing an eye?
When I taught myself to crochet in my forties, I asked her about it.
I had seen an episode of Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas and inexplicably fell in love with a crocheted reindeer. I went to a wool shop the following day, bought a hook and some yarn, watched a YouTube video, and within minutes had a neat, red, crocheted swatch. I eventually located a downloadable pattern by the woman who won that episode of Handmade Christmas and made my own little reindeer. It was May by then, but reindeers are not just for Christmas.
I showed my mum what I had done.
“Wow. You made that?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” I said. “I can do things, you know.”
When I asked her why she hadn’t taught me any of the crafting skills she was so good at, she told me I was never interested.
Wasn’t I?
Perhaps not. I didn’t like any of those traditionally feminine activities, and it’s true that I had secretly wanted to be a boy.
My paternal grandfather was fond of beginning his anecdotes, “When I was a little girl…” He wasn’t transgender; he was just being silly, but I might have wondered if I too wouldn’t grow up to be a man like Grandad.
But I wasn’t into boyish stuff either – if by boys’ stuff you mean football and cars and fighting. I only liked music and books, apparently.
As a teenager, I kept my hair short. I wore my dad’s flannel, checked shirts and a fisherman’s cap that I never gave back to him. I played clarinet in Junior Wind Band on Saturday mornings. Nobody spoke to me. Then I met someone from Wind Band in a different context. He recognised me, and we got talking. He said he and his mates had never known if I was a boy or a girl. I took it as a massive compliment even though it probably wasn’t.
When Bowie sang Boys Keep Swinging, I was jealous of all the things a boy could do. When Susanna Hoffs recorded her cover version, I fell in love a little bit more.
No one was more surprised than my mother when I announced I was going to study nursing. Nobody had seen that coming – except for the gypsy on Framwellgate Bridge who had accosted me to offer career advice. “You will follow one of two paths: farming or nursing.”
I really couldn’t picture myself on a farm.
Three decades on, I’ve made a successful career of nursing, and I’ve settled into my female skin. But I empathise with those who can’t be what they are expected to be. And I applaud and support all that they feel they are and can be and want to be. We are who we are and who we will be. I am still me. I am still all about the books and the music. I’ve poured my masculinity into writing my novels, and Neil Harper became the man I might have been if only I were a better guitarist.
I am in awe of the men who used to be girls and the women who once were boys and the human beings who are neither or both. I don’t know whether Baking Day has anything to do with it.
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My mother was well-skilled at baking and cooking, but she did not pass those skills on to us. To this day, I don’t know how to do any of it. As a student I could boil pasta and spoon pesto onto it, but that was my limit. I’m fortunate that for the past twenty-odd years, someone else has cooked for me. And my waistline is grateful that nobody in our house bakes.
My mum also knitted and sewed. We had beautiful hand-knitted jumpers, hats and scarves – nothing itchy or embarrassing, just quality clothing that would have cost a fortune to buy. My mother made beautiful matching dresses for my sister and me. Sometimes, we were allowed to choose the material, and I still remember lovely fabrics with woodland animal patterns and the gorgeous rainbow skirt I thought of as silk but must have been rayon. But we weren’t allowed near the sewing machine. I don’t know if this was because we might break it or in case we hurt ourselves.
Only once do I remember my mum trying to teach me to knit. It was a rainy holiday in a caravan in Italy. I don’t know if it was her patience or mine that ran out within minutes, but I couldn’t get the hang of it straight away, and there was no persistence to master the craft.
I have a good relationship with my mum. I’m not bitter about any of this. I don’t want you to think I am. She was a conscientious and nurturing mother. But thinking about it now, I wonder if it explains something about me. And something about her.
I think there was an overprotective fear of injury. Neither myself nor my sister ever had a bicycle. I remember a tricycle and then something with stabilisers when we were little, but we never graduated because around that time, a boy from school, who lived a few streets away, was knocked off his bike and killed.
I had roller skates. But I fell and broke my arm. And that was the end of that.
But what was so dangerous about knitting? Did we risk losing an eye?
When I taught myself to crochet in my forties, I asked her about it.
I had seen an episode of Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas and inexplicably fell in love with a crocheted reindeer. I went to a wool shop the following day, bought a hook and some yarn, watched a YouTube video, and within minutes had a neat, red, crocheted swatch. I eventually located a downloadable pattern by the woman who won that episode of Handmade Christmas and made my own little reindeer. It was May by then, but reindeers are not just for Christmas.
I showed my mum what I had done.
“Wow. You made that?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” I said. “I can do things, you know.”
When I asked her why she hadn’t taught me any of the crafting skills she was so good at, she told me I was never interested.
Wasn’t I?
Perhaps not. I didn’t like any of those traditionally feminine activities, and it’s true that I had secretly wanted to be a boy.
My paternal grandfather was fond of beginning his anecdotes, “When I was a little girl…” He wasn’t transgender; he was just being silly, but I might have wondered if I too wouldn’t grow up to be a man like Grandad.
But I wasn’t into boyish stuff either – if by boys’ stuff you mean football and cars and fighting. I only liked music and books, apparently.
As a teenager, I kept my hair short. I wore my dad’s flannel, checked shirts and a fisherman’s cap that I never gave back to him. I played clarinet in Junior Wind Band on Saturday mornings. Nobody spoke to me. Then I met someone from Wind Band in a different context. He recognised me, and we got talking. He said he and his mates had never known if I was a boy or a girl. I took it as a massive compliment even though it probably wasn’t.
When Bowie sang Boys Keep Swinging, I was jealous of all the things a boy could do. When Susanna Hoffs recorded her cover version, I fell in love a little bit more.
No one was more surprised than my mother when I announced I was going to study nursing. Nobody had seen that coming – except for the gypsy on Framwellgate Bridge who had accosted me to offer career advice. “You will follow one of two paths: farming or nursing.”
I really couldn’t picture myself on a farm.
Three decades on, I’ve made a successful career of nursing, and I’ve settled into my female skin. But I empathise with those who can’t be what they are expected to be. And I applaud and support all that they feel they are and can be and want to be. We are who we are and who we will be. I am still me. I am still all about the books and the music. I’ve poured my masculinity into writing my novels, and Neil Harper became the man I might have been if only I were a better guitarist.
I am in awe of the men who used to be girls and the women who once were boys and the human beings who are neither or both. I don’t know whether Baking Day has anything to do with it.
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